Schoorlse Duinen

Why the Schoorlse Duinen are different

The Schoorlse Duinen are the tallest and widest dunes in the Netherlands. That sounds like a dry fact, but you feel it the moment you walk into them. The space is enormous. The contours are bigger, the slopes steeper, the shadows deeper. You are not in a narrow strip of dunes alongside a promenade. You are in a real landscape.

That makes this area photogenic in a way that many coastal locations are not. You can build compositions with changes in elevation, with depth, with layers. A single walker on a bare dune top immediately gives a sense of scale. And that sense of scale is gold for landscape photography.

Light and season

Autumn is the strongest season here. The green fades, the vegetation takes on colour, and the light sits lower in the sky. In September and October you get long shadows that give the dune ridges a sculptural quality. Early morning or around the golden hour before sunset works best. The texture of the sand and the dry grasses comes through sharply.

In summer it is busier and the light less raking. Even so, early morning can be beautiful then too, especially if there is some haze or mist sitting in the valleys.

Compositions and focal points

For wide landscape shots a wide-angle lens works well, 24mm or 28mm. Get low, use the dune slope as a foreground. With a 70-200mm or 100-400mm you can compress the dune ridges together, picking out the layers you see stacked up when you look towards the sea from a high point.

The valleys between the dunes, known as duinpannen, are quiet and sheltered. Unusual vegetation grows there and it lends itself to detail shots on macro or with a short telephoto.

Practical

There are several entrances. From Schoorl itself you can enter the area via the Duinvoetweg. Parking is available at the car parks along the Heereweg. The area is part of the Nationaal Park Duinen van Den Helder tot Schoorl and is managed by Staatsbosbeheer. Freely accessible, no permit required for photography without a commercial production. Be mindful of fragile vegetation, especially in the duinpannen: stay on the paths when photographing close to the ground.

Sources and further reading

• Staatsbosbeheer – Schoorlse Duinen
• Nationaal Park Duinen van Den Helder tot Schoorl
• Wikipedia – Schoorlse Duinen