The sky and clouds are a dynamic big display of forms, colors and light. Looking up at times can take your mind off the daily life at moments.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
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.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
This high rising can be found near the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis Kirche.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
On the corner of the former Checkpoint Charlie (on the West Side).
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Views from the roof of the Reichstag. The panorama in the middle of the topline is from the iPhone15promax. On the bottom row on the left, you can see several notable ‘towers’. There is the television tower on Alexanderplatz, the International Trade Center, Berlin Cathedral, and the Red Town Hall. On the top right on the left the dome of the Französischer Dom, and on the right the Deutchser Dom (on Gendarmenmarkt).
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Panorama shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max.
A view from the roof of the Reichstag, overlooking Tiergarten. On the left The Victory Column. On the right side is the Carillion, a 42 meter hight bell tower. And in the background the Teufelsberg.
I am not sure this photo is dreamy enough to enter Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #369 ‘dreamy’.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
Human measure on Potsdamer Platz. During the time of the Berlin Wall people were a spic in a vast open space. Now they are a spic being over towered by high rising.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Brandenburger Gate (Brandenburger Tor) is a much used backdrop for photos in Berlin.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Brandenburger Gate (Brandenburger Tor) in Berlin was an iconic point at the time of the Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer). The gate then stood in no mans land, and showed the alienating effects of division through the city. Now the Brandenburger Gate is a symbol of unity of Berlin. It was a pleasure to walk through the gates, and enjoy the people and streets around it. And the see the gate back at its splendor.
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.
The monochrome set of 1989 was shot with Nikon F301 on Kodak TriX. The colorfilm was Fuji, and shot on Pentax Espio 115M. 2025 photos shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the pictures for a larger version.
One of the beautiful squares in Berlin: the Gendarmenmarkt. On one side you find the Deutscher Dom a.k.a. Neue Kirche (German Cathedral), and opposite the Französischer Dom (French Cathedral). The top photo reflects the latter in the doors of the Deutscher Dom.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Walking through Berlin was sometimes causing some disorientation. Lots of places that were ‘void and empty’ in November 1989 are now (re)build. In 1989 I just saw a small part of former East Berlin. It was a challenge to figure out what I was looking at. An old building, a refurbished one or a new build? I have a slight preference for old buildings. Lots of them are beautifully restored. This is one of them: the Bundesrat in the former Prussian House of Lords. As seen from the Mall of Berlin.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
September 2025 I visited Berlin for the second time. My first visit was in November 1989. That coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall. After 46 years I wanted to see how Berlin had changed since ‘die Wende’. The coming days I will publish some photos of this trip.
Friends had ‘warned’ me about the changes I would see. What in 1989 was a vast open space (e.g. the Potzdamer Platz) is now completely filled with modern architecture. But what struck me the most was the vibrant vitality the city breathes now. It is cosmopolitan and a magnet.
One of the landmark squares of Berlin is Alexanderplatz. On a building just a few hunder meters away I saw this text ‘Allesandersplatz’. Everything is different square? German humor? Or the basic conclusion after the first day. A lot changed. At face value.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Sometimes the clouds turn into a abstract symbol.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
A view on the city where Rembrandt van Rijn was born, Leiden. It was the home where he grew up. There he started his now famous career as a painter. Later, he moved to Amsterdam.
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #366 is ‘City Mouse/Country Mouse’. I am not familiar with the story. But as the brief puts it ‘there is no place like home’. Home is where the heart is.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
After rain comes sun at Scheveningen beach.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
A detail of a front in the Breestraat in Leiden with the tower of the townhall.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Red and yellow fronts of houses in the Breestraat in Leiden.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
The Breestraat in Leiden with the townhall.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Lens-Artist’s Photo Challenge #365 is ‘longing’. This landscape is so appealing, I still feel the excitement I felt when I shot this sequence.
shot with Nikon D70, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Lens- Artist Challenge #364 is ‘Quiet Moment’. A bicycle ride to clear the head. Seeing the bulbs for Spring being planted.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Incoming flights can be annoying, on the other hand they offer a dynamic photo subject!
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
During the Summer we see much more incoming traffic to Schiphol Amsterdam. Quite annoying actually, every minute a plane coming in. During day time they approach just over 600 meters, but in the evening they fly in from 1000 meters. When the wind turns West again in Autumn it will be over. However, who enjoys sitting in his garden in Autumn rain?
