Birds
An iPhone long lens shot of the horizon, catching geese by accident, against a heavy rain sky. I cropped the motorway A44 out on this one.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.
Posts from the ‘animals’ category
Blues
A long shot with an iPhone; a heavy rain sky with birds over motorway A44.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.
Artisan
A bit of meadows with a hint of a rainbow.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Heron Times 2
This Heron is a frequent visitor along the little canal in front of the house.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Heron
This Heron is a frequent visitor along the little canal in front of the house.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
In The Dutch Mountains
The Netherlands, as its name indicates, is flat. ‘Flat as a pancake’. But sometimes it looks as if we have mountains.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Autumn Announcing
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Bird Under A Wire
A small bird in a big Amsterdam Central Station. The things you see while waiting for a train.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Low Tide
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #359 is ‘Tools of Photo Compositions: Lines, Colors and Patterns’.
The harbor of Le Conquet at low tide during sunset, as equestrians pass by. To say I was surprised when I spotted the horses, is an understatement.
About the B4 retouch series:
I browsed my archive for pictures to publish. Some of them are partly retouched but most do have scratches, dust and stains.Shot with Nikon F90 on Kodak TriX, scanned from film and edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a bigger version
Swift
The Netherlands, Oegstgeest – July 2025
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Jonathan Livingston I presume?
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Rendezvous
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.
The Bird
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.
Atom Heart Mother Revisited
The famous Hipgnosis cover of Atom Heart Mother is iconic. I am not sure, but I think this is not a Holstein Cow.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Haarlemmer Trekvaart Hares
Hares in the fields, where normally cows wander.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Sam
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Black and White
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Downside Up Duck
The Netherlands, Oegstgeest – February 2025
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Mr. Duck
The Netherlands, Oegstgeest – February 2025
This little guy is going to be a daddy soon, as Spring is coming in.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Duck Bath
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Meet The Ducks
This week Lens Artist Photo Challenge #335 is exploring color versus monochrome aka black and white. Compare a color photo with a monochrome print of it. What works better?
Two landscapes, originally shot in color. I do prefer the monochrome version. That was tweaked with GrainLab.
Yesterday I publiced this one in color. I do like it, the bleak colors of Winter light are nice. But I prefer this mono version, even if it was originally shot in color. The dark spots are much more toned and I do like the grain feel of Kodak Tri X.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Green Aliens
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
His Master’s Voice
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Offspring
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Arched
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Walking Dogs
The Netherlands, Oegstgeest – October 2024
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Going Up Going Down
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Embracing Imperfection: Life’s Beautiful Cycle (Look what the cat left behind)
Maybe the best example of perfect imperfection is the cycle of life we see every day around us. When the leaves fall in Autumn in fact nature is preparing for its next Spring. This week’s Lens Artists Photo Challenge #322 is ‘there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’. The quote is from a verse by Leonard Cohen about imperfection and beauty, redemption, healing and growth.
‘Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, in everything
That’s how the light gets in‘
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Geese at Waterside: A Scenic View in Oegstgeest
A slightly ‘bigger’ picture than the one of a week ago.
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Watering Wild Cows
‘Wild cows’ enjoy the water in the dunes near Valkenburg. The image is taken by hand on the maximum zoom of the iPhone, so it is a bit unsharp.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Imagining the Blooming Flower Fields of Voorhout
In about six months these fields will be covered with blooming bulb flowers. Can you imagine the colors?
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
About The Horizon
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Geese at Waterside: Autumn Mood Setting in Oegstgeest
Geese tidying up at the waterside, Autumn clean up before Winter is on its way? This week’s theme for LAPC #319 is ‘setting a mood’.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Arcadian View
A view over the meadows in an old Dutch masters light.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Dramatic Monochrome Skies Over The Netherlands – August 2024
The sky over The Netherlands is a wonderful object for photos, we do have lot of sky over our flat land above the low horizon. And that sky can be quite dramatic, even more in monochrome.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Netherlands Landscape: Summer Scene with Cows, Windmill, and Farm
The Netherlands is as flat as a pancake. That is the way foreigners describe my precious habitat. It is not completely accurate, we do have some hills and dunes. The advantage of a flat surface is that we have lots of sky above the horizon. Here a typical Summer scene: rain filled sky and cows in the meadows, the odd windmill and farm.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Over Looking
The weekly LAPC #312 is sense of scale’.
