Autumn has arrived
Rainy day in Amsterdam
Glow-in-the-dark sea
I must have been about 10 years old when we spent the holidays in Bergen near the North Sea (Netherlands). One night my father woke me up: “Get up! Put your shoes on, we’ll go to the beach!”
“Why?” did I ask, still very asleep.
“We are going to watch the light of the sea!”
It had been hot and windless all week. Ideal conditions to see sparkling sea turning the beach into a magical place. The waves radiated a blue light. As you moved through the water, blue light rippled around you. And as you walked over the wet sand, a trail of glowing footsteps slowly died out behind you. Zeevonk, it’s called in Dutch
The light comes from the alga Noctiluca scintillans, which emits a bluish light when moved. Earlier I told about the herrings in my fridge that gave light – probably also caused by the ingestion of these algae while swimming (see Luminescence).
All these years I hoped to one day see that light of the sea again. And last week I did. Not as exuberant as I remember; actually I would have walked right past it if another visitor hadn’t pointed out the puddle that the low tide had left on the beach. But I was just in time, for that night was the last that the phenomenon could be observed. So I am more than happy now, with some fresh memories.
Foggy blue
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?
Paradise
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
Kind of blue
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
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…
Always windy in Den Helder
Famous statement of my old man. I guess he’s right
Last month´s sketches
Something completely different. Bread. The very first I ever baked, and it means so much to me! You have no idea. I took a huge risk given the visitor I expected. Simple recipe: whole grain flour, yeast, water and the simplest oven you can imagine. And it worked! It’s like magic.
Lovely to see the first ones of the year. In the backyard here in Hollandsche Rading, the winter jasmine is abundantly flowering.
Seeing this I realised I desperately need more yellow and summer colours. So this one is of a summer that feels so long ago.
Last one is of a visit to the Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar. There are a few items on permanent display that bring out the inner child in everyone – at least, they definitely did in me. Like Leandro Erlich’s swimming pool, Ron Mueck’s Couple under an Umbrella, the Open Ended maze of Richard Serra and the tiny elevators of Maurizio Cattelan.
At the moment there is an exhibition of the Italian artist Guiseppe Penone, who works with natural materials like trees and marble and leather, using the objects as a kind of memory or footprint of what has been. If you allow your mind to wander in his world, thoughts of interconnectedness of all visible and physical objects come up, of memories in the physical world and how we give meaning to what we experience with our senses.
This picture below is of Tiger, tiger, tiger; the hidden tigers at the bottom of porcelain of the Ming Dynasty of Ai Weiwei.
Rainy nights
A few weeks ago a fellow photographer from Amersfoort gave a presentation on Saul Leiter. Famous New York fashion photographer. Besides his professional work he did a lot of street photography. Educated in the arts and painting, he was looking for a dialogue between colour and remarkable compositions. People are always present in his work, even if it is just a hand or a foot. At first glance, many pictures seem failed, for the main subjects are often only partly visible or blurred. Then it starts to dawn on you. His aim is not to get a nice picture of a person, or a perfect eye-pleasing frame. His aim is to create space, tension, contrast of light and a clash of colours.
So on a rainy night I went out to the city closest to Hollandsche Rading, Utrecht, to try and look with different eyes. Not his eyes of course, for his life was completely different from mine. But my eyes, trying to look as a child to lights, colours and people. The result is a kind of impressionist winter series.
There it was: the red umbrella, so often present in Leiter´s New York pictures.
Tot ziens
Christmas Eve in the streets of Alkmaar
Line 50 Utrecht
Time for a smoke
De Portrettenmaker 