Category: Photography

The Mevlana mosque in Rotterdam in springtime with the Schie river in the foreground

23. April 2019

Rotterdam as seen from a minaret

I have been to many high places in recent years to take pictures of Rotterdam. But on Easter Sunday, together with a few fellow photographers, I had the opportunity to capture the city from a very unusual point of view: a minaret of the Mevlana mosque. The photo shoot was organized by Ramazan Aydogan from Rotta Historica. He previously brought us to the roofs of the Delftse Poort building and the Erasmushuis. Ottoman The Mevlana mosque was completed on its location near the river Delfshavense Schie in Rotterdam West in 2001. The design is by the Schiedam architect Bert Toorman.… Read More

Westersingel canal in Rotterdam in the blue hour before sunset with a very thin layer of snow on the grassy banks

Photography

31. March 2019

The Lousy Winter of ’18/’19

Now that the magnolias are in bloom, it’s about time for my traditional photographic review of last winter. And what a lousy winter it was … One snowflake on a scale of one to five! And a position in the mild winter top 10 of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute I know, weather and climate are not quite the same and you cannot automatically blame global warming for every mild winter day. But still it makes you wonder if snow photography has a future. However, the winter of 2018/2019 also had a few photogenic moments. But one had to act… Read More

Two different Manfrotto mini tripods on a lawn with daisies

Photography

25. March 2019

The Manfrotto Brothers on tour

Three years ago I bought a mini tripod for about twenty euros: the Manfrotto Pixi. A very useful investment, because I have since then used this tripod thousands of times. In the blue hours, when taking HDR photos and sometimes in broad daylight, because even then it often improves the sharpness of the photos. Due to its compactness, such a small tripod is extremely stable. In fact, there could only be one reason to use a larger tripod. And that is if you want a higher position than a few inches above ground level. But even then there are often… Read More

A rainbow behind Hallgrimskirkja, the iconic church in downtown Reykjavik, Iceland

Photography / Various

12. March 2019

Reykjavik in Winter

While Western Europe enjoyed a very early spring, travel companion A. and I spent a winter week in the capital of Iceland capital, Reykjavik. It was definitely not spring there yet, but unfortunately just not wintry enough either. There was ice on lakes, snow on the mountains, and here and there there were large heaps of snow in the street, but no fresh snow fell. Well, that means we’ll have to go back there once more. Metropolis There is something strange about Reykjavik. The city, including suburbs, has only 240,000 inhabitants, just as much as a town like Swansea. Which,… Read More

The floating pontoon bridge across Leuvehaven harbour near the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam during the blue hour before sunrise

Photography

3. February 2019

January Mornings

In a previous blog, I told you that the earliest sunset, the first milestone on the way to spring, already happens on December 12. The latest sunrise is two and a half weeks later, on December 30th. The graph below makes it clear: on that day in Rotterdam – and it won’t be much different elsewhere in the Netherlands – the sun won’t appear untill 8.50. Expeditions Sunrise at (almost) 9 AM ; that means that in January you do not have to get up extremely early to experience the blue and the golden hours. So every year I set… Read More

Wooden walkbridge through the tidal forest along the river Oude Maas near Ruigeplaatbos in the Rotterdam district of Hoogvliet

Photography

24. January 2019

Return to Hoogvliet

The Rotterdam district of Hoogvliet, located more than ten kilometers from the city center, is a boring suburb if ever there was one. I’ve spent the first 22 years of my life there. And I was not very enthusiastic about it, to put it mildly. A town with forty thousand inhabitants, but without a theater, a cinema or other forms of culture and nightlife. And with architecture from the disastrous decades of the sixties, seventies and eighties, which did not make me happy either. Roots I don’t visit Hoogvliet very often these days; there aren’t very many people I know… Read More

Photo made on an early winter morning of the cube houses in Rotterdam with a disfiguring white van parked in front of them

Photography

20. January 2019

The Curse of the White Van

Every photographer knows it: the Curse of the White Van. Well, every photographer doing cityscapes and architecture, that is; in portrait, food or macro photography, it’s much less of an issue. Sick So what exactly does it entail, this Curse of the White Van? It’s the phenomenon that a lot of potentially beautiful photos are spoiled because a white van is parked in a place where you would rather not have it. Sick man! Annoying Of course there are also vans in other colors. Not even mentioning motor vehicles in general. Or traffic signs, advertisements, trash cans, traffic lights, lampposts,… Read More

Field of salicornia in the rasta colors red, green and yellow at the beach in nature reserve Kwade Hoek on the island of Goeree-Overflakkee, with two hikers in the background

Photography

29. December 2018

Countdown: the Ten Best Photos of 2018

For the third consequetive year I’m trying to put together a list with, in my humble opinion, the best ten photos that I made over the past twelve months. And once again that proves to be a daunting task. I made about 5,000 photographs in 2018; making the longlist (see below) was already very time-consuming. And what kind of criteria should I use to make the final list? The most useful advice I could give myself was to make a nice and diverse list, paying attention to various seasons, times and subjects. So here they are: ten pictures, each of… Read More

Close-up of a bollard between the cobble stones on the quay of Wilhelmina Pier in Rotterdam, The Netherlands with in the background a fiery sunset over Charlois neighbourhood

Photography / Various

11. December 2018

The Earliest Sunset and the Shortest Day

The shortest day: every autumn, it’s something to look forward to. From 21 December, the days will lengthen again. But in fact, it’s a little more complicated: the earliest sunset is more than a week before the shortest day. And that’s good news. Harbinger of spring This will be an encouraging post for everyone with a winter depression. And in fact for everyone who passionately longs for the spring, and who doesn’t? I can appreciate a bit of snow and ice, but I’m certainly not fond of the dark, the humidity and the chillyness of winter in the region where… Read More

Almost abstract and multicolored image of the leaves of a sweet gum tree (liquidambar styraciflua) in autumn

Photography / Various

20. November 2018

Liquidambar Styraciflua, in Other Words: the Sweet Gum Tree

Oddly enough, I never really noticed them until the autumn of last year and now I suddenly see them everywhere: the sweet gum tree or liquidambar styraciflua. Time for a photographic tribute to the mother of all autumn trees. America The amber tree originates from the southeast of the United States, roughly from the New York – Houston – Orlando triangle. In addition styraciflua grows in higher altitudes in Central America. Chewing gum tree The English language has a lot of names for the liquidambar styraciflua. Quoting Wikipedia: American sweetgum or simply sweet gum tree, American storax, hazel pine, bilted, redgum,… Read More