Posted 1 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Neither Halloween nor All Saints Day is a big thing in Holland. Most of our European neighbours have a day off today, while it's just a regular working day in Holland. Two years ago, Jean and I visited Bas while he was studying in Poland and we had the chance to attend All Saints Celebrations in Wroclaw. Cemeteries got lit up with fields of candles, which created a very special atmosphere. The picture below is not from back then, since I already used specific photos to compose my 2003 Christmas cards. What it does show, and which looks very similar, is the mourning following the death of Polish Pope Jean Paul II.
(© Zagreb - HR, April 2004)
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Posted 2 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
So far, it has been a great pleasure organising my Rome photos as the results are surprising in the most positive way! It's just too much work to get everything online but I will work on it and get them online by tonight. This is where you can find the results later today. Enjoy!
(© Rome - IT, October 2005)
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Posted 3 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
One of the nicer things about photography is that it can make ugly things beautiful - although sometimes the opposite is true as well... The photo below does not require many explanations. It's a chair, a pretty ugly one to be more precise. No philosophy, just a chair. In an aesthetically flattering scene. (Photo: Arles- FR, July 2005)
(© Arles - FR, July 2005)
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Posted 4 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
New photos in the office! Just over a year after we moved to Hoofddorp, I though it would be a nice idea to change my daily view on the opposite wall a bit. The old photos were graphical representations of European cities (Berlin, The Hague, Paris, Barcelona and Brussels) while the new one focus on people and their daily 'traveling' to work, back home or just for fun.
My colleague Mark is leaving for Jamaica next week and will get married there. At this occasion, I prepared a rap song for him and performed it with Jasper in the Crown Villa on Friday evening.
(© Hoofddorp - NL)
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Posted 5 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
The outskirts of Paris are on fire. For the last nine consecutive nights, there have been fights between youngsters and the police. All of this violence pretty much concentrates on the northern and eastern 'banlieue'. The place where I lived back in 2000, Boulogne-Billancourt, remains untouched so far. It's part of the better banlieue, bordering the chique XVI arrondissement.
All this and my upcoming trip to Paris next weekend made me think of uploading a photo of the apartment building where I had my tiny room. It's hidden behind the white van in the red dot. Une très petite chambre quoi..
(© Boulogne Billancourt - FR, October 2000)
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Posted 7 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Turkey's Prime Minister stated today that the riots in France are partly due to the 2004 ban on religious symbols in public places. A very strange statement, especially when issued by Turkey, because:
1) Religious symbols are also prohibited in Turkey in public places and have been so for a long time already;
2) Hardly any Turkish people live in France and they were not among the instigators of the riots;
3) The law which governs all this was introduced one year ago, without any major incidents;
4) The direct motive for the uprise is known: two boys were electrocuted when they tried to escape from the police and found a place to hide in an electicity distribution shed.
So what IS the situation like? The outskirts of Paris have not been taken care of by anybody over the last decades. Crime florishes, unemployment is extremely high. Local youth have created an logic of anarchy, uncontrollable by local authorities. The incident of the two boys has triggered massive protests and riots which would have broken out anyway. Whatever is happening these days is a logical consequence of developments of previous years. But altogether, it's just a bunch of noisy fellows to looking for excuses to start fights. Where have we seen this before?
(© Belfast - UK, September 2001)
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Posted 8 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Quickly designed/assembled another website. A temporary one, because the 'real' one should be completed by a real webdesigner soonish. Click here to view Maaike's photography website.
Daily newspaper Metro published an interview with Bart Veldkamp yesterday. It reminded me of the interview I had with this Dutch/Belgian ice skater back in 2003 in Erfurt (DE). His opinions about the 2006 Winter Olympics haven't changed much over the last two years. Click here to read back to that snowy day in former Eastern Germany.
(© Website design)
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Posted 11 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
This is where I should be by tonight just after 9 o'clock..
