Winter 2007
On dec 21st we had our first experience of winter. It had been snowing ever so little during the night and a little bit of frost did the rest. Trees overnight changed their appearance and for photographers and nature lovers it was pure bliss. The trick is trying to catch what you see in a photograph. Hardly ever I succeed in doing that, but I just keep on trying. Here you see one of my efforts. It's made with a Nikon Coolpix 4500. The shot was taken straight upward to the tops of the trees, hope you'll like it.

Texel

The first weekend of November we visited the Isle of Texel again. Our usual family weekend. There's always quite a lot of us there, which makes it a lot of fun. Walks on the beach and in the dunes, shopping, in general seeing Texel again. The weather was good, the company was good and the weekend was a great success. Also made a couple of photo's (I always do). This is a nice one I made on a walk through the dunes close to the Slufter (for you people who are familiar with the island).

Fall (2)

Nothing much to say today. No philosophical thoughts, empty. Took the picture yesterday during a walk. Rain and beautiful skies. The sun was shining through the branches which gave it the silvery color.

Fall
Fall is really setting in now. Colors are changing fast. It's always a gorgeous time. Our garden is showing off too and every year I make the same kind of photographs. And everytime I throw away most of it. It's so hard capturing how it really is. For instance, the colors aren't what they should be, or some details turn out to be wrong. But every year I shoot a couple of pictures I like. And this is how they can look like, the only thing I did on the computer was I slightly enhanced the contrast. Hope you like it.

Reading glasses
These are the reading glasses of Margot. She'd put them down for awhile and all of a sudden I saw the opportunities they offered (photographically speaking). It was the combination of the red colored glasses, and the red lettering of the paper, which appealed to me. So I took a couple of (macro) shots and combined two of them into this image.

Trees are beautiful
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
(Robert Frost)

Experimenting
Have been experimenting again. What you see is a photograph of the beach in Italy. To be precise Tuscany, where we vacationed.I'm not sure what I did with this photo. I did use a solarizing filter among others. Anyway, I think I like the end result myself. Just let me know what you all think.

Summer
Summer is drawing to an end. Fall with its storms and rains is nearing inescapably. September is a "transition" month. I read a quote about what summer represents by someone whose name I forgot. It goes like this:

“What a beautiful, sunny morning. It makes you happy to be alive, doesn't it? We can't let the sun outshine us! We have to beam, too!”

Think about it for a moment: ‘We have to beam, and outshine the sun’. It's a philosophical thought. I think it would be a good idea to beam as much as possible, and not just in the summer, to be a shining sun in the cold winter. Figuratively speaking of course. As long as you beam, you’ll light and warm other people. In return you will be warmed by other people too. That’s the way it works. Now I realize this is all easy said, but harder done. I will try anyway, as best as I can. Life’s too short not to try. It could make the world a happier place.

Digital alteration
You probably recognize the photograph. I'm not sure what I did to it, but I like the end result. Hope you'll like it too.

Tuscany revisited
Indeed Tuscany revisited. An Italian impression blended together in one image.
Hope you'll like it.

Vacation 2007
Our vacation this year brought us in Tuscany. I had never been there before, but had heard a lot of good things. Tuscany was supposed to have always beautiful weather and also have a lot of culture and antiquities. Something I am very interested in. Well, those assertions proved to be ever so right. Temperatures were scorching, 30 degrees Celsius and up, and about the culture stuff, you just couldn't miss it. To cool down we fortunately had a swimmingpool on our camping. Besides that we were very near to the sea, so swimming is what we did a lot. On alternate days we took our time to visit towns in the neighbourhood, towns like Siena, Massa Maritima, San Gimignano, Suvereto, Sassetto and also paid a visit to Rome. It's way too much to see in a day (Rome I mean), we just sniffed a little of what the city has to offer. Absolutely have to go there again and then stay for a number of days to really take our time and see things. I'm glad though we went there. The city we missed altogether is Florence, have to do that some other time. So, concluding I can say, that Tuscany was a very positive experience, definitively a place to visit again.

Nature
You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things. (Walt Whitman)

Spring

Spring is in the air. Temperatures are rising. The sun is shining and flowers are to be seen everywhere. It’s that time of year, a beautiful time if you ask me. Our garden is doing its best to keep up with the neighbourhood gardens. Because we have an attitude of (more or less) live and let live, it’s always a surprise to see how our garden develops. It’s not a model garden (what do you people think, do you like those “glossy” gardens?) like you see in the magazines, it’s more like a natural garden. Still, it has a lot of attractive flowers like the one you see here. (it's a close-up of a "blauw druifje"). Bottomline is, as you’ve probably understood, I'm a lazy gardener, I like to just sit in my garden and photograph stuff. Enjoy.

Greyhound
The same greyhound I used for my "magic bus" posting. This time I used the caleidoscope filter (yes again, I'm hooked on it). And then I pasted 2 greyhounds on top of it. You can still see them if you look real hard.

Curtains
Drawn curtains where the sun was shining through. Using a caleidoscope filter and a glass filter the result turned out to be the image you see here. Hope you'll like it.

Happiness
Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why. (Eddie Cantor)

Windmills
Besides wooden shoes, tulips and dykes, windmills are the icons of the Dutch. You see them everywhere. In the landscape, on postcards,on cups and saucers, on....you name it. So I thought I shouldn't disappoint you. Here's my version, slightly altered, because otherwise it would be boring. Enjoy!

Magic Bus
No not the magic bus, although it seemed like magic at the time. They were magic times, long ago. Fond memories now. What remained apart from the memories is a small Greyhound bus.

Flowers (2)
The same kind of flower, but the white version. Is beautiful too.

Flowers
It's a little too soon for nature too bloom abundantly. But not for some of the plants at home. Beautiful they are at their peak and then after you throw them away. There must be a message somewhere. Maybe, enjoy whenever you can?

Church
The image says it all. A church I photographed in Denmark. It was a beautiful little church all by itself. I just tried to enhance the already romantic atmosphere. Anyway, this is how the image turned out.

Bridge over troubled waters
This is definitely a bridge over troubled waters, because a couple of hundred meters downstream from the Niagara Falls. And, you don't want to fall in the water there. Beautiful bridge though.

Trees
It looks like these trees have been taken somewhere this fall. Actually, I took the picture last december on a sunny and still warm day. Because even in december temperatures were amazingly high.

Stairs
Stairs going up. These metal stairs I photographed looking up. Don't exactly know which filters I used. It made for a perfect, almost abstract structure. I noticed that quite often after I have been playing with an image I end up with a structure comparable with what you see here. It must mean something. Anyway, enjoy.

Slow
It’s been awhile since I last wrote. Busy, busy, busy. Time seems to fly, even more so the older you get. It’s time to focus again, to pay attention to what happens around you, to step out of the rat-race. Because before you know, life is over. And you haven’t lived the way you should. You should be aware of things, pay attention to them, be more zen-like. It’s what the “slow movement” advocates. Slow down life’s pace, don’t be rushed anymore, don’t let your life be dictated by time but control it. For instance, there’s a slow food movement which proposes using honest products, taking time preparing them (which may take hours) and then eating the meal which again may take hours. Bottomline is, pay attention to what you do and enjoy it. It’s an advice I will try to follow in 2007. It’s one of my good intentions. I mean I will not eat for hours at a time, but I will try to live “slower”, more attentive, less with deadlines.