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.


See more images ...

Tags: church, dome, ceiling

One of the challenges in the early morning is to find objects able to catch the first sunrays. Below, the lamp post on the inner square of the Royal Palace in Madrid did the job. Please click on „more images” to see the series on Madrid in the early morning.

See more images ...

The offices of the former Dutch brewery „De Drie Hoefijzers” was opened in 1927, 85 years ago. The style was typical and rich, inspired by the School of The Hague and Art Déco. Since last year, this monumental building houses offices for some smaller companies. Both the appearance of the building as the classification, attire and furnishings are intact and preserved as such. The property is one of the rarest examples of rich industrial offices for the 1929 crisis in The Netherlands. It is also important as a historical building, both visually and functionally part of the complex of the brewery. Please find the images below.

The main hall


See more images ...

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.

See more images ...

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:

See more images ...

Tags: New York, cityscape, view

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.

See more images ...

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 (-.

See more images ...

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.



See more images ...

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.

See more images ...

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.

See more images ...

Tags: HDR, Fisheye

During a long weekend in Bruges I have used the opportunity for some experimentation in night photography, and of course using the HDR-technique. The results are shown in the categories `At Night` and `Cityscapes`, but let be comment some images in this blog.

My first example is real night photography. The scenery shown suffered from intense darkness (6.30 AM on an autumn day), so how to make a picture? Manual focus, ISO set to 500, and a shutter speed of 30 seconds. A little bit of noise reduction in adobe camera raw, and the result is a clear picture with the moving red clouds adding quite a spectacular effect.

See more images ...

Producing good HDR pictures may seem easy: take multiple exposures and throw them in Photomatix Pro or another software programme. Ready. Wish it was true. It’s always quite difficult to get exactly the result that you want, in terms of sharpness or sphere. Here is a good example of high level HDR (in my view at least), with a good description of how to work.
Recently, I have experimented further with night shots in HDR. You can find them in Cityscapes, but here are the examples.

1. Night shot of Berlin Dome. Three exposures, after which I used Exposure Fusion in Photomatix Pro (and did some radial blurring to get the effect in the sky)


See more images ...