Tagged: photoshop

Christmas card of the author: a paintified photograph of the maritime outdoor museum at Leuvehaven in Rotterdam, covered with snow

26. December 2016

Winter in Rotterdam: a white Christmas animation

Anecdotal evidence is no evidence at all. It’s hard to say whether or not the boring winters of the last few years are an effect of global warming. For which, by the way, there is enough real evidence; that’s what scientists (or at least 99.9% of them) agree on. Mild Anyway, the last few winters were exceptionally mild. Especially here in the southwest of the Netherlands. On television I see people skating on natural ice in the northern province of Friesland or a beautiful blanket of snow in the eastern region of the Achterhoek. But the last time Rotterdam colored… Read More

Virtual relief made of orange peel, created using autocad, 3ds max and photoshop

Digital art / Visualisation

12. May 2016

Orange and the Colors of Reykjavik

“Did you know that the Netherlands made it to the Football World Cup final seven times but didn’t win even once?” A brilliant quote by Kim van Kooten, alias steerswoman Brechtje in Mission Earth, the acclaimed Star Trek pastiche by VPRO television. The series is set in 2063, so it is not unlikely that there is some truth in this prediction. Or even that the Orange team may become world champion for once. If not, we haven individual athletes like Dafne Schippers and Ranomi Kromowidjojo (probably the only athlete who has all five Olympic rings in her name). Orange Moments… Read More

Final version of the HDR photo of the Corn Exchange in Schiedam, with a historic ship in the canal, after editing in Photomatix and Photoshop

Photography

15. February 2016

HDR: Photomatix Pro or Photoshop?

One and a half years ago, I started practicing HDR photography; I wrote this article about it at the time. HDR is an acronym for High Dynamic Range. In other words, it’s all about pictures in which details remain visible in both dark and bright areas. With “normal” photos that’s oftenhard to achieve because you’ll either get a good foreground against a completely bleached sky, or a beautiful sky with a dark silhouette in the foreground. That can be pretty as well, but for those who’d like to have everything lighted well, HDR was invented. Three times Schiedam The principle is simple: you take three photos,… Read More

A virtual relief, creating the illusion of depth on a flat surface,, done as a colorful tile mosaic in a white wooden frame.

Digital art

4. February 2016

Virtual Reliefs: 3d Illusions on a Flat Surface

A while ago I visited an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam, dedicated to the work of Jan Schoonhoven (1914-1994). An artist from Delft who is best known for the cardboard reliefs he made. They made him world-famous, and he even had to hire assistants in order to meet the demand. One of his reliefs was auctioned in 2010 for more than 800.000 euros. Yet he continued to work until his retirement as a civil servant at the Dutch Mail. Reportedly the money he earned with his art was to a large extent spent on the jazz concerts that his wife organized.… Read More

The inverted world map where land and sea have been swapped; continents are oceans, islands are lakes and the other way around, in colors inspired by NASA's Blue Marble imagery

Cartography

4. December 2015

The Inverted World Map – Variations on a Blue Marble

It probably happens to everyone who likes to look at maps. You imagine land to be water and water to be land. Continents to be oceans and and oceans to be continents. Islands to be lakes and lakes to be islands. An inverted world map. I could not resist the temptation to make a detailed map of such a topsy-turvy world. But I am not the first to do so. A little bit of googling yields a nice collection of inverted maps. Vladislav Gerasimov, for example, made a lovely styled fantasy map. And Chris Wajan on his Panetocopia website extensively… Read More

Artist impression of a fictional Icelandic cafe, warm and cosy inside, with paintified landscape photo's on the wall, beer on the bar and the Icelandic flag on the tables, and with a snowy landscape outside

Digital art / Visualisation

27. November 2015

Virtual Iceland – Cafe with a View

Iceland, the land of ice and fire, of volcanoes and glaciers, fjords and lakes, hot baths and boiling mud pools. The land of four seasons in one day, where the sun, the wind and the clouds continuously provide a spectacular light show. The land where nature is the boss and where you are sometimes get stuck for a day because a ford is not so fordable for a while. The land on the edge of the world; and perhaps the most beautiful place on the entire planet. I was in Iceland in the summers of 2005 and 2008, the winters… Read More

The names of all bodies in the Solar System larger than 100 kilometres, with font sizes relative to their radius, based on the realistic colors of the objects against the black background of space

Space art / Visualisation

8. November 2015

87 Members of the Solar Family

A while ago I made a family portrait of the solar system. Or rather a portrait of the leading members of the family, the eight planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars and Mercury. Moons, asteroids and dwarf planets But there’s more happening around the Sun. Moons for instance; our own Moon, of course, but also a large number of satellites of the four gas giants. There is an asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where, besides a lot of little ones, also bigger objects are turning their rounds. But many asteroids can be found outside… Read More

A room with world map Mars 2.0, showing the planet as it may look after terraforming, as decoration on the wall, while Mars rover Sojourner is driving around between the furniture

Cartography / Space art / Visualisation

23. October 2015

Mars 2.0 – Return to the Red, Green and Blue Planet

The terraforming of Mars is a fascinating subject. Is it possible to transform that lifeless desert planet into a living world with seas and jungles? Can some other colors, especially green and blue, be added to the Red Planet? In any case, now that we are dangerously warming our own planet, terraforming is no longer a theoretical concept. Mars Society Netherlands The Red Planet and I have a long history together. In 1999 I founded, together with Arno Wielders (currently involved in Mars One) the Dutch chapter of the Mars Society in a café in Leiden. In the first years… Read More

Axonometric drawing of the Moulin d'Orsennes, an old water mill in France which has been transformed into a center for courses and holidays related to yoga and arts

Visualisation

24. August 2015

Axonometrie du Moulin d’Orsennes

Just like last year I’ve spent a few weeks in Orsennes this summer, to do volunteer work at Sadhaka. A beautiful place in central France, where creative, yoga and massage courses are given in and around a beautifully converted watermill. Besides the work in the kitchen, plenty of time remained to experiment with crayons, pencil and watercolor. It may sound like professional deformation that as a subject I mainly looked at the architectural, urbanistic and landscaping context of the Moulin and the adjacent buildings. But it resulted in some nice drawings, as shown above. A computer-generated sketch Creative teacher Patricia Benjamins challenged me to make a kind… Read More

The melting pot version of a colorfull composition with 48 flags of European countries, as decoration on a stucco wall

Digital art

6. July 2015

Creative with European Flags

It was perhaps not the best time to do something creative with the flags of the 28 member states of the European Union. With the results of the Greek referendum in this morning’s papers, the future is uncertain. There may very well be only 27 members states somewhere in the very near future. And in that case my flag project is instantly outdated. Moreover, one of the characteristics of a political union like the EU is that countries can join or leave. In the past, only the first happened and currently the second option seems to become fashionable but the current gloomy mood… Read More