In the middle of Breda, the „Grote Kerk”, the big church, is the eye-catching, 15th century piece of history of the town center. Living close to Breda myself, it felt like being a tourist in my own town, capturing the church and the view from above at dusk.




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My sons friend has always been intrigued by hunting with birds. He was now hosting a special species: an eagle. I took the opportunity to portrait that giant bird (wings ranging to two meters!).
See for yourself what is strange about the first image?





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Tags: bird

Antwerp harbor is not on top the mind to go to to view beautiful scenery. Or should it be? Judge for yourself!



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Tags: Industry, Industrial, antwerp, Harbor

Let me share some experementational work with you: colorful macro work. The images below were quite fun to produce, and inspired by a lesson of Bill Fortney at Kelby Training. When thinking of macro photography, one almost instantly thinks of flowers and insects. But there is more. Why not making use of a simple piece of kitchen equipment, a grater, available in every household. Some piece of cloth and a little bit of light lead to the following results.

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Tags: grater, Colorful, Colors, Pattern, repetition, repeating, macro, details, Small

Autumn is perhaps the most exciting time for a photographer, particularly when living close to woods as I do in Ulvenhout, near Breda (Netherlands). Colorful compositions everywhere!

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Venice is an amazing city, as millions of tourists experience every year. Wandering around through this city of canals, bridges and old quaint houses, one can find surprises after every street corner (and there are many!). I’ve tried to capture the beauty of this Italian city in the early morning, in particular the combination of colors.

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Tags: Venice, City, Italy, canal, color, colorful, vintage, old, water

Prinsjesdag (English: Prince's Day) is the day on which the reigning monarch of the Netherlands (currently Queen Beatrix) addresses a joint session of the Dutch Senate and House of Representatives in the Ridderzaal or Hall of Knights in The Hague. The Speech from the Throne (Dutch: Troonrede) sets out the main features of government policy for the coming parliamentary session. Traditionally, the Golden Carriage is used yearly to bear the Dutch monarch from the Noordeinde Palace to the Ridderzaal. Crowds gather along the route to get a glimpse of the Queen. Below, you can see Princess Maxima.

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Tags: maxima, princess, golden carriage queen royal

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision looks after, and provides access to 70% of the Dutch audio-visual heritage. In total, around 700,000 hours of television, radio, music and film, making Sound and Vision one of the largest audiovisual archives in Europe. Sound and Vision is the business archive of the national broadcasting corporations, a cultural heritage institute (providing access to students and the general public) and also a museum for its visitors. The Institute is settled, since 2006, in a award-winning landmark building in Hilversum with huge colorful glass walls. Photographing is allowed everywhere in building, a rare phenomenon for photographers. There is a group in Flickr, albeit a small one, centered on the building of the Institute. I fortunately had the chance to dwell along the corridors of the building, which are normally closed for public. Here’s my contribution.

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The Dutch car DAF was a very typical and special car, using a stepless, fully automatic transmission: Variomatic. A colleague of mine is collecting these old-timers, specifically one model, DAF 66. Do not make the mistake to think these are old, and therefore slow cars. The blue one shown beneath is equipped with a Renault Turbo engine and its top speed is above 200 km/hour (!).

As a present for my colleague, I took photos of his collection (three cars) and used Photoshop to change the backgrounds.

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Each year, a major equestrian event is being organized in Breda, The Netherlands. Participants in all kinds of equestrian disciplines are doing their utmost during four days. Horse jumping and eventing are by far the most spectacular parts of the contest. Here is an impression.

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Schiedam, close to Rotterdam, has a famous historical center with large emphasis on the craft of making gin. Still, some of the old factories remain active. I was given the opportunity to visit one and make a series of images. These were shot in the distillery of Herman Jansen, where the „Geneva” gin is made that is sold under the brand name Notaris.

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There are many famous locations in Rome. You probably know them. Warm, stuffed with tourists. Not many people know how beautiful these locations are in the very early morning, with the sun just woken up. This blog is meant to provide all of the long sleeping visitors of Rome with a view of Rome in the early morning (-.

1. Castel Sant’Angelo, a symmetrical view. This image is also added to my gallery with symmetries.

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Tags: Rome, City, tourism

Coming back to Rome, here are some night shots of both the Vatican and Castel Sant’Angelo. I’ve also added these images to my gallery of night shots.

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Tags: Rome, night

As already written in my post on the Colors of Rome, the main reason for traveling to that marvelous city was a wedding that I was asked to photograph. The setting was magnificent, as well as (almost of course) the weather: a beautiful bright and sunny, warm day at a villa that will play a role in Woody Allens next movie (he was there one week later).
After a wedding day, the photographic result is a bunch of images (in this case about 400). The selection shown below is only a tiny part of the whole, but I think fairly representative.

