Category: Photography

Composition with shards of a red and a gold colored Christmas bauble, sien from a low angle

5. March 2017

Broken Christmas Baubles: Red, Gold and Silver

Beauty can be found in unexpected places. Even in broken Christmas baubles, left by a sloppy neighbour. Sometimes it just takes a little effort to really see that beauty. Shards It started with a somewhat peculiar action of a fellow inhabitant of my apartment complex (which I recently started referring to as the 3Develop Tower). A few weeks ago this person had used the emergency stairwell to get rid of his or her Christmas tree. A little bit late, indeed; February was well on its way. Dragging Christmas trees around is usually a good way to create a mess. As a… Read More

Photo of the City Hall and the Market Square in Leuven made at night through the window of a pub.

Photography

21. December 2016

Countdown: the Ten Best Photographs of 2016

Every year in early December the ranking season starts. The sportsman/sportswoman/sportsteam, politician and person of the year; the best films, books and records. As if nothing is going to happen in those final weeks. And now I’m doing it as well, by compiling the top 10 of my favorite photos over 2016. But I have a blog, and that has a great advantage. If between Christmas and New Years Eve I make a picture that is better than any other I made this year, I can simply rearrange the list. No one will notice. The longlist I made close to… Read More

Machine heads for a guitar with baroque decorations

Photography / Various

1. December 2016

He says an old guitar is all he can afford.

Sometimes I’m amazed about how cheap some things are. Who would have thought, for example, that my old guitar could be repaired for less than ten euros? I’ve been playing this acoustic guitar for decades. It’s just an avarage instrument, nothing special, but that’s okay because I’m not a gifted guitarist either. At a campfire I can provide some rhytmic guidance to the singing, and that’s about it. It’s impossible to figure out how old the instrument is, but a few stickers on the back, with fading psychedelic colors and nineteen sixties typography, suggest that we might have the same… Read More

Photo made at the Old Harbour in Rotterdam on a misty day, with the White house and the boats in the harbour in sharp vision but William Bridge as a vague contour.

Photography

22. November 2016

Fog in Rotterdam

Fog is a natural phenomenon that can occur in any season, but in autumn it’s more likely to show its face. That seems to be related to relatively large temperature differences between day and night, although Wikipedia reports that the forming of fog depends on many factors. The presence of open water certainly also plays a role. And we have a lot of open water in Rotterdam. Like all special weather phenomena mist provides opportunities for photographers. And at the same time it creates challenges: if you are surrounded by mist, the pictures tend to be rather featureless and gray.… Read More

Reflection of the New Luxor Theatre in the water of Rijnhaven in Rotterdam

Photography

15. September 2016

Painting Waves: the Coincidental Artist

If you’re looking at my photographic work, it’s obvious that reflections are an important theme: in mirrors, in water, in glass, in metal, on ice, on wet asphalt. I even have a board devoted to the subject in Pinterest. Today I want to talk about a special kind of reflection. Under the right conditions, reflections in an undulating surface start resembling oilpaintings. With water as a canvas and coincidence as an artist. Impressionistic scenes that you only need to capture with a camera. The right circumstances So what exactly are these right conditions? To begin with: it has to be… Read More

Black and white photo of a two year old boy and a young goat, made in the summer of 1964

Photography / Various

19. August 2016

Six Decades of Photography

There are people – though they must be very old by now – who have witnessed both the first plane and the moon landing. A similar feeling comes over me when I think of how photography has evolved during my life. I have turned my archive upside down and made the following reconstruction. It will probably sound very familiar to anyone in their fifties or older and is hopefully informative for anyone who is younger. For convenience, I’ve summarized it into Six Decades of Photography, though I missed part of the first decade, and we still have to bring the… Read More

Bench on the roof of the Groothandelsgebouw during sunset, with a couple in a romantic mood in the background

Photography

20. June 2016

The Rotterdam Staircase – a Stairway to Heaven

The Staircase, Rotterdam’s successful temporary tourist attraction, is taken down, but fortunately we still have the photos. In five weeks time 368.611 people climbed the 180 steps to the top of the structure of wood and scaffolding pipe, an idea of my esteemed former colleague Winy Maas. Allthough it’s likely that in reality there were just a few less, because I went up four times and I was probably counted every time. Challenge It’s strange: put a staircase and an escalator next to each other and everyone takes the latter, even if the height difference is just a few meters.… Read More

Sunset behind the new city bridge De Oversteek (The Crossing) in Nijmegen as seen from a little beach on the banks of the river Waal

Photography

6. May 2016

The New Bridges of Nijmegen

When I visited the Room for the River project in Nijmegen, a year ago, I decided I had to come back after completion of the work. And so it happened last week, a day with four seasons, which resulted in very photogenic weather. I came back with a memory card full of pictures, especially of the five new bridges in the area. River park Nijmegen now has a beautiful river park in the heart of the city. Although at some places it still looks a bit new and barren; grass, flowers and other vegetation are still working to recapture the… Read More

Colorful fishing boats in Yerseke harbour, Zeeland, the Netherlands, on a sunny day

Photography

9. April 2016

Hiking around the Eastern Scheldt

It took us five and a half years, but on the 3rd of April we finally completed the Eastern Scheldt Trail. In nine stages of 15 to 20 kilometers I walked the long-distance hiking trail around this National Park, together with friends Arie, Bart and Maarten. And though the walks were often planned months in advance and took place in different seasons, we had the same gorgeous weather every time. I only know the Eastern Scheldt as a mirrorlike smooth sunlit stretch of water. Learning all the time It is interesting to see the development of my photography in those five and a… Read More

Huf Building, a national monument from the reconstruction era, photographed from the square near Saint Lawrence Church, late in the afternoon, with the building and its lighting reflecting in Delftsevaart

Photography

14. March 2016

The Reconstruction Top 10 – Rotterdam Highlights from 1945-1970

The the post-war reconstruction period of Rotterdam lasted roughly from 1945 to 1970. That doesn’t mean that there were no empty spaces left to fill after that. But still: in those first 25 years after the Second World War, the center of Rotterdam changed from a barren plain back into a bustling city. And in that quarter of a century a lot of exceptional buildings were built in the city. That calls for a (extremely subjective) top 10. Historical layers It is a common misconception that Rotterdam is not very interesting in terms of architectural history because all history has… Read More