Gare du Nord is a very special place. Whenever I travel from Holland to Paris, it feels like arriving home. On the other hand, it's very annoying to travel FROM Gare du Nord. Prior to the almost hourly departures of the Thalys trains to Northern Europe, the station fills up with fellow Dutch people. It instantly kills any holiday feeling gathered during a stay in Paris (or further South). Just at the point where you think you mix up well with the French 'joie de vivre', you get painfully confronted with the agricultural kind of approach which is common use in Holland. People pretending every single place is their home or back garden, even without having a clue of whatever is actually going on. But I guess I'm like that too.. I too am proud to be Dutch and happy not to be French. (Photo: April 2004)
(© Paris - FR, April 2004)
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Posted 12 Novembre 2005 - Paris (FR):
Salut! I've taken all day to get to know my new flash and the introduction has been difficult but worthwhile. I figured out how it works, took a lot of shitty photos and walked around the city. Schematic proof of my achievement below:
(© Paris - FR, November 2005)
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Posted 13 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Another 'passage à Paris' has gone by. I met plenty of nice people: Magali, Kevin, Jean Flavien and some more of their friends. I hardly took any serious photos, but I wasn't planning to, anyway. I visited some places I hadn't seen before: some very Parisian streets in St Germain des Prés, the André Citroen park and some rues I just never happened to have taken before. On the way back to Holland, I read the Thalyscope which listed a whole bunch of other nice places in Paris that I should certainly go see during my next visit, whenever that will be...
(© Paris - FR, November 2005)
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Posted 15 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
More recordings for the Dutch war film 'Zwartboek' were taking place tonight at The Hague's main square. A nice view into a not so nice past.
(© The Hague - NL, November 2005)
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Posted 16 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Compare:
Minister of Defence = War Minister
Fight for freedom = War
Re-education institution = Concentration camp
Justice = Injustice
Victory = Defeat
Axis of Evil = Suppressed countries
Allies = Ennemies
Soldier = Terrorist
Navy = Pirates
Self defence = Imperialism
Aggressor = Victim
Intelligence = Spying
Dialogue = Submission
Democracy = Chaos
Pelgrim = Fundamentalist
Targets hit = Bombed down
Defence investment = Arm smuggling
Military basis = Al Q....
and find that whenever describing one single thing, your description or point of view can make 180 degrees of difference in the intended reaction of the reader. You can make anything sound as nice or as bad as you want, which is a scary thought.
The photo below reads "Oorlog" (war). I took it on September 12, 2001.
(© The Hague - NL, September 2001)
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Posted 18 November 2005 - The Hague (NL)
Different people like different cities. Most people I know like Rome, I myself like Paris a lot. I do not like London very much. It doesn't speak to me. I have been there 3 times now and I've never been able to take good photographs. The one below may be an exception to that. This guy (Sipke Visser) especially moved to London to become a professional photographer over there. And he DOES manage to take nice photos over there!
(© London - UK, December 2004)
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Posted 20 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Another happy night in Rotterdam where Zenith of Zeal won the public price and probably qualified for the national finals of the Clash of the Coverbands in Paradiso, Amsterdam.
(© Rotterdam - NL, November 2005)
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Posted 21 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
The winner of the Listopad photo contest is..... Sofie from Breda (NL). From the previous competition (Petit Prince in Dec 2004), I know that the photo below is her favourite. It shows the lighthouse in Breskens (NL), February 2001.
(© Breskens - NL, January 2001)
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Posted 22 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Bosnian leaders met in Wastington (US) today, ten years after signing the Dayton Accords, and decided that the Bosnian consitution will be amended to allow for one single president instead of the current three (one for each ethnic group). It was also decided that the peacekeeping troops will stay in Bosnia for another year.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is a very typical country which has been severely touched by the 1990s Balkan War. Being the home to three very distinct ethnic groups (Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs and Moslim Bosnians), Bosnia-Herzegovina was at the heart of this war.
