Branko’s Weblog

Taken at the Louis Braillelaan in Zoetermeer, the World Trade Center in Amsterdam, and on the Amstelveenseweg in Amsterdam respectively.

A law should be passed that prohibits people from entering Dutch cities through their main railway stations, because more often than not your first impression will be of a barren wasteland where horrid things go to die. (Which, by the way, really fantastic! if you are into that sort of thing.)

This, for instance, is Zoetermeer, a name that translates to Sweeter Lake.

(”Kantoor te huur” means “office for rent.”)

A 20 kilometre hike today from Naarden, a town known better for the way it looks from the air than from the ground, to Muiden, where count Floris V had a castle built, only to see it used as a prison for himself by his enemies. The finish line was in Weesp, an unassuming town known to historians for the quality of its drinking water, and to me for having a railway station.

In case you are wondering, I did take photos of the fortifications of Naarden but, as I said, from the ground… And I also took pictures of Floris V’s castle, but those just did not make the cut. Here are the ones that did:

What you see in the last picture is the entrance to the harbour of Muiden.

Buitenveldert is a neighbourhood in the South of Amsterdam, and it is there where I photographed these buildings, except for the last one which is across from the RAI, right next to where the last two buildings in this set used to stand.

I tried to experiment with lines and shapes, but that did not work out as much as I had hoped. Nevertheless there were a couple of photos I liked.

I unscrewed the lens from my Praktika L, screwed it on top of my EOS 1000D’s body, and took the contraption to the Amsterdamse Bos to practice. First thing I noticed that in full sunlight and with a wide open aperture, I had to set the exposure time to the fastest setting, 1/4000th second, to avoid large areas of pure white in the photo. Another thing, which I had noticed in tests before, is that everything that is out of focus gets a very dirty sheen about it, as if I had smeared grease on the lens. Great kit for wedding photos I guess, :-) but does anybody know if this is normal for fast lenses?

A wide-angle shot of the water under the bridge effect can be seen here, taken two years ago during the Summer.

Bought me some flowers and a vase.

Near Nieuwe Meer:

Sky, trees:

Ruins:

Would you please leash your dog? Please please please, pretty please?

A better camera does not make a better photographer. I knew that going in, yet when I produced photos with my new DSLR (a Canon EOS 1000D) that were just as bad as those taken with my trusty Canon A620, a digital pocket camera… Well, I had to swallow for a bit. Pride mostly.

But I had decided to treat myself, and so I did. One of the things that irritated me about the pocket camera is how much light it needed to get anything done, and in this respect the new camera is clearly better. I especially like how my trees now have frilly branches instead of a sort of blue aura. Also the macro shots come out nice and crisp, even though they’re a horror to get in focus.

Today was the first sunny day since I bought the camera last weekend, a good time therefore for an outdoors test run. My regular route to the Amstel park leads past the Zuidas, an area in which lots of high-rises are being built, and in the park there are always grateful models in the shape of very tame ducks, chickens, pheasants and peacocks.

Taken two weeks ago, looking West along the Herengracht in Amsterdam standing on the Vijzelstraat bridge, when the ice on the canals started thawing. When I took the picture I thought the lights would add something, now I think they are a dissonant element. The view can be breathtaking early in the morning when the direct sunlight picks up all the whites and beiges in the gables, but I’ve never had my camera with me at that hour.