“The funny thing is, the more I travel, the more I appreciate my home,” begins acclaimed landscape photographer Albert Dros. “I’m often working in amazing places around the world, but coming back to the Netherlands is always a joy. That goes for a lot of little things. I like the cheese, and the milk, and I like my chocolate sprinkles in the morning! But most of all it's the Dutch landscape that inspires me.”

While it might not be amongst the world’s usual landscape photography hot-spots, Albert is keen to show his home can be just as spectacular. So much so that he’s made it the subject of a beautiful coffee-table book, ‘The Beauty of the Netherlands.’

Including images made over the last 10 years, many of which were shot only a few miles from his front door, Albert has made the book, “for people all around the world to see the wonder of the Netherlands, but perhaps more importantly for those who live here and who’ve forgotten how amazing it can be. Its big skies, its windmills, the forests and flowers reflected in water or cloaked in mist.”

So how did Albert create enough wonderful images to fill a book? As well as his love of the landscape it comes down to his appreciation for dramatic light and weather, and his dedication to location finding. “Often people think that iconic places will make beautiful photos on their own,” he explains, “but what’s more important is the light. Light and weather can create a beautiful scene anywhere. In fact, I’d rather be in a boring location with an amazing light than in a fantastic landscape with bad light. The book has lots of spots which look like nothing until they’re shown in the right season or conditions.”

Success, he says, comes from visualisation, research and planning. “You need to imagine beauty in places that might not immediately look appealing. I spend a lot of time online and driving around looking at locations, and I’m always asking myself how they’ll look in different conditions. What about winter, when everything is frozen? Or spring, with wildflowers? Or with autumn colour? Or in the mist? Or with a full moon? All are noted down on a map, so that when the weather's right I know exactly where to be. And because most of them are within 90 minutes of my house, I can be there quickly in the best conditions; when you travel thousands of miles you just have to deal with what you get.”

A great example is Albert’s images of aurora over the Netherlands. “These were the final pieces of the book,” he remembers, “just in time for publication. Capturing the northern lights over windmills was incredible, but it was actually the second place I went to that night. The first spot just wasn’t working out, but I was able to check my map and find a better one. There was a lull in the activity when I got there, but after midnight the sky just exploded.”

Helping him capture that moment and all the others in his book was Albert’s Sony Alpha gear. “That image was made with my Sony Alpha 7R V and FE 14mm f/1.8 GM, the kind of technology that makes amazing things possible,” he says. “For instance, that night I was able to expose at ISO 1600 with an aperture of f/1.8, giving me a shutter speed of only 1sec, so I could record those crisp curtains of light with the utmost quality.”

“Sony’s technology has always helped me work creatively,” he continues, “and recent features like in-camera modes to help focus stacking are a great example. I use those in my shots of mushrooms, to get front-to-back sharpness in those misty forest scenes. There are countless features like that which have opened up all sorts of ideas and made the process of shooting far easier.”

“But as well as functionality, it’s also about quality,” he continues. “People say that smart phones can shoot almost anything these days, but it’s only with my Alpha cameras’ dynamic range and resolution that I can make big, beautiful prints worthy of putting in a book.”

And with that book already a success, Albert’s photos of the Netherlands are revealing the country’s beauty in the same way as the old Dutch Masters once did.

“It’s a huge compliment for my photos to be compared to their art,” he finishes, “but when I was coming into photography, I didn’t know much about them at all. It was only later when I studied them more that I realised we share the same goals and methods, combining our tireless passion for this landscape with the best techniques and technologies of the day.”