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
This is the famous Cley windmill at Cley next the sea. It’s by far the best name for a coastal village. Interestingly, it actually does not have a sea front. The mill was owned by the family of James Blunt.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
In Spring this field produces either hyacinths, daffodils or tulips. In Summer this year it produces Dahlia.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
In Spring this field produces either hyacinths, daffodils or tulips. In Summer this year it produces Dahlia.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
I have a fondness for black and white aka monochrome. That grew on me. Mono was cheaper 50 years ago and more ‘easy’ to handle in a dark room. Monochrome gives something extra at times. The sphere, the grain. And over all these years I learned to see objects in monochrome, visualizing what something looks like in grays.
When I bought my first Nikon digital camera (the D70), I naively asked ‘where is the monochrome setting?’. It was not there. Shooting was color only. If I wanted mono I had to create it myself afterwards in Lightroom, Photoshop or an app like Snapseed. But lucky for me, on the iPhone and on the recent Nikon Zf, there are monochrome settings. To be honest, that was one of the reasons to buy a Zf. So now I have a choice: choose a mono or color setting, or turn color afterward turn it into mono.
I know the taste of my ‘audience’ is different than mine. In three days I like to find out more about your taste. What do you fancy more: a photo in mono or in color?
This second one is about sky. Always there, lots of it. In color it can be blue, white, gray, dark. In mono it delivers whites, grays and dark zones. In mono the image changes it seems. An abstract sky can turn into something mysterious. The photo was shot in color.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
I have a fondness for black and white aka monochrome. That grew on me. Mono was cheaper 50 years ago and more ‘easy’ to handle in a dark room. Monochrome gives something extra at times. The sphere, the grain. And over all these years I learned to see objects in monochrome, visualizing what something looks like in grays.
When I bought my first Nikon digital camera (the D70), I naively asked ‘where is the monochrome setting?’. It was not there. Shooting was color only. If I wanted mono I had to create it myself afterwards in Lightroom, Photoshop or an app like Snapseed. But lucky for me, on the iPhone and on the recent Nikon Zf, there are monochrome settings. To be honest, that was one of the reasons to buy a Zf. So now I have a choice: mono or color.
I know the taste of my ‘audience’ is different than mine. In three days I like to find out more about your taste. What do you fancy more: a photo in mono or in color?
This is the famous Cley windmill at Cley next the sea. It’s by far the best name for a coastal village. Interestingly, it actually does not have a sea front. The mill was owned by the family of James Blunt. The photo was shot in color.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
One can not take enough photos of sunsets.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
France – Morbihan, Questembert – August 1996
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #359 is ‘Tools of Photo Compositions: Lines, Colors and Patterns’.
The dreamy field with freshly pressed straw rolls offers a nice challenge. It is an opportunity to create something that makes sense in images. The idea that they actually roll. Near Questembert in the Morbihan region of Brittany.
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
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
One of my favorite bands is Genesis. In 1976 A Trick of the Tail came out with a beautiful song ‘Mad Man Moon’. Last month I tried to take a shot of the moon using my iPhone. And this is the result.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
And the sun also rises in gold on a Summer morning. And when you shoot it in color, it is literally photographer’s gold.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Summer mornings can sometimes welcome you into a warm, joyful and laid back day. This is one of those days filled with ease. The sun also rises, each day, at more or less the same place. And when you catch it early, it is photographer’s gold.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
While trying to take an after sunset photo, my iPhone decided it needed a long exposure. The result an unexpected shot. This is the photo I aimed for. It was published two days ago. It shows the sun reflecting in the clouds after sunset.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
The sun reflects its light in the clouds after sunset.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
This part of Katwijk is not much photographed, I guess. The roofs and the tower of the church made a nice composition.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
In our times Don Quixote would be busy fighting a plenty of windmills. Most of them you find at sea, would he take swimming lessons?
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.
Windmill ‘Hoop doet leven’ in Voorhout.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
The beach of Katwijk in Spring 2009.
shot with Nikon D70, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
The LAPC challenge for this week (#354) is ‘reflections’. Reflecting can be visual but also in a way of contemplating. On the photo three Dutch government policy departments.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
What's (in) the Picture? 