Rowing Backwards
At rowing you move forward by looking backwards all the time, and with a cox the course is set.
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Posts from the ‘Monochrome’ category
Sassenheim Watertower Basin in Mono – June 2024
The basin of an old watertower against the sky. It is not the nicest of buildings, but somehow it draws my attention when I see it. Last year I published its head in color, this time I choose for mono.
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Government Departments Soaring Over Den Haag
Government departments rise up in the sky. For some the only way is up.
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Capturing Views from a Train Window
Lines in the sky seen from one of the most beautiful frames for pictures in The Netherlands: a train window offering a beautiful frame with always changing content in it.
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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?
Castle ‘Oud Poelgeest’
Castle Oud Poelgeest.
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Scenic A12 Motorway Lights Fade in June 2024 – Den Haag
The lights seem to fade slowly along the A12 motorway leading into Den Haag.
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Scenic Skies
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Carpet Crawlers: A12 Motorway in Den Haag | June 2024
The A12 motorway leading into Den Haag downtown. You have to get into town to get out of the car, a free wording of a slogan used in the sixties and later in a beautiful Genesis song ‘Carpet Crawlers’ (the link to the Ray Wilson/Steve Hackette live version of 2014 in the Royal Albert Hall)
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Allium Bulbflowers in Oegstgeest, Netherlands – A Twin Set of Mono and Color
Allium is one of our favorite bulbflowers in the garden. I present it as a twin set of mono next to color. Each version brings out different qualitaties in the flower I think, but that is of course subjective.
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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Twins (5)
Architecture can be beautiful in full color as well in monochrome. In ‘twins’ I show the monochrome twin of the color shot at the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam. The fift and last set is again New Orleans.
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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Twins (4)
Architecture can be beautiful in full color as well in monochrome. In ‘twins’ I show the monochrome twin of the color shot at the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam. The fourth set is New Orleans.
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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Twins (3)
Architecture can be beautiful in full color as well in monochrome. In ‘twins’ I show the monochrome twin of the color shot at the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam. The third set is the Montevideo.
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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Twins
Architecture can be beautiful in full color as well in monochrome. In ‘twins’ I show the monochrome twin of the color shot of the high risings in Rotterdam on the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam. The first set is De Rotterdam by Rem Koolhaas.
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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Blocked
The Netherlands, Rotterdam – May 2024
LAPC challenge #305 is about composition: two rectangles as a play tool to frame a photo. Sometimes you get lots more than two, which adds to another aspect of composition: repetition. Not sure if this qualifies as a valid entry, but I do like the building. This is De Rotterdam by Rem Koolhaas.
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On the beach
LAPC challenge #305 is about composition: two rectangles as a play tool to frame a photo.
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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Floats
The Rijnhaven in Rotterdam seen from the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam.
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Exploring Rotterdam’s the Kop van Zuid: Old Trade
The Rijnhaven in Rotterdam seen from the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam.
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Erasmus Bridge
The Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam.
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Dirty Window
This weeks LAPC # 304 is ‘Background: behind the subject’. A dirty window of a terrace at the beach.
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Skuumkoppen
A popular beer from an original small independent brewery on the island of Texel is called ‘Skuumkoppen’. It refers to the white on breaking waves.
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The Final Parrot
England, Dorking – Forest Green – May 2024
The outside terrace of The Parrot in Forest Green/Dorking.
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Sea of Clouds
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Horsham in May 2024: Leisure
A pub, one of the best places for community connections (connect LAPC 303).
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Horsham in May 2024: Contrast
Reading a book on a bench, looking up and seeing this makes a monochrome fan jump. (connect LAPC 303)
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Horsham in May 2024: Capturing Connections
The best way to explore and connect is to walk around and be surprised with what is in view! It’s the best way to connect to a town for me (LAPC 303)
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Horsham in May 2024: Bench in Shade
A bench in the lazy shade offers a view, looking up to see the top and roofs of the houses. It’s a way to connect to a town for me (LAPC 303)
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Horsham in May 2024: Parking Space
A walk through Horsham starts here.
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Essex
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Hoek van Holland / Hook of Holland
Hoek van Holland, looking at Maasvlakte, the harbor of Rotterdam.
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Harbor Rotterdam
The Netherlands, Rotterdam – May 2024
Hoek van Holland, waiting for departure.
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Ship
Hoek van Holland, waiting for departure.
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Half a day of work
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Inside Out
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Organic
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Obscured by Trees
The Lens Artists Photo Challenge #297 is ‘music to my eyes’. Images and music are a strong way of bringing back memories, feelings, situations you once experienced. This photo clicked my memory for a Pink Floyd album ‘Obscured by clouds’. It is not so much the clouds that obscure in this image, the branches of the trees create a web of lines over the sky and sun.
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Old Memories
This is an old cart that was used in the past at flower auctions. Long ago I used to work in the Summer months at the bulbflower auction Flora Rijnsburg (Now part of the Royal Flora Holland Group). These carts transported flowers through sales at the clock and distribution of them to the buyer via a transporter belt. They were extremely heavy and not easy to handle.
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Leiden Central Station
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Sun Peek
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Old Wall
An old commercial estate on the Haarlemmerweg in Leiden.
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Haagse Poort
Office building Haagse Poort in Den Haag as seen from the train.
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Drops
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Leiden
A few weeks ago I published a photo from the same point of view, but with basking sunny weather. This one is showing an overcast day, in the middle of the week. The previous one was shot with iPhone13promax, and this one is iPhone15promax. Spot the differences :-).
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Bicycles Breestraat
Bycycles passing the townhall of Leiden at the Breestraat, for Lens Artists Photo Challenge #292 ‘People here, there and everywhere’.
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Leiden Townhall
The townhall of Leiden.
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Liberation 1945
This week’s Lens Artists Photo Challenge #292 is ‘People here, there and everywhere’.
I do not know who took this photo, I do not know the date. We assume it is just after World War 2, May 1945. And we assume my father took it. The photo lacks focus unfortunately, but that adds to the thrill of figuring out what is on it. Luckily we could ask the youngest sister of my father (my last aunt still alive); she thinks it is taken just after the war.
There is a parade on the street, observed by people; among them the sisters and brother of my father from the top window of my grandfather’s house (called Weltevreden) where my father lived. The point of view is from a window of the house where my mother lived, and where I would be born 14 years later.
The negative is quite poorly and damaged, but a sweep through Lightroom and Snapseed provided this old memory.
Workplace with a view
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You have to color within the lines
The theme for the weekly Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #291 is ‘Cityscapes’, The view on the public transport hub and adjacent high risings.
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First Terrace Sun
The theme for the weekly Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #291 is ‘Cityscapes’. The first sun got people out to enjoy the rays while having a drink on the junction of the Oude Rijn and Nieuwe Rijn in Leiden. On the right De Waag, the weighing house.
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Python
The Efteling is a famous theme park in Kaatsheuvel in Brabant. This is one from a dusty archive, with a negative that could have been a lot better in exposure, but at that time you could not look at the back of the camera to see information for improvement! It shows the rollercoaster Python, circling towards the end of the ride. For lens artists challenge #290 Circular Wonders.
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.
Originally shot with Nikon F301 on Kodak TriX, scanned from negative and tweaked using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
What's (in) the Picture? 