Meanwhile back home ... World Press Photo exhibition in "my" office building

The World Press Photo exhibition tours around and comes to "my" office building just while I'm away. It's not fair! Still, you readers might be able to go there. Info in Dutch: De World Press Photo tentoonstelling vindt plaats op de campus van de Universiteit Twente in het atrium van gebouw Ravelijn. Entreeprijs voor bezoekers: € 7,50 en voor medewerkers en studenten van de UT € 5,-. Openingstijden: ma t/m vr 10:00 – 18:00 en za & zo 10:00 – 17:00. Kaarten zijn verkrijgbaar aan de kassa in Ravelijn.

Erwin Olaf shoots (or paints?) like Rembrandt

Dutch star photographer Erwin Olaf produced (for want of a better word) a series of pictures inspired on the Relief of Leiden, a defining moment in Dutch 17th century history. His pictures are inspired by paintings from that time. I see a mix of Vermeer and Rembrandt: the baroque atmosphere of Rembrandt, with a more serene light like Vermeer's.

The photo series Erwin Olaf schildert Leids Ontzet :: nrc.nl shows some of those pictures and 'making of' shots. Olaf and his team are shooting individual portraits which will be integrated into huge compositions.

Olaf's pictures are exhibited in Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden, in the festivities around Leiden's Relief, celebrated with all kinds of events in 5 days around October 3. Starting today!

Information on "De Dag van de Fotografie"

For my Dutch and/or Dutch-speaking readers: Er komt op 21 oktober een Dag van de fotografie. Uiteraard in Amsterdam. Deze Dag van de Fotografie belooft veel evenementen rond fotografie en wordt georganiseerd door fotobureau Hollandse Hoogte. Veel van de activiteiten zijn voor foto-professionals, maar ook voor amateurs is er van alles: een fotoboekenmarkt, een fotoquiz, workshops, enzovoorts.

Ik ben dan nog eventjes heel ver van Nederland. Wie laat me weten hoe het was?

Autumn in the garden

Is it not strange that people--like me--want to take pictures the likes of which are everywhere? What is it in, for instance, simple autumn colours of a Japanese maple tree that attracts us, that makes us press the button and makes us want to share this with the Net community? Everyone (in the right climate zones) can see things like this, they do not need such a picture to get an autumn feeling, let alone to know that autumn has arrived.

At a photo workshop I once did, we had a discussion: is a photo an expression that the photographer wants to make, or is it a means to communicate a message to the viewer? I was the minority of one defending the communication theory. And here I go and show you a picture that is purely expressive of my feeling of beauty of autumn in a corner of my garden.

I'm all in favour of falsificationism (one counter-example may be enough to show that a theory is wrong), but I guess we need not reject the communication theory: it's different for different kinds of pictures. A press photographer in Afghanistan, in Sudan, or in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro has something to communicate in the first place. And I also guess that any photographer must keep in mind that even his/her expressive photos communicate something to the viewer--will it be the same feeling that the photographer had?

I'd welcome your reactions: is this a superfluous picture that has no communication value, or should I go on and put such pictures on the net, simply because I like them?

Fieldfare found

The fieldfares returned later in the same day, and that time my camera was ready. Admittedly, I still had to crop the picture enormously, because the birds mainly stayed in the back of the garden and I "only" have a 300 mm (450 mm equivalent, if you count the crop factor).

Winter keeps going strong

_DSC6979
Originally uploaded by DFW-Photo

This year's winter seems to last eternally. At least it's more of a winter than we have had for a decade, and of course just when you get winterguest birds in your garden, you don't have your camera ready (4 fieldfares, in Dutch 'kramsvogels'). So you'll have to make do with an 'Image du soleil levant', the painting that sparkled off impressionism in the end of the 19th century, but then in a 21st century fashion. Keep warm!

Hazy Sunday morning

Hazy Sunday morning
Originally uploaded by DFW-Photo

Found the new issue of 'Black & White Photographer' with quite a few landscape pictures (almost all of seaside locations on the British isles). That inspired me to play in Lightroom with a picture of earlier this year, and which has some water--no seaside in my neighbourhood, a ditch is all you can find here! But then again, with a few wild ducks and the haze of a Sunday morning in spring, what more do you need?

Essence of Holland

Days are getting shorter, up in the Northern hemisphere, and that also means I have little time left for blogging or for working on the pictures of today, after my walking tour of the day--35 kilometer in the area of Wieden and Weerribben, starting in the autumn mist. Kind of chilly to start your walk, but great for atmosphere in the photos. My favourite (at least when I made it) is this one of an old boat in an old canal (Arembergergracht, dug out in the 16th century, in the neighbourhood of Giethoorn, which is famous for its little canals). Parallel planes to suggest depth, the mist adds to the atmospheric perspective, and hardly any colour apart from the grass in the foreground. Essence of Holland!

Zen among the willows

Saturday we visited the 'Vlechtdagen', the fair for basketmakers in Noordwolde, in the North of the Netherlands, where they have a museum devoted to this old craft. My wife loves to put her energy into folding, weaving and sometimes even beating the twigs into shape. My interest would be more in the surroundings, to see if some more abstract or architectural theme would offer itself. And it did! But there was more for my photography than expected.

The fair's theme this year was 'Japan', with a show of marvellous Japanese basketry--even interesting to people like me who are not into making willow baskets. Photography inside was not allowed, so I can show you only one little picture ;-) of a creation called Connection, made by one Takeo Tanabe. The original plan had been to invite the artists (rather than just artisans) from Japan to demonstrate their skill, but apparently the organisers' funds were not quite sufficient to make that possible. Too bad! I would have loved to see these people at work: would they be able to concentrate on the precise detail in the hum of a fair? Would they work fast as in a routine, or slowly as monks?
We had to make do with mainly Dutch and German basketmakers; an example from my wife's favourites at 'De Mythe' is shown here.

But we were also given the chance of some other Japanese arts and besides the ubiquitous bonsai tree pruning, they had something rather more special. Didn't I write about kyudo, the martial art of archery, before? A Dutch group gave a beautiful demonstration of what I might translate as the essence of photography: prepare your materials, yourself, and then wait for the right moment to let go. A lesson in Zen-plicity, which I involuntarily started to mimick with my camera while watching them go through their ceremony. With one little difference: they had one arrow, and I had 5 frames per second... Hopefully, they'll forgive this novice for cheating on the rules a little ;-)