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Tags: marriage, Rome, wedding, Happy, family, portraits, ceremony

Rim light can add just the element needed to make a nice portrait a good one. What you need is sunlight (basically at any time of the day), some location that can provide you with a dark background and good positioning of the models. Then, it’s all about finding the right balance between the rim light (no overcast) and the subject. These portraits are examples of me finding the rim light.

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Tags: rim, light, portraits, Photography

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend a couple of days in Rome, just for photography. The main reason was that I was invited to photograph a wedding (pictures in progress), but I also had some extra days in this beautiful city. One of my favorite activities is waling in cities very early in the morning. Not much people around and, even more important, beautiful light. I have made lots of pictures, and this is my first series: the Colours of Rome.

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Tags: Rome, Cityscape, City, Roman, Italy, colourful

Again, colorful details some very tiny flowers.

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The Guggenheim Museum in New York is one of the famous buildings in the Big Apple. When being there, it is not very hard to see why. Corridors are spiraling upwards, stuffed with beautiful art. There is one disadvantage, however: photography is completely forbidden inside the building, with one exception: from the public entrance below. These are some of the images I’ve made.

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Portrait of a family, with separate pictures of the children.

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The end of en era: after many years of photographing hockey games where my daughter played, that period came to an end yesterday. Here are some of the images.

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Tags: Hockey, zwartwit, zwart-wit, breda, MA1

One of the parents of two pairs of brothers were going to get married. The brothers wanted to express their new family ties with a picture of them altogether. I was asked to make portraits of them, and here you can see some of the results.

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Today, I was asked to give a speech to graduating photography students in Breda, my hometown. They have been following photography courses for three years, and, by graduating, from now on have to find their own photography-way in the future. I was asked to share my experiences on the question: how can one continuously find inspiration and organise feedback?See more images ...

A collegue of mine just gave birth to a baby, a little boy. She came by to say hello, and of course, some portrait pictures were taken. Here you see some of them.

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Tags: baby

Just returned from a week staying in New York, let me share some views (mostly from the top) on this amazing city.

A view on Central Park:

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Tags: New York, cityscape, view

And again, trying to grab the colors of little flowers. This is the culprit of a small, black violin flower.

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Tags: flowers, closeup, macro, colorful

As a present for their fathers birthday, a brother and sister asked me to make portraits of them. Here are some of the results.

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I have just acquired a new macro-lens, which is astonishingly sharp. These are very tiny flowers in our own garden, so see for yourself.

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Tags: blue

The center of Breda, Netherlands, is an interesting one because of lots of new architecture. It’s also a place to be for shooting protraits, in my opinion. Please find some examples here.


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When recently travelling to San Francisco, I had the opportunity to visit the Dutch consulate, which is located at the 32th floor of a building. Nice view! The images however did need quite some Photoshop work, as the mirroring of the window (had to photograph from behind glass, of course) had to be cleared. Here are the results in black and white.

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Tags: San Francisco, USA, cityscape

Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles is many miles long. Suddenly, having walked by already a couple of times, I saw this almost ideal subject for HDR: the House of Blues in Los Angeles.

Judge for yourself whether I’m right or not (-.

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Luzern was hosting a conference that I attended last week. The weather was not that good, but here’s an impression from this small Swiss town.



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The Ruhr area in Western Germany has been transformed fundamentally since the closure of the mines. The Zollverein World Heritage Site – also known as “the world’s most beautiful coal mine” – today the most famous industrial monument and centre of the creative industry in the Ruhr area (this according to the website). It is indeed a magnificent place to be as a photographer, although I must warn you if you are planning to go there. You can stroll around freely on the large area, but to go inside the buildings you have to join a guided tour. I have done so, but I learned that there are also guided photography tours. So if you plan to go there, you’d best see when these tours take place.

Well, on to photography now. I have made some series of the following objects.

Firstly, the Ruhr Museum. The museum incorporates an impressive stairhouse, dark and beautifully orange lit.

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Tags: Industry, coal mines, Germany, Zollverein

In Oudenbosch, in the Netherlands, there is something strange. A replica of St Peter’s cathedral (at least, that’s how it’s being called)has been built in the middle of the small village. It is the Basilica for Agatha and Barbara. An ideal place for playing with the fisheye lens, and for HDR. These are a couple of shots taken.

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Tags: HDR, Fisheye

This weekend I had the opportunity to photograph one of the historical remaining craftmanships in the Netherlands: a small distillery in Dordrecht, named Rutte. Shop and small factory are combined in one building, and the whole space breaths history. The interior was very suitable for using the HDR-technique, and also for using my newly bought Fisheye lens. Spaces were small, so I had to use a very wide angle lens.
This is a selection of the images.

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