3Develop image blog

visualisatie, ontwerp, fotografie, stadstours / visualisation, design, photography, city tours / visualisierung, entwurf, fotografie, stadtführungen

Pavement tile on Dutch railway platform asking to keep 1,5 metre, or vijf tiles, distance, because of covid-19

Various

Eighteen Corona Hikes in the South Wing

Before the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic, traveling companion A. and I were quite regularly hiking all over the Netherlands. But then, in March 2020, public transport was suddenly declared “for strictly necessary journeys only”. For a while we dutifully adhered to that rule. But at a certain point it started to feel uncomfortable. Car owners merrily drove all over the place, but consciously carless people like us, suddenly saw our environment limited to a radius of a few kilometers around our own homes. And since A. lives in Leiden and I live in Rotterdam, joint walks were prohibited according… Read More

Detail of a piece of digital botanic art, entitled Hocus Crocus, based on a photograph of crocusses in springtime

Digital art

Four Seasons of Botanic Digital Kaleidoscopic Art

Apparently I needed some extra color during the past lockdown winter. That’s the only way I can explain the explosion of colorful works of art that sprouted from my laptop during those months. I already wrote about the Icelandic impressions; also the European flag project and the Rotterdam paintifications were given a nudge in the right direction. But the greatest avalanche of new work came from the domain of Kaleidoscopia. An infinite source of botanic art, made with a “digital kaleidoscope” and based of photos of nature from all seasons. Beautiful shapes The kaleidoscope was invented in 1815 by the… Read More

Rietveld Park in the Rotterdam neighbourhood of Nesselande, with electricity pylons and a metro viaduct but also islands, bridges, jetties and hiking trails

Photography / Various

The Best Metro Hikes In And Around Rotterdam

Hiking in the Rijnmond area, is that a good idea? The answer, of course, is yes, if you pick a good route. You do not necessarily have to travel to Drenthe, Limburg or the Veluwe, let alone to Iceland, Scotland or Madeira. People from those hiking paradises would be impressed by what the Rotterdam region has to offer in terms of landscape and urban beauty. By analogy with the famous NS walks here are a number of routes with as a starting and ending point a metro station or tram stop of the RET. The collection currently consists of twelve… Read More

Artificially aged photo, transformed into a vintage postcard of the Cool Tower en Beer Harbour in Rotterdam

Digital art

Vintage Postcards of Rotterdam in the Twenties

This blog post is made for growth. A few years ago I produced a series of artificially aged postcards of Rotterdam, seemingly from a bygone era but with contemporary landmarks such as the Markthal, Central Station and Erasmus Bridge. In the meantime, a new generation of architectural highlights is under construction or just completed. Some people already talk about the Roaring Twenties. That is, of course, a nod to the 1920s, which brought Rotterdam the Van Nelle factory and Dudok’s Bijenkorf, among others. It’s too early to say for sure that these Twenties will as Roaring as the previous, but… Read More

Impressionist sketch of a fictional abbey on the dark side of one of the planets around the ultra cool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1

Space art

TRAPPIST-1: the Link between Astronomy and Beer

Today we will travel to 2MASS J23062928-0502285, better known as TRAPPIST-1, a star at about 40.5 light years from Earth. That would normally be quite a long journey; even light takes more than four decades to get there. But in our imagination we’re there in the blink of an eye. Ultra-cool TRAPPIST-1 is a so-called ultra-cool red dwarf star, which made the news in 2017 because Belgian astronomers discovered seven Earth-like planets in orbit around it. The terms ultra-cool and Earth-like should not be taken too literally. Anything below 2700 degrees Kelvin (more than 2400 degrees Celsius) is considered ultra-cool… Read More

Digital painting of a street in downtown Reykjavik, with colorful houses, shops and bars and in the background the famous Hallgrímskirkja

Digital art

Impressions of Iceland Revisited

The landscapes and towns of Iceland are rewarding subjects for photographs, but they also inspire other forms of art. After four trips I have a hard drive full of pictures of the island of ice and fire. Thousands of photos, but also a growing collection of what I call digital paintings, for lack of a better term. This week it’s been two years since I was in Iceland, together with travel companion A; I wrote this blog post about it back then. It was great to see our beloved Reykjavik again but frankly speaking: the weather could have been better.… Read More

Kruisplein square in Rotterdam, covered with compact snow and in the background the Central Station on a sunny day in the winter of 2021

Photography

The brief harsh beautiful winter of 2021 ★★★★

For a few years now, I have made it a habit, some time mid-March, to look back on the past winter, and especially on the photographic aspects of it. Unfortunately, since I started doing that, there has hardly been any real winter weather in the Netherlands. In 2014/2015, the winter lasted only two days. In 2016/2017 I had to go to the far east of the country to take beautiful pictures. And in 2017/2018 there was some cold at the beginning and the end, but the rest of the winter was grey and rainy. For the winter of 2018/2019 I… Read More

Nieuwe Maas river, Waslijn sculpture, Willemsbridge and Noordereiland in Rotterdam, The Netherlands under a spectacular sky at sunrise

Photography

A January Morning in Rotterdam

The month of January, and especially the first half of it, is the perfect time to take photos at dawn. The sun rises around a quarter to nine, so you don’t have to set the alarm inhumanely early and walk around with a jet lag for the rest of the day. Therefore it has become a habit to undertake several photo expeditions through an awakening Rotterdam in this time of year. This year I hesitated. Photos during the blue hour look cool mainly because of the multitude of light sources, from glimmering daylight to headlights, street lamps and especially interior… Read More

Aelbrechtskolk canal in the neighbourhood of Delfshaven, Rotterdam during the blue hour on a windless evening

Photography

Countdown: the Best Photos of 2020

Before discussing my best photos of 2020, it’s inevitable to say something about the year itself. I probably speak on behalf of most of us when I say that it was a miserable year. And that we would rather leave it behind us as soon as possible. Let’s hope that next year will be better; at least there are some reasons for moderate optimism. Photographically it was also a somewhat different year. Foreign travel was not an option and even within the Netherlands the possibilities were limited. I always traveled carelessly all over the country by train and bus, but… Read More

Thirteen pieces of space art by Frans Blok, framed and ready for an exhibition

Cartography / Space art / Various

World Maps and Space Art Exhibited

Over a year ago, I was asked if I wanted to have an exhibition of my work in the entrance hall of the RIVM, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven. At that time, I had only a vague idea of the existence of that institute. But then first the emissions of nitrogen by agriculture and industry created a kind of national crisis in which the institute played a pivotal role. And after that the covid-19 pandemic came upon us. By now, there is probably nobody in the country who has never heard of RIVM.… Read More

Fotograaf Frans Blok in actie op een zonnige herfstdag in het Groene Hart bij Woerden

Frans Blok, 3d artist, designer and photographer

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