Living Room Roses
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Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
Having fresh flowers in the house is a blessing.
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The Netherlands, Valkenburg – October 2025
The lake near Valkenburg during a forceful wind.
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The sky and fallen leaves on windows.
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On the road at sunrise, the A44 and A4 to Schiphol Amsterdam.
I am not sure this is filling the brief of LAPC #373 ‘looking back at landscapes’. It’s more looking forward on the road.
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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 same location, two photos.
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The Netherlands, as its name indicates, is flat. ‘Flat as a pancake’. But sometimes it looks as if we have mountains.
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Autumn is the time of year were beauty is short and temporarily. Glimpses of moments that pass quickly and are gone fast. The end is the start of the new cycle of growth for the next year.
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Autumn is there, colors of leaves are beautiful.
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Autumn is there, colors of leaves are beautiful. A spot of green is all that remains for a short while.
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Autumn is approaching, the rain and gray skies are more and more the new normal. Luckily there is the occasional sun to enjoy, and the beautiful coloring of plants and trees.
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Autumn is approaching, the rain and grey skies are more and more the new normal. Luckily there is the occasional sun to enjoy.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version.
From the roof of the Reichstag. A member of staff has a smoke break. A slightly less common street detail nowadays for LAPC #371.
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The last time, before this visit in September, I saw this part of Berlin was in November 1989. This side was West Berlin, the Spree and across was East Berlin. The Berlin Wall cut straight to the right. It was just 20 meters from the East wall of the Reichstag.
Now the Bundestag offices connect both sides of the river. The tension of the Berlin Wall is literally out of sight. But not forgotten. Seven crosses are just outside this frame on the right side. They remind us of the people who tried to flee East Germany and were killed.
Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version. The monochrome photo of 1989 was shot with Nikon F301 on Kodak TriX.
This high rising can be found near the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis Kirche.
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A street in Charlottenburg.
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Berlin has a wonderful (and cheap) public transportation infrastructure. One of the building blocks is the U-Bahn. Station Hausvogteiplatz.
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Every big city has its own mall, a big shopping center. Most of the times the shops and brands are the same as in the mall next to where you live. And the food court can be slightly different. The Mall of Berlin is no exception to that rule. The location (Leipziger Platz) makes it interesting, as does the architecture.
As always I can not choose: color, or mono?
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Food in Berlin is cheap (and in the right places) good!
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A landmark you can not overlook. The TV Tower (Fernsehturm) at Alexanderplatz. Here seen from the Paul Löbe Allee, next to the offices of the prime minister of Germany.
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The dome on the Reichstag offers a wonderful panoramic view on Berlin. And you can walk the rest of the roof as well to look over the city. Here an impression in monochrome.
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The front of the Reichstag. A visit was on the top of my list. In 1989 the Berlin Wall was right next to the building; and since 1989 this area was completely developed. So we booked a visit to the dome. On this photo I left the dome out consciously. I wanted to have an image like the building looked in November 1989 below.
The history of the Reichstag is connected to my hometown and Leiden. In 1933 Marinus van der Lubbe was accused, tried and sentenced by the Nazi-regime for setting fire to the building. He was born in Leiden en lived in Oegstgeest, as did his family.
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 iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version. The monochrome photo of 1989 was shot with Nikon F301 on Kodak TriX.
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’.
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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.
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Brandenburger Gate (Brandenburger Tor) is a much used backdrop for photos in Berlin.
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Checkpoint Charlie, symbol of the cold war.
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Berlin has a wonderful (and cheap) public transportation infrastructure. One of the building blocks is the U-Bahn.
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Another impression of the the Memorial to the murdered Jews in Europe.
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Last September I revisited Berlin after 46 years. One of the reasons to come back was to visit the Memorial to the murdered Jews in Europe. I had read stories and seen photos, and I wondered how I would take photo’s of it. And what it would be like to wonder through it. This visit I had my first experience with the monument. Here is the first impression (and the coming days I will publish some more).
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The Bahntower on the Potsdamer Platz, headoffice of the Deutsche Bahn.
Potsdamer Platz was the vivid heart of Berlin. During World War II, it was almost completely destroyed. Since 1961 Potsdamer Platz was a no man’s land, a death strip as part of the Berlin Wall. After the fall of Berlin Wall this was the biggest property developing area in a major city in Europe.
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Brandenburger Gate (Brandenburger Tor) is a symbol of unity for Berlin and Germany. Nowadays the Pariser Platz (Paris Square) is a pedestrian and bicycle area.
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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.
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One of the memorial landmarks of Berlin is the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtnis Kirche. In its simplicity it is a powerful landmark and memorial.
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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.
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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’.
In 1989 we just spent one day in East Berlin. This visit the first day we looked around in the former East Berlin area. The television tower still towers over the city at Alexanderplatz. There is still a lot of construction activity, and along the roads you see pipes in blue and pink. First I thought that it was a smart concrete transport system. In reality it is a way to pump out groundwater from construction sites into the Spree river.
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.
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A small bird in a big Amsterdam Central Station. The things you see while waiting for a train.
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Shot with iPhone 15 Pro Max edited using Snapseed and Marksta. Click the picture for a larger version
On the platform waiting for a connection being connected by mobile phone.
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Sometimes the clouds turn into a abstract symbol.
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A more detailed view of the photo I published yesterday of Leiden. Leiden used to be famous for fabrics, and canals provided the infrastructure for the logistics. Some of the canals were filled up in the second half of the 20th century. However, there are debates about opening a few of them again. These discussions focus on sustainability and environmental quality.
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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.
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After rain comes sun at Scheveningen beach.
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A spell of heavy rain, on the border of Summer and Autumn at Scheveningen beach.
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Detail from a front in the Breestraat in Leiden. In den vergulden Turk used to be a restaurant. It moved decades ago to a different spot in town. It then changed its name to Wienerwald. The top of the original front is still there, and recently brought back to its old splendor.
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A detail of a front in the Breestraat in Leiden with the tower of the townhall.
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Red and yellow fronts of houses in the Breestraat in Leiden.
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