The Dayton Agreement retained Bosnia and Herzegovina's international boundaries and created a joint multi-ethnic and democratic government. This national government was charged with conducting foreign, diplomatic, and fiscal policy. Also recognized was a second tier of government comprised of two entities roughly equal in size: the Bosniak/Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian Serb-led Republika Srpska (RS). The differences between the two entities are enormous. In terms of economy, religion, language, but also writing: Cyrillic in the Republika Srpska and Roman in the Bosnian Federation.
Bosnia still has a long way to go trying to bridge the gap struck by the war. They are still far from having recovered only the houses, like this photo on the Bosnian-Croation border clearly shows. I took it on the way from Sarajevo (BA) to Sisak (HR) in April 2005.
(© Bosnian/Croatian border - HR - BA, April 2004)
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Posted 23 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Harsh winter weather is reigning in the UK these days. British meteorologists have predicted a very cold winter for all of North-Western Europe including the Netherlands. The Dutch Royal Meteorological Institute (KNMI) claims that these forecasts are not reliable and that they have been exaggerated by the media. Whoever is right, we in Holland are hoping for another Eleven City Skating Tour in Friesland. (Photo: The Hague - NL, March 2005)
(© The Hague - NL, November 2005)
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Posted 24 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Portrait photography is about representing people in a genuine way. That's at least my view on it. Some people have adopted the annoying habit to smile on command or whenever they think it's appropriate. This happens in photography but also in real life. Sometimes it's even culturally accepted to produce the fakest possible smile no matter how much the situation is not asking for it. The ultimate fake smile disappears in the same second it started, followed by a lifeless expression of indifference.
As it seems, people are not very good a differentiating between real and fake smiles. I found an interesting smile recognition test from the BBC and scored 12 out 15 correct before I was interrupted by a colleague, who made my score fall to 14/20. I also looked for nice smiles in my photo archive and came up with these ones, captured in Carcassonne - FR in July of this year:
(© Carcassonne - FR, July 2005)
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Posted 25 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Fellow photographer Bart van Geyt yesterday presented his photo exhibition "Planet Antarctica" in a gallery in Wassenaar - NL:
(© Wassenaar - NL, November 2005)
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Posted 26 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
I'm going to Dubai (UAE) in a week's time. I don't really have a clue of what it will be like, but I expect it to be similar to the photo below, only with fewer people around.
(© Leba - PL, June 2002)
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Posted 27 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
My exhibition "La Vida Local" at Focus Expo ended yesterday. Now it's time to start the prepations for the next one, Na Dato, which will be opened on 1 February 2006.
One of the photos that will together make up the Na Dato exhibition is the one below, showing the exact location where Meindert Tjoelker was killed in 1997 by three youngsters. He simpy told them to stop throwing bikes into the canal, which for them was a reason to kick him to death. His killers got away with minor punishments because it has never been proved which one of them exactly was guilty of his death. Tjoelker's murder caused a national wave of indignation about what is since then called 'Zinloos geweld' (Pointless violence).
(© Leeuwarden - NL, November 2005)
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Posted 29 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
Autumn on the northern hemisphere and we're having bad weather all over the place. It all reminded me of one photo I took in Warsaw last year, which for me perfectly tells what autumn is about. Normally, I think that photos are self-explanatory but in this case it may add a little touch to the photo.
The old man carrying the apples is obviously in the autumn of his life. Apples are historically harvested in autumn. Red and yellow are autumn colours, while all colours in the photo make up an autumn atmosphere. Also composition-wise, the photo talks autumn as the old man only is walking towards the left end of the photo, leaving nothing but empty space behind him...
(© Warsaw - PL, September 2004)
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Posted 30 November 2005 - The Hague (NL):
A 15-year old boy was caught red-handed yesterday for stealing and driving commuter buses in the East of the Netherlands. Bad news for the police: the guy has been involved in this type of joy-riding for quite some time already. Bas and I spotted him driving around Romania (Piatra Neamt) with one of these buses in 2003. He must have been 12 years old by then...
(© Piatra Neamt - RO, August 2002)
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