All Along The Watchtower


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Autumn was mild and bright till last week.
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Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta Click the picture for a larger version
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The iPhone had developed into a nice camera. It is not the same quality als a DSLR or system camera, but it is a lovely point and shooter with more and more options added. The zoom is quite nice, but the human side – holding it still – is a challenge.
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A tree obscures the Flowermill (Meelfabriek) is an old industrial monument as seen from a passing car while not driving.
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The Flowermill (Meelfabriek) is an old industrial monument being converted into hotels and apartments. As seen from a passing car while not driving.
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The Zijlpoort in Leiden seen from a passing car while not driving.
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The Netherlands, Oegstgeest – November 2024
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This week lens artists challenge #323 is ‘silence’. Autumn is a time where we move towards the end of the cycle, preparing for Winter. A time of letting go with the awareness that nature is preparing for Spring. The cycle of life at work, complexity in simplicity.
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This week lens artists challenge #323 is ‘silence’. How to depict silence?
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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
Maybe the best example of perfect imperfection is the cycle of life we see every day around us. When the leaves fall in Autumn in fact nature is preparing for its next Spring. 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.
‘Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, in everything
That’s how the light gets in‘
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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.
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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.
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Summer is gone, the garden turns to Winter. The warm weather pulled out some more flowers.
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This week’s Lens Artitsts Photo Challenge (#321) is Intentional Camera Movement (ICM). Yesterday I published photos shot analogue on film: the result is only visible after developing the film. This one is from 2004 with my first digital Nikon D70. The fun of digital is that you can actually see on the back what the result is, and use this feedback to try again. Digital gives freedom and is cheap and gives instant feedback. 20 years of digital playing.
shot with Nikon D70, edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.


This week’s Lens Artitsts Photo Challenge (#321) is Intentional Camera Movement (ICM). These photos are from a workshop in 1997 in France, where we had to create movement with a low shutter speed while following the subject. Basically a fun excercise but done on film. So the result literally came to light after developing the film. The excitement and anxiety about the possible results were out of scale! Patience.
These film archives are the source of my B4 retouch series.
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 andMarksta. Click the picture for a bigger version



A fossil power plant on smoke, next to the A5 in Amsterdam-Sloterdijk.
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Maybe I am not the only one. When I see a wonderful subject, that has to be on a photo, I tend to try out different things fast, to avoid the moment goes. And in the end there is a series of photos that are hard to choose from. What is the solution? I just publish them all. So after SUP Paddler in focus and


the monochrome loneliness of the SUP Paddler here is the last of three. I hope you enjoyed all of them.
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A slightly ‘bigger’ picture than the one of a week ago.
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Another – monochrome – photo of the SUP Paddler. The full sunrise colorful one is here.
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This week’s theme for LAPC #319 is ‘setting a mood’.
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Geese tidying up at the waterside, Autumn clean up before Winter is on its way? This week’s theme for LAPC #319 is ‘setting a mood’.
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The canal is one of my long period objects for photos. I always look if there is something worth a photo when I cross it. Most of the time it is empty, sometimes there is a boat. But this time there was a first: a SUP paddler in a beautiful moody Autumnal sunrise. As if he knew this week’s theme for LAPC #319 is ‘setting a mood’.
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This week’s theme for LAPC #319 is ‘setting a mood’.
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A view over the meadows in an old Dutch masters light.
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LAPC #316 is ‘Finding beauty in unexpected places’. One of the objects for photographs is the canal that runs through my village. It is quite ordinary, there is a vast amount of small and little canals to dispose of water in The Netherlands. To manage water in a country that is partly under sea level, one has to build infrastructure to keep dry feet. Two pictures taken at the same moment of the day, slightly different in monochrome style. The first is with the silvertone setting, the last with the dark setting on the iPhone. It changes the atmosphere completely. And one may be more beautiful than the other, it is all in the eye of the beholder.
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LAPC #316 is ‘Finding beauty in unexpected places’.
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The Moerdijkbrug over the Hollands Diep, seen from the Moerdijkbrug for the motorway. In the middle of the Dutch delta.
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Incoming and outgoing traffic at Schiphol Amsterdam. Just a drive by, and no worries, I was not driving the car.
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Driving passed Schiphol we were overtaken by four Citroën Traction Avant. Three of them were into sticker collecting, the fourth was beautiful pristine.
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Autumn is here and the apple tree is filled with little apples. The view helps to get over to the new season.
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Willy Zuid, a beach pavillion.
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The Netherlands, Katwijk aan Zee – August 2024
Sometimes it just happens. You are in a place and the light is fantastic, and there is so much to frame in a photo. The sunset is spectacular and for some odd 30 minutes you are in a photography candy shop. This is a selection of what ended up on my phone on that hot August evening.
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And the last one of a brilliant hour at the beach on a Summer evening to enjoy the sunset while having dinner. That was a nice bubble to be in.
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Yesterday I told you about my passion and history in monochrome. And that I do shoot sunsets in black and white. Here is another one of the same sunset, but framed different. I will publish an overview of all those shots of same sunset that evening. Each of them show a bit of it, it’s in my humble opinion nice to see the big picture.
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If you did not notice, I am a big fan of monochrome. In fact, monochrome film was way back the medium I started with. It was cheap and you print your own photos in a darkroom. That was adventurous and frustrating at the same time. Not to sound old, but nowadays with wonderful software, editing images is easier, faster and more fun. And you instantly see what you get! But sometimes I do miss the anxiety of the darkroom, seeing a photo come up in the developer. Back to now. I do shoot sunsets in black and white, and here is one. The atmosphere of the shot is different, more dark and eerie.
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When there are landscapes, what is the landscape of a sea called? To me watching the sea is like an escape of the real world, dreaming into the image that is presented. This is the layered story of an image, with each of the layers adding to it. The beach with the humans grounded on the sand under their feet, almost insignificant in size. The vast sea stretching into the far distance, rippled in the wind and current, offering a seemingly flat smooth surface. The boats and windmills that seem to float on the water that sparkles in the light of the lowering sun. And on top of all that the backdrop of the sky painted lightly by the softer light that lays a filter over the all of it. Put a frame around it and you have a nice photo.
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The view at the beach from the boulevard of Katwijk aan Zee, a few hours before sunset.
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The view at the Northsea just before dinner 🙂 at the boulevard of Katwijk aan Zee.
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The theme for this week LAPC 316 is ‘Destanation: Fun‘. Going to the beach is fun, but witnessing a brilliant sunset on a warm Summer evening, while a display of boats and windmills complete the scene, is true fun. Here is the full view of the scenery of the sunset, I just picked out parts of it in other photos published earlier (and after).
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The theme for this week LAPC 316 is ‘Destanation: Fun‘. Going to the beach is fun, but witnessing a brilliant sunset on a warm Summer evening, while a dispaly of boats and windmills complete the scene, is true fun. I published a few of them already two weeks ago (see the archive Katwijk). I hope you still have fun watching them.
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