This time of year it is fun to take the bicycle and check out the flowers in the area. Especially when the sun shines. As most of my photos on here are taken on iPhone I do fit the brief of this week’s LAPC theme week (#391) ‘Phone photography’ easy.
Shot with iPhone 17 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
Time is something I sometimes can not grasp. On the one hand it is always the same: a second stays a second, a minute a minute, an hour an hour, a day a day, a week a week, a month a month. On the odd extra day every four years it is a ‘given’ that a year has 365 days. On the other hand time can slip through your hands. It seems to go faster, or slower. It is on your side or not.
This Spring is one of those moments that makes me wonder about time. There is an order in bulbflowers, but daffodils with hyacinths, while tulips pop up in the garden makes me confused. Is it going faster? But in the end the beauty and scent of flowers stays amazing.
The LAPC theme this week (#391) is ‘Phone photography’. Having a smartphone on me all of the time, with a camera that is getting better and better, is quite normal. As Tina says she rarely shoots other than with her phone. The same applies to me. The Iphone is handy, technology for dummies, always near and light. And it offers more an more quality and creativity. On the other hand it still lacks lots of technology you can find on a system camera. So I am in a hybrid state: daily the phone, on occasion the system camera. Getting on a bicycle enjoying the fields is easier with my iPhone. It produces a nice quality. It is convenient. But shooting the flower parade requires a systemcamera.But that is something for next time.
Shot with iPhone 17 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
The bulb fields are blooming. And to be honest, it goes quite fast. The daffodils are almost gone, hyacinths start to arrive and there is a lot of fields with tulips, still waiting to pop there heads up. Here a daffodil field.
Shot with iPhone 17 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
If you visit my blog – like I hope you do or from now start to do – you must have recognized my ‘old’ love for monochrome. When I started this hobby, mono was fashionable and a standard for news photography. And it was cheaper. In this series I offer you two versions of a photo. And you can prefer one over the other, or not.
This week’s theme is ‘Time to relax’. On a bicycle ride through fields where soon bulb flowers will pop up, together with other cyclists. This is a piece of a polder showing the low horizon in the sun.
Shot with iPhone 17 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
If you visit my blog – like I hope you do or from now start to do – you must have recognized my ‘old’ love for monochrome. When I started this hobby, mono was fashionable and a standard for news photography. And it was cheaper. In this series I offer you two versions of a photo. And you can prefer one over the other, or not.
This week’s theme is ‘Time to relax’. On a bicycle ride through fields where soon bulb flowers will pop up, together with other cyclists. Thought I am not really sure about this piece of land, it is just been plowed it seems.
Shot with iPhone 17 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
If you visit my blog – like I hope you do or from now start to do – you must have recognized my ‘old’ love for monochrome. When I started this hobby, mono was fashionable and a standard for news photography. And it was cheaper. In this series I offer you two versions of a photo. And you can prefer one over the other, or not.
This week’s theme is ‘Time to relax’. On a bicycle ride through fields where soon bulb flowers will pop up, together with other cyclists. On the color version you can see the deep purple of early hyacinths. With Some yellow late Daffodils.
Shot with iPhone 17 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
If you visit my blog – like I hope you do or from now start to do – you must have recognized my ‘old’ love for monochrome. When I started this hobby, mono was fashionable and a standard for news photography. And it was cheaper. In this series I offer you two versions of a photo. And you can prefer one over the other, or not.
This week’s theme is ‘Time to relax’. On a bicycle ride through fields where soon bulb flowers will pop up, together with other cyclists. On the color version you can see the deep purple of early hyacinths. With Some yellow late Daffodils.
Shot with iPhone 17 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
This week’s theme is ‘Time to relax’. On a bicycle ride through fields where soon bulb flowers will pop up, together with other cyclists and the occasional runner.
Shot with iPhone 17 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
Spring is here and last weekend I made a little bicycle ride to check out the bulb flower fields. Daffodils where coming up, and at odd places hyacinths started to show. A nice way to relax and enjoy the lovely day outside. As did others by walking, running or cycling. Fitting this week’s theme ‘Time to relax’.
Shot with iPhone 17 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.
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.
