duck stories          

Ducks are everywhere. Even the cities are full of them. Wherever there's water,you will find them. 

I love to capture ducks outside their natural habitat and make up stories about them.

"you sure this is where the pool party is?"

"yep, that's what the invitation said..."

"well, there's not a bird in sight, you must've got it wrong!" 

"(sigh...) why is it always my fault....!"

"never mind... wanna go grab a snack?"

natural monochrome

Today Paige Baicer posted about how photographs of natural scenery (often in winter) sometimes turn out almost black and white, with hardly any color in them.

I browsed through my recent work and found these examples of almost monochrome scenes

The only color here is provided by the beaks and legs of the seagulls standing on the grey ice waiting for who knows what....

This was taken on another day, with a more purple/pink shine in the air. There is only a faint brownish coloring in the chunk of ice covering the dark branches

Taken the same day, here the color is almost completely gone, faded to a soft pinkish grey veil covering the frozen lake. 

how far i've come
Yesterday's shutter sister post was a celebration of the community of female photographers and the way we all have gained confidence in our photography over the last couple of years.


It made me think of my first ever (primitive, 4 megapixel) digital camera, a present from my sweetheart in 2006, and i dug up one of the photographs i took with it. I put it next to one of my more recent images of the same subject, taken with my Olympus PEN (12,5 megapixel, 126 pages manual, tele zoom lens)

I cropped and slightly tweaked both images in aperture, and am really amazed at how much i have progressed and developed on my photographic journey, but at the same time have stayed true to my vision.

I have always been fascinated by the reeds and rushes in and around the water, the changing of their colors and shapes and the way they bend in the wind and form a kind of see-through curtain with the background shimmering through.

In these past years my way of capturing that fascination, of framing what moves me, has improved enormously. Of course using an expensive high end camera helps with the technical quality of the image. But for the depth and expressiveness in my photography, for the way i am now able to pour my vision into my images, i am deeply indebted to all my shutter sisters.

Depth of field, blur and sharpness

My camera is usually on aperture priority and i tend to favor the largest possible lens opening (with my Olympus tele zoom this is somewhere between 4:0 and 6:3). I move in very close to my subject so i can separate it from the background and achieve maximum depth of field. This results in a very crisp and sharp focused subject against an extremely blurry background. Like in this close up of a reed plume, bending in the wind 

Today i decided to divert from this path and move back a bit, thereby allowing more plumes to show in the foreground and more detail to show in the background. As a result the foreground turned out less crisp, more blurry and unsharp. A while ago i would have discarded this image, but now i think it has a lot more depth and context than the first one, specifically because of the subtle unsharpness of the plumes and their repetition in blurry rows in the background. This gives the image a sense of movement, and makes it more expressive/dynamic.


this image is linked to the Creative Exchange 

capturing the unexpected
shooting what catches my eye


Today's shutter sister post is about looking forward to the photographs that lay waiting for you, the stories that need to be told, the images that kind of sneak up on you and say: hey, capture me! After my daily trek with the dogs i browsed through all the photographs I had taken and found these unexpected treasures

The sun was bright and lit up these plumes against a backdrop of dark branches so they looked made of silver. A close up from another angle had a completely different effect.

Even though the sun was shining it was very cold outside. I drove my scooter over the last remnants of ice on the path, breaking it up and creating the most beautiful ice-scapes. 

Same day, same place, completely different subject, color and story.

the weekend

todays shutter sisters post is about the comfort and joy of the weekend

here is my attempt at capturing the essence of my weekend in just one shot

sitting at my table, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper
enjoying the light coming in through the french doors and the way it accentuates the shapes and colors around me
quietly gazing at the reflections in my stainless steel cofffecup

Ice texture

The lake had been frozen for a week or more and now it was slowly melting.
Big thick shelves and gravel-like chunks of ice were colliding and accumulating, resulting in an eerie, almost monochrome, alien landscape. 
I spent ages just gazing at it before getting out my camera.

another hero

Yesterday C and I met up with our friend Gon Buurman, a great people photographer (especially women) and a real hero.
We went to the Cobra Museum of modern art to see 'Klee and Cobra, a child's play'

While catching up in the museum's restaurant I took this shot of her. 
It shows a lot of her strength, humor, courage and gentleness. 
She is a great person to have as a friend.

heroes

When I was out with the dogs today I saw the fire brigade diving under the ice in the river. After getting home I grabbed my Olympus and went back and asked them if I could take some shots. They didn't mind so I spent about 15 minutes capturing them during one of their trial runs, getting someone out from under the ice and transporting them back to safety. They worked with great focus but also had a lot of fun. They looked like heroes. It feels good to know they will come running when you need them.