As already mentioned in my previous blog on Ceilings in Istanbul, this city is a true candy drum for photographers. If you are looking for symmetries, as I often am, the sky seems to be the limit over there. Please see below for some examples of symmetrical structures in this beautiful city in Turkey.

1. Rustem Pasha Mosque. This mosque is famous for its large quantities of exquisite İznik tiles, set in a very wide variety of beautiful floral and geometric designs.

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I just visited Istanbul for the first time. That city really is a kind of candy drum for photographers. It is so full of photographic opportunities, that it is hard to make a selection of what images to show. I’ll start with a series of ceilings, as it is well worth to stretch your neck when visiting palaces and mosques. The patters and colors are fabulous! Let’s see some.

1. Süleymaniye Mosque. Finished in 1558, so already over 450 years old.

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London has a marvelous collection of beautiful train stations. When visiting the capital of the UK, I had the opportunity to make pictures in Paddington Station, Kings Cross and St Pancras. All of these have huge structures, combining old and very modern. Moreover, I was lucky to be allowed to use my tripod in Kings Cross, so I could make full use of my wide angle lens by making panoramas of this immense space.

1. Kings Cross


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Tags: train, london

I was given the opportunity to work with my wide angle lens in the local hospital, the Amphia in Breda, Netherlands, which is one of the largest Dutch hospitals. See the results below.

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Besides my city photography, I like making portraits. Sometimes a whole day long, see my post on the wedding I shot in Rome. Lately, I have been making some new ones, which I would like to share with you.


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As you’ve read in my previous post about the British Museum, I was able to spend some time in London lately. That really is a marvelous city to walk around with your camera. For this trip, I brought two lenses: a normal one and my wide angle tilt-shift. Before leaving, I thought I’d use the normal one mostly, and the wide angle just now and then. To my own surprise, 80% of my images were shot with the wide angle. That also goes for the images below, showing the richness in color of London at night.

1. Millennium bridge leading to St Paul’s cathedral

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When visiting London last week, I was struck by the fabulous court of the British Museum. A small window on the third floor allowed me to take this picture, using my wide angle tilt-shift lens because of the immense space that had to be captured. So this image below actually is a blending of three separate images. I’ve added this image to my gallery of symmetries.



On the site of the British Museum the following is written about this court: „The courtyard had been a lost space since 1857. The re-design of the Great Court meant that this hidden space could be seen again. The design of the Great Court was loosely based on Foster’s concept for the roof of the Reichstag in Berlin, Germany. A key aspect of the design was that with every step in the Great Court the vista changed and allowed the visitor a new view on their surroundings. Work on the Great Court's magnificent glass and steel roof began in September 1999. The canopy was designed and installed by computer. It was constructed out of 3,312 panes of glass, no two of which are the same.
At two acres, the Great Court increased public space in the Museum by forty per cent, allowing visitors to move freely around the main floor for the first time in 150 years.”See more images ...

Sometimes you have flowers that keep yelling: make a picture! This poppy is one of those, a beautifully shaped explosion of color.


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Tags: poppy, flower

When driving through the state of Montana for the first time in life, it’s an almost surrealistic experience. An endless road seems to lead you from nothing to nowhere, and then, suddenly, you find yourself in the remains of the Wild West, which could easily be the decor of an old movie. The following images should illustrate what I mean.

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Last week I reached the milestone of 1000 images for sale at Shutterstock. I thought this might be a reason to share my experiences and learnings with sales at microstock sites (like Shutterstock, iStockphoto, and Dreamstime). Let me do that by answering five questions I often am asked when speaking about microstock photography.

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Tags: microstock, shutterstock

As regular visitors of my site may have noticed, I have reorganized the content. The homepage puts the focus on the galleries, this blog has moved to the back and I have added a page on my commercial photographic work. There are still three galleries, but the number of images is now limited to 20 photos per gallery. Hope you like the new organization of the site!

I have also placed some new photos in the galleries. All of the images were made with an ultra wide angle lens.

1: Breda by night (in Cities at dusk)


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Our natural way of looking is forward. Photographers add many ways to that natural one: always look back, and when appropriate, look upwards! I was in the „Grote Kerk” in Breda and composed an image out of three separate ones (second image of this post). When doing so, I thought of the other shots I made when looking upward, and will share some images in this post. Let’s start with „an oldie” of mine: the stair house in a former post office in Breda.


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Tags: church, dome, ceiling

Antwerp Central Station is by many regarded as the finest example of railway architecture in Belgium. The original station building was constructed between 1895 and 1905 as a replacement for the original terminus of the Brussels-Mechelen-Antwerp Railway. In 2007 a large-scale reconstruction work was completed to convert the station from a terminus to a through station, with now has four levels and 14 tracks.
This station is an ideal candidate to further explore the creative possibilities of the wide angle tilt-shift lens. As mentioned in my previous post, this lens allows a photographer to make panorama images very easily while preserving the perspective at all times. This is the first example: the main hall of the station (composed of three images).

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Tags: antwerp, central station

In Oudenbosch, in the Netherlands, a small replica of St Peters cathedral has been built in the middle of the small village. It is the Basilica for Agatha and Barbara, the construction started in 1865 and the building fits sixteen times in St Peters cathedral. It is a very quiet place, with not too many people in the church. An ideal place, of course, to try out a new tilt-shift lens that I acquired this week. The concept of a tilt-shift lens, an ideal tool for architecture photography, is well explained in this article.
Tilt-shift lenses make life easy when you want to make a panorama photo by stitching two or more images together. The first two images below are composed of two photos each.

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Exploring Amsterdam takes time, with so many canals and views. Dutch photographers, like me, are very privileged to find such a beautiful city nearby. The fall season just gives it an extra touch of beauty.

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