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.
Windmill ‘Hoop doet leven’ in Voorhout.
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, GrainLab 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 Dutch landscape has low horizons and is flat (but not as a pancake). Canals cut through it. Bicycle paths offer easy access for exploring. These photos are just behind the dunes at Noordwijk. They are at the edge of the Maandagse Wetering. On the horizon is Voorhout.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
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.
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.
All the bulb flowers of Spring are now gone. We have to wait for next year to see tulips, daffodils and hyacinths ruling the fields of our flat lands. Until then we enjoy nature exploding in its full force, and after that its decline into Winter. But for now it’s amazing how fast everything springs out.
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, Oegstgeest and Voorhout – April 2025
Tulips in the garden and on the field. It might be that the bulbs for our red tulips next year in the garden come from this production field in Voorhout.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab 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, Voorhout April 2025
April 12 2025 was the yearly Bollenstreek flower parade; an impressive treat of creativity and beauty. The colors on display, the fragrance, the beautiful arrangements and the wonderful weather made it a true treat.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
The Netherlands, Voorhout April 2025
April 12 2025 was the yearly Bollenstreek flower parade; an impressive treat of creativity and beauty. The colors on display, the fragrance, the beautiful arrangements and the wonderful weather made it a true treat.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
The Netherlands, Voorhout – April 2025
April 12 2025 was the yearly Bollenstreek flower parade; an impressive treat of creativity and beauty. The colors on display, the fragrance, the beautiful arrangements and the wonderful weather made it a true treat.
Some of the floats were sponsored by countries, to promote tourism or expressing a bond. Here some photos of the floats of China, Thailand and Brazil.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
The Netherlands, Voorhout – April 2025
April 12 2025 was the yearly Bollenstreek flower parade; an impressive treat of creativity and beauty. The colors on display, the fragrance, the beautiful arrangements and the wonderful weather made it a true treat.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
The Netherlands, Voorhout – April 2025
April 12 2025 was the yearly Bollenstreek flower parade; an impressive treat of creativity and beauty. The colors on display, the fragrance, the beautiful arrangements and the wonderful weather made it a true treat.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
The Netherlands, Voorhout – April 2025
April 12 2025 was the yearly Bollenstreek flower parade; an impressive treat of creativity and beauty. The colors on display, the fragrance, the beautiful arrangements and the wonderful weather made it a true treat.
Shot with Nikon Zf, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
The Netherlands, Voorhout – April 2025
April 12 2025 was the yearly Bollenstreek flower parade; an impressive treat of creativity and beauty. The colors on display, the fragrance, the beautiful arrangements and the wonderful weather made it a true treat.
This float is themed Sail Amsterdam 2025.
Shot with Nikon Zf, 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.
Lens Artists Photo Challenge 343 is ‘Seen on my last outing’. Yesterday, a short bicycle ride around Voorhout. On the bulb fields lines are straight, which is kind of boring. But the panoramic view of the iPhone changes the perspective.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab 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 flowerbeds are there again. The daffodils as always first and now hyacinths.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
A Christmas photo, but the view of burning candles is always mesmerizing and inspirational.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
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
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
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
In Summer the fields that grow the Spring’s bulb flowers (tulips, daffodils and hyacinths) may grow other flowers. Some years the fields are flooded or covered up to be gassed, to clean, other years they produce crops like these.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
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
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?
The Netherlands, Voorhout – April 2024
The yearly flower parade of the Bollenstreek showing bulb flower creativity and offering mesmerizing smells.
Shot with Nikon D500, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a bigger version.
The Netherlands, Voorhout – April 2024
The yearly flower parade of the Bollenstreek showing bulb flower creativity and offering mesmerizing smells.
Shot with Nikon D500, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a bigger version.
The Netherlands, Voorhout – April 2024
The yearly flower parade of the Bollenstreek showing bulb flower creativity and offering mesmerizing smells.
Shot with Nikon D500, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a bigger version.
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.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
The yearly flower parade of the Bollenstreek showing bulb flower creativity and offering mesmerizing smells. A first photo, I post more soon.
Shot with Nikon D500, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a bigger version.
What's (in) the Picture? 