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Olive trees in Saint Rémy de Provence

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud


In the continuum of space and history, everything is connected. Musing about a second theme for the Hockney-initiative of our local photography club, I wanted to explore the relationship between David Hockney and Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh’s art and Hockney’s art have a lot in common. Endless inspiration from nature, the landscape, the use of brilliant colours and the expression of ‘the soul’ of a tree, a road, a hill.

It had to be olive trees. Saint Rémy is the village where Vincent loved the beautiful light. I walked through the countryside where Vincent had walked, saw the landscape he had seen. Not far from the institution where he spent a year after his mental breakdown I found an olive tree orchard. I imagined how Vincent would have seen it, and how David would have filled that view with his colours.

There it was: a symbol of van Gogh’s Provence, with a Hockney filter over it and expressed in my photographic language.

Foggy blue

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud

Our local photo club has a project: To create a piece of art photography inspired by David Hockney. I love these kinds of challenges, and dove into the Hockney universe. In turn, Hockney was inspired by Vincent van Gogh, so I dove into that universe as well and looked at it through the eyes of Hockney.  

First piece is inspired by the double (or actually triple) portraits ‘My parents and myself’ and ‘My parents.’ I decided to look for the fragile state of existence of my father, age 95, and his sweetheart, age 93, and the relationship between the three of us in their shrinking and simplifying, schematizing world. Alzheimer has got a firm grip on him; yet the beautiful bright colours make life look wonderful

So. What next?

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud

Waterfalls

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud

Did I say I love waterfalls? Plenty of them here in Iceland


Gulfoss


Skogarfoss


Seljalandsfoss

Oxararfoss

Katla ice cave

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud

Away from the paved roads into an alien world. Desolate. Windy. And once again bloody cold


The target is Katla glacier in Iceland. Cold winds have covered the icecap during many centuries in volcanic dust


A hostile but beautiful environment


I’m glad we came in these specially prepared ‘super jeeps’ that are able to drive over rocks and ice and through small glacier rivers

Paradise

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud

They’re back! Spoonbills in their regular nesting place: a tiny piece of swamp forest tugged in between a highway and a lake. The archetype nature images in our heads are pristine, without human influence. And I have to confess: as a nature photographer I always try to replicate these images. Even when the pictures are taken in a densely populated and completely transformed area. I think we have a longing and even a need for dreams of purity and paradise. And well, it feels a bit like paradise here.


And now they´re back. All the way from Africa, ready for summer. Temperatures are still quite low here, but every spring when they return my heart leaps up.


And it’s not just one… It’s so many of them!


What a feeling to stand here in the middle of nowhere, and just see, hear, smell and feel nature all around.

This last little fellow brings back memories of the card playing game I had as a child. The bluethroat was my favourite card! I love this time of spring when all these birds have returned with a promise of lovely summer days to come

Geothermal activity

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud

Bubbles of boiling hot vapour push the surface upward until they break through and Strokkur erupts. In the Netherlands we call these geothermal steam-eruptions ‘geisers’. This generic name is derived from this specific spot: Geysir in Iceland…


Steamy Strokkur. Minus ten degrees Celcius (fourteen Fahrenheit) makes it bloody cold right next to this boiling pond.


Geothermical area around Geysir and Strokkur. Steam everywhere…


Another geothermal area is Krysuvik or Seltun. A small path leads through the hot springs and steamy rivers.


The smell of sulfur is all around.

Aurora borealis

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud

As a young boy I had a book with stories from all over the world. It had a drawing of a lone fur trapper in the woods, staring at the northern lights sky. I loved that drawing. Such wildness, such loneliness and such beauty! I dreamt of being in the wild myself and seeing the aurora borealis. But I had visited Iceland in summer once, with 5 days of just clouds and rain and wind (We were camping then, my daughter and I, and after 4 days of rain we fled into the first hotel we could find to get dry. Despite the rain and the clouds and the wind it was a great holiday, for even when it rains Iceland is really beautiful).


So I hesitated. What were the chances of going in winter and having both an active aurora and a clear sky? For years I didn’t dare to take the risk and buy a ticket.


Until last November, when I realised that if I didn’t try, I would surely never see it. I bought a ticket and… well, see for yourself.

There’s no need to go to a special dark place to see the aurora. You can see it right from the city. Reykjavic for instance, or more precisely: the bay of Kopavogur.

Kind of blue

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud

Venus guided us all the way home after the Vienna trip.
The picture from the plane resembles a bit the picture I took at home a few days ago, with Jupiter and Venus in conjunction.

More blue lately:


Angry ocean


Floating. Mesmerizing

Dusk settles


Venus and Jupiter

Geplaatst op door Henk Groenewoud

Tonight, Venus and Jupiter are standing very close together in the sky. That is: they’re standing very, very far apart, but they appear to look close together to us.

In the sunset picture you can see them cosily in the top right corner, in between the greylag geese. Beautiful sunset today.

I also took a few pictures with the standard 500 mm lens, and was very surprised about the details. You actually see the little balls in the sky, and a few moons around Jupiter. Always makes me feel like that little boy, staring into the sky with a small telescope and dreaming of the stars…