Alea iacta… Another competition

Not sure if I'm testing myself or the juries, but I just sent in three photos to a national competition, the BNAFV's first-ever 'Foto Online'. At first I though I would not do it, expecting thousands of photographers to take part. But a few days ago we got a reminder saying that there were 180 participants. Well, then I could give it a go—basically with the same photos that I submitted for the regional contest less than a month ago. I redid the black-and-white one for which I got the comment that is at too grey and 'murky'; tried to strengthen the drama and contrast in the air. I still like the picture of this strange building in Almere, and am curious if I'll get similar comments from this national jury.

The other one from the regional contest that I submitted, was the allium (from our own garden, taken as a test-picture on the first evening that I had my Alpha700), again because I like it and also a little bit because someone in the audience found that it deserved a higher grade.

And you're welcome to comment too, of course!

2D pictures in a 3D world

A picture is a two-dimensional rendering of the three-dimensional world that we see. The painter credited with being the first to focus on that reduction of the world to a flat canvas was Paul Cézanne. I very much like his landscapes, where he expresses that realisation quite well. For instance the one to the right: 'This is not a tree, but these are strokes of paint on a canvas, giving the viewer an impression of a tree', he seems to say. From him I learned that perspective in a picture is an illusion and I started to forego perspective quite often.

My current PC-desktop wallpaper is an example of that. A picture from the 'expedition' to Almere some months ago: no depth thanks to the stone wall filling the whole background. On the other hand, the tree stem and the shadow on the stone wall give some illusion of depth. And of course (a little 'sinplicity' again): the shadow does not match the tree. At first sight you should think it is, then come to realise that the two don't match. The shadow is of a lantern, and the light does not come from the left but from the right.

Sin and Sims

Really, it was an accidental mistake! In my previous one I wrote 'sinplicity' instead of 'simplicity'. No need to call Dr. Freud to help; it really was just a matter of hitting the next key on the keyboard. But the error may come in handy: simplicity without sin is not beautiful. Sinplicity makes a photograph good (and this time the 'error' is on purpose).

That is of course a bold statement. What do I mean? Karel van het Reve (professor in Russian Literature, the brother of novelist Gerard and one of Holland's greatest critical rationalists) once said, if I remember well, that humour relied on surprise. I guess a good picture does too: it must surprise the viewer. For instance by breaking the apparent simplicity of the composition in clear lines by a baroque wildness of a cloud's line. Yesterday's picture was an example of that where the balance was very much on the clear lines. Today, I add a picture with more balance between architectural lines and clouds (also from our trip to Almere).



So I am advocating sinning against the rule of simplicity. Breaking the rules is the thing missing in computer environments like the world of the Sims--and that, I maintain, is why pictures of reality can be beautiful, and screenshots of Sims never are.

Introduction: a picture and reasons

Oh well, why not? Half the world is blogging, let me add my two cents' worth of wisdom. Is it worth even that much? Until I kow better about that, I'm glad that this is a free service (in exchange for another bit of privacy given up to Brother Google).

Why would I? Because I'd like to share my views and thoughts on photography. They may be kind of oldfashioned or even mainstream, but that is for the reader to decide.

This blog is not about my private and professional lives--although sharing some of my pictures may give more than a little hint of where my work takes me.

Why in English and not in my mother tongue, Dutch? Because I hope to reach more persons than just my immediate family, friends and co-members of my FotoClub. Apologies to them: I support the Dutch language on other occasions!



As part of this justification and 'credo', I add to this first one a recent picture about which I'm not dissatisfied: a bit of architecture from Almere, notorious as 'the ugliest town of the Netherlands', but it is highly photogenic! A couple of guys from our Fotoclub recently went there to take in the modern architecture; I for my part was inspired by .

What was the inspiration for this one? Sinplicity, I guess: just enough colour in the greys not te be black-and-white, and a mirroring of the clouds to break the straight lines of the architecture.