Would you go to a city, which you've never visited before, and lock yourself up in a building for one week and then go back to where you came from?
I have participated in a project called Blinded Tourist. Visual artist Mariëlle Videler was in charge as she was intensively involved in the project which lasted for eight days inside the art gallery called W139.
Check out an old blogpost of mine about this gallery.
Four artists, who were chosen out of 59, have never been to Amsterdam and will not see Amsterdam in reality but will experience their whole trip through visitors of W139 and the reporters. I was one of the reporters and took pictures around the city of subjects which were requested by the artists.
Part of the expo including my work (hanging pictures).
Davide Savorani (Italy) wanted to see me in my house. The picture in this picture was taken in my bathroom... :)
And this is the paper house (paper and wood) where they spent the nights. Inside, there's only a mattress...(and of course their personal belongings, like clothing, a suitcase, etc.)
On friday, april 2nd, it's the opening of a new exposition called: Doktor Faustus. And this picture shows a secret preview of the expo...
Lily Donaldson on the set with four wind machines while her daddy, Matthew Donaldson, sat behind the extremely high tech camera called Phantom Gold HD (with a price tag that says $ 118.000,-(!!!!!!!!!))
Only 2 seconds were recorded, but everything was slowed down to a 1000 frames per second.
Okay. I keep apologizing everytime I post something new on the blog. But...I can't help it: sorrry!! Again. For the lack of updating this website. I have been (again) extremely busy! After graduating college, I am busier than ever with planning my future, working 3,4 jobs (now it's only 2) and say hello to friends and family every now and then. I have even thought about closing this blog because I thought I would never have the time again to post something new. Ridiculous huh?
Today I've found something worth to mention: Jacques Mag
And I just think it's such a coincidence, because not only does this magazine carries my family name, the editor in chief is called Danielle. And also, the whole magazine represents my interests: photography, and...these wonderful creatures.
The Sports issue trailer: Squash.
I wish it was my mag because it looks sooo good! I'm going to ask my favorite magazine store Athenaeum (Amsterdam) if they sell it. Probably not... Perhaps I should apply for a job as an editor or photographer for the magazine...
Click here to read the interview with the Editor in Chief of Jacques Mag: Danielle Luft.
Meet M. (my Boss of the company I'm now working for...). This (unfortunately a little bit overexposed...) pic was taken during our walk with her dogs in a park near her house. In the background you can see Tabor...trying to bark his tennisball back out of the water...
Me and M. at least have one thing in common: our love for vintage camera's...!! These camera's right here were a few of the 58 camera's in total which she bought for only €120,-!!!! How insane is that??
Suit (a Danish brand) is one of the Scandinavian brand's she's dealing with. It's also one of my favorite brands because almost everything of the mens collection is just really cool! This good looking sequin sweater is one of the main pieces of the new season (from the women's collection of course).
I'm not too sure about my future at this company because I'm thinking of going back to school next year; The School of Photography. Either somewhere here in The Netherlands or in Sweden; Göteborg to be exact. Or, I'm just going to stay the autodidact that I am, travel all over the world and just seize the day.
I don't even want to blog about this because I didn't win the price...
But...I'm an optimistic loser so I always see the bright side of negativity. Yes!
47 images were placed on the walls of the long hallway at Winston Hotel. I really appreciate all the work they've done to all these pictures. I like the paper golden frame. :)
Unfortunately, together with five other pictures, my picture was shown on the part of the wall with no light at all (OF COURSE. I'm always f****d.)...so I had to take this picture with flash.
The founders and organizers of the Drang competition. Announcing THE WINNER........ at the end of the small hallway.
You can see my picture and the other ones until the 28th of november at Winston Hotel.
Or you can just contact me and I'll show you the original picture on medium format and plus, I'll buy you a cup of coffee and we can have a talk about life and our favorite-things-to-do.