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Balance
Sunset over a rooftop.
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Horses
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Spectacular Scheveningen Beach at Sunset – June 2024
The beach of Scheveningen, a few hours before sunset. The hour before sunset is always a kind of holy grail for photographers, but at about three hours before sunset the light over sea starts to change dramatically. The domain of gulls, flying around over the beach restaurants, scavaging for food, lit up against a backdrop of golden rays.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Golden Sunset in Scheveningen Beach: A Gull’s Domain
The beach of Scheveningen, a few hours before sunset, domain of gulls soaring and an incidental kite surfer against a backdrop of golden rays.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Scheveningen Boulevard Work: Fence and Gulls Composition
The Pier of Scheveningen, blocked out by a fence that is erected to work on the boulevard. A weird composition of lines, colours and objects, filled in with some gulls. And I do like the lamp post.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Scheveningen and Katwijk aan Zee Diptych
The Netherlands, Scheveningen – June 2024 (top)
The Netherlands, Katwijk aan Zee – June 2024 (bottom)
LAPC 308 is about perfect pairs, by creating a diptych (two images placed in proximity to one another, forming a pair). Every self respecting town and village needs a ferris wheel.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Exploring Dutch Tourist Attractions: A Photo Gallery
Leann Cole suggested ‘tourist attractions, near and far’ as LAPC’s 307. My motivation for going to places changed in my life time. From ‘active’ holidays (including climbing some big mountains by bycicle) to complete leisure (eg seeing the Greek Isles with lots of lazy moments). And in between the travels to dig into the culture and essence of a place on earth, to learn and experience it. But wherever I went as a ‘photographer’ I tried to capture where I was. To be stunned by what is just there in front of you, the unexpected. And yes, the times I did visit an ‘iconic attraction’ I tried to find my own way of framing it, trying to keep away form the cliches that are so widely known. For this challenge I dig into my blogs archive, all the photos are here published already.
Over the years I learned to value and appreciate my own way of looking, being surprised by my own views of what I saw and how I saw it. To appreciate simple things of beauty that stuck out or the composition of objects. If you travel far, you are only there for a moment, if you stay close to home you have access all of the time. But being close to home the challenge is bigger to stay open, to see what is there, to not take it for granted.
Today is the ‘near’ version. So close to where I live, but for tourists reasons to travel. I just browsed and picked out some themes that may strike recognition: flowers, flower parade, Rotterdam and its architecture and harbour, Leiden (my alma mater and birthplace of Rembrandt), windmills, flat lands, watermanagement (polder, canals) and the beach. All of them so near and familiar.
I hope you do enjoy the gallery, and if you want to plunge deep into more of it I invite you to search by category finding Amsterdam, Den Haag, more flower fields and flowers and who knows Dutch clogs?
On The Beach
A view showing the curve of the Dutch seafront looking at Scheveningen in the South from Katwijk aan Zee.
Shot with iPhone 13 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Pole King
Sea and Beach king.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Co-existence in Habitat: A Heron’s View of Oegstgeest, Netherlands
LAPC #306 is ‘habitat’. As humans we share the earth with lots of natural life, we share habitats (the human home, the natural ecosystem), we co-exist. Our relation with earth is not balanced. It tilts favorably towards the human interest, disrupting the natural habitats of many. If we as humans do not change our relationship with earth, then humanity kills itself, leaving a planet to recover from being abused. Not survival of the fittest, but termination of the dumbest.
A Heron, sitting on a lamppost, overlooking the articificial canal, as a cyclist uses a cycling path in the background.
Shot with Nikon D500, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a bigger version.
Swan
Rijnhaven, Kop van Zuid, Rotterdam.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Horsham in May 2024: Leisure
A pub, one of the best places for community connections (connect LAPC 303).
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Murphy
Murphy, a Showstopper. He is quite a showman himself, adorable and so cute. Never stops playing until he falls over.
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What's (in) the Picture? 