Flower Landscape
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
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.


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?
A few days ago I published a resembling shot in color and mono. This post differs from the earlier ones. The tree on the right went out of the frame. And a very modern advertising pole pops up in the background.
My love for the bleak colors of Winter’s light are the same. But I prefer this mono version, even if it was originally shot in color. GrainLab is a great tool, and the atmosphere of the photo is ‘old’ but the view is modern.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
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.

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?
I tend to think in black and white at most moments. Just my preference. And if I can I shoot just in a mono mode on my iPhone or my recent purchased Nikon Zf.
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,
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
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Right next to the Binham Priory is The Parlour. A working dairy farm with a monumental breakfast.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.
The Maltings – The Grain Store in Weybourne. A beautiful restored barn, and great ambiance to enjoy good food.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Ending the year in the UK, a roadside view from the car over a foggy Essex countryside. Hence the sharpness is not optimal.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Ending the year in the UK, a roadside view from the car over a foggy countryside. Hence the sharpness is not optimal.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Ending the year in the UK, a roadside view from the car over a foggy Norfolk countryside. Hence the sharpness is not optimal.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Ending the year in the UK, a roadside view from the car over a foggy Suffolk countryside. Hence the sharpness is not optimal. This is another one I used GrainLab to put in an analogue grain feeling. It softened the darks and gave the photo a more balanced view in the highlights. Snapseed tends to distort big surfaces in the sky, and this is a nice retouch effect to repair that.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Ending the year in the UK, a roadside view from the car over a foggy Suffolk countryside. Hence the sharpness is not optimal. This is the first time I used GrainLab to put in an analogue grain feeling. It softened the darks and gave the photo a more balanced view in the highlights. Snapseed tends to distort big surfaces in the sky, and this is a nice retouch effect to repair that.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed, GrainLab and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
And off he went.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version





The Klinkenberger Plas in Autumn.
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
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 to overcome pain and hurt. The origin is more ‘cosmic’ and is much older (e.g. Rumi): the only perfect ‘being’ (the light) is the source of all. As humans we are not perfect but we can let the light in to heal our wounds and pain. And essentially learn from it.
Yesterday I showed a photo from the bright side, this one is from the sunrise, and I must say I love the light and the atmosphere.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
This week’s Lens Artists Photo Challenge #322 is ‘there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’. It is from a verse by Leonard Cohen about imperfection and beauty. This photo is just a blunt statement: the light comes from the right. But considering my more frequent photo moments in the early morning on this spot, it is after noon. A total different view on the same view. The way the light hits a scene gives it meaning. And shows different details. It softens, warms an strikes with a tender touch, showing the deeper beauty. Not perfect, but priceless.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
‘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
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
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
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
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Dramatic morning over the Haarlemmermeerpolder near Abbenes.
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?































Over grown canal and reflections, the division between the park of Oud Poelgeest and the local ice ring.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
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
LAPC challenge #305 is about composition: two rectangles as a play tool to frame a photo.
Shot with iPhone 13 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
This weeks LAPC # 304 is ‘Background: behind the subject’. A dirty window of a terrace at the beach.
Shot with iPhone 13 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
The outside terrace of The Parrot in Forest Green/Dorking.
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 view from the outside terrace of The Parrot in Forest Green/Dorking.
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
It is that time of year again, bulbflowers spreading colors and aromas around.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
It is that time of year again, bulbflowers spreading colors and aromas around.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Sunrise on the J.H. Oortbrug for lens artists challenge #290 Circular Wonders. What is most the biggest wonder? The wheels or the sun? It is the first photo of the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Shot with iPhone 13 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Shot with iPhone 13 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Shot with iPhone 13 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger
Shot with iPhone 13 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger
This week’s Lens Artists Challenge #287 is ‘Sound’. The road is busy, the sound of cars is in my ears as I try to frame this mill against the sunset, trying to avoid a car in the frame at first. Then zooming out and coming back to the road I ended up with this one, showing the lamplight and the cars coming and fading in the distance. This is the last in a series of four of Windmill ‘Hoop doet leven’ in Voorhout against the Winter sunset. The first three in a list in order of publication:
Shot with iPhone 13 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
Entering the city of Dover from inland offers a beautiful view on the harbor.
Shot with iPhone 13 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version.