Photo | What's (in) the Picture?

2nd Balcony Scene, but it’s not Shakespeare

LAPC 309 is about balconies. I have to admit that I do not pay special attention to balconies, unless they trigger me as I look around and they catch my eye. This in Rethymnon on Crete. My first entry was an original monochrome on film. With this one I could not decide between the original and the edited monochrome version. Hence you see them both. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Archive Greece

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1st Balcony Scene, but it’s not Shakespeare

LAPC 309 is about balconies. I have to admit that I do not pay special attention to balconies, unless they trigger me as I look around and they catch my eye. This in Antwerp. My previous entry was an original monochrome on film. With this one I could not decide between the original and the edited monochrome version. Hence you see them both. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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Capturing the Essence of a Typical Dutch Summer in Oegstgeest

June was wet, and July started wet but seems to end with more sun and less rain. It is a typical Dutch Summer.

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Capturing the Charm of Paris: Balcony and French Windows in December 1993

LAPC 309 is about balconies. I have to admit that I do not pay special attention to balconies, unless they trigger me as I look around and they catch my eye. I do however ‘collect’ French windows. So occasionally they pop up in a frame. This is one of those, in one of my favourite cities, Paris. From the analogue archive of December 1993.

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.

Grey Rainy Sky Regatta in Warmond, Netherlands

A small regatta on its way under a grey rainy sky.

Archive Warmond

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Horses

Archive Warmond

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Vlaggetjesdag aka Flag Day

The Netherlands, Scheveningen – June 2024

The Kurhaus is an old style hotel in Scheveningen. It is the only left over of the historical sea facade. The rest was demolished, and replaced with high rising concrete cubes.

Archive Scheveningen

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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.

Archive Scheveningen

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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.

Archive Scheveningen

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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.

Archive Scheveningen

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Haring / Herring Rock

The Netherlands, Katwijk aan Zee – June 2024

Every self respecting town and village needs a ferris wheel.

Archive Katwijk

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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.

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Moving Up

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Framed

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Rowing Backwards

At rowing you move forward by looking backwards all the time, and with a cox the course is set.

Archive Warmond

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Side Of Motorway

The same basin of the old watertower that I posted yesterday, but now on top of the barrier of the motorway.

Archive Sassenheim

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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.

Archive Sassenheim

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Orchid

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Government Departments Soaring Over Den Haag

Government departments rise up in the sky. For some the only way is up.

Archive Den Haag

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Exploring Tourist Attractions: The Far 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.

After the ‘near’ version yesterday, today is the ‘far’ version. My blog archive here goes back to 2018 so that is de scope of picking. I started picking them in a big gallery, and doing that it got quite big. But I leave it as it is. I hope you bear with me and browse through them.

You can see randomly photos from England, Greece, France, Germany (some are from Berlin in november 1989), Egypt, Turkey, Yemen, Tibet, Nepal, Belgium, Ireland, Malta, Italy (Rome), Spain. Occasionally you wil see an iconic object, but most of the time I was there for the landscape, the street encounters, nature etc. And I cheated a bit: there are some photos of Tourist Attractions from far that came to Amsterdam in the Ziggo Dome: Genesis and Peter Gabriel.

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 or countries if you are interested in more.

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.

Archive Den Haag

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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.

Archive Oegstgeest

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Over The Water

Over grown canal and reflections, the division between the park of Oud Poelgeest and the local ice ring.

Archive Oegstgeest

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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.

Archive Den Haag

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Scenic Skies

Archive Oegstgeest

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Stunning May and June 2024 Rose Garden in Oegstgeest, Netherlands

The Netherlands, Oegstgeest – May and June 2024

A rose is a rose is a rose, someone wrote that a long time ago. But it is still true, each rose is unique. So much symbolism and sweetness in a picture. The garden offers them in abundance this year.

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Lavender

Archive Oegstgeest

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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)

Archive Den Haag

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On The Beach

A view showing the curve of the Dutch seafront looking at Scheveningen in the South from Katwijk aan Zee.

Katwijk archive

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Pole King

Sea and Beach king.

Katwijk archive

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Tranquil Oegstgeest Canal Scene in June 2024

The grass on this side of the little canal is the same as on the other side of the canal, the light is just different.

Archive Oegstgeest

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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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May 2024: Nocturnal Garden Scene in Oegstgeest, Netherlands

A wet garden at night. And by the way, I love that WordPress AI generating amazing titles that I can not come up with. I stick with them as long as they make me smile. Nocturnal, sounds like a great piece of music.

Archive Oegstgeest

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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.

Archive Oegstgeest

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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.

Archive Rotterdam

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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.

Archive Rotterdam

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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.

Archive Rotterdam

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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Twins (2)

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 second set is an old elevator at the Rijnhaven.

Archive Rotterdam

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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.

Archive Rotterdam

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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Bench

A bench at the Rijnhaven in Rotterdam on the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam.

Archive Rotterdam

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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Old and New

The De Rotterdam towers over the old warehouses on the Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam. The use of housing changed from industrial to living.

Archive Rotterdam

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Exploring Rotterdam’s Kop van Zuid | Blocked

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.