A few posts ago, I told you something about my photography career. Well, it's official, so I can tell you all about it: I've been nominated for the Frans Verlinden Artprize 2009 for my work 'Garance Doré in FOAM'.
I won't win the price (which is a midweek to Berlin in an apartment, right in the heart of the city!) because the work of the other 46 (!!) nominees is just amaaazingly beautiful.
But still, I feel flattered. Many thanks to Kiki, for letting me know about the existence of this competition.
So, if you're in Amsterdam on this date...please come to Winston and check out the work of all the nominees. :)
I became a proud father of three new (old) babies.
Lately, I've been into film photography. It all started with the interest in buying a Rolleiflex earlier this year. Unfortunately, those vintage camera's are now highly sought after and the prices are ridiculously, extreeemely, enooormously high: depending on the type of model and their condition (mint condition or almost falling apart-condition), prices range from around $100,- on ebay to...$6,699 dollars when buying a new (remake) one! If you're really really lucky, you can get the original one on markets, second hand (electronic) shops (somewhere on this planet) for a very cheap price. I've been studying different type of analogue camera's...and there are way too many great ones. As you already know, I have an old (dated from 1957) Yashica-B camera and last week, I've bought another film camera on ebay:
Rollei 35s (1976?)
Rollei 35s; the smallest ever 135 film, full frame (35mm) camera ever built. And it's fully mechanical, which means that you don't need a battery to take a picture. :) (Perhaps this one needs to get checked because there's something about the shutter speed.....just some extra info for all you camera-geeks out there.)
I was looking for an old Olympus Pen EE after reading a lot of good reviews on the net. Also, many magazines (on- and offline) are talking about the latest camera hype Olympus E-P1. So, I wanted to know about the history of the PEN-series. And that's how I got to know about this classic one:
Olympus Pen EE What I like about this camera, is the fact it's a half frame camera. You can make diptych pictures with it. Click on the lovely word to see some examples of it. :) It's just two pictures in one. (I have to find out which year this one was built. Probably around 1960's.)
Olympus Trip 35 (Gotta decode the serial number to find out in which year this one was built!)
Yesterday, I've bought some film for this baby, right here. This one is almost fully automatic, which I don't really like because I like to have control over the whole process of taking pictures. It's a 'point and shoot' camera. The only settings you have to do are ASA (iso of filmroll) and choose focus range of four positions (1 person, 2 people, 3 people, mountain, which equates to 1m, 1.5m, 3m and infinity (persons and mountain aren't shown in this picture...hehehe)) When shooting flash, it's possible to adjust aperture from f/2.8 'till f/22. Got it off marktplaats.nl. It's like ebay.
There are two (actually, there are more expo's at the moment!) very interesting expositions at FOAM museum in Amsterdam. One is, of course, the Garance Doré Fashion Blog expo (will post a picture of her posing for me, very soon! ish.). And the other one is the expo of Italian photographer Massimo Vitali oh my, oh my! With his Deardorff 11 inch x 14 inch camera he shoots in public places like beaches and touristic destinations with large groups of people. The photo's are being scaled to a larger size so that you can see the details of what's occuring during that particular moment.
If you click on the link, you can hear the sound of the beach.....so peaceful. Just put it on while you're laying on bed...so nice. Or just go to his portfolio...and check out the 3rd picture in particular...you can check out that picture in an extremely larger scale!! I don't have many readers from Amsterdam. But when you're in the city...you should go to FOAM! (FOAM should pay me because of this promotional post.)
Here are my personal beach pics which I've taken a few weeks ago in Bloemendaal. :)
Massimo Vitali WANNABE pic.
I gotcha! This birdie knew I wanted to take a pic and tried to escape from being caught on camera...but I got him on time. Ha-ha.
She came to Amsterdam for business (just hanging out with her colleagues and get payed for it...) and invited me to the fashionshow of BB's SS 2010 collection which was held in the Westerunie. To be honest, I just wanted to go to the afterparty and have a dance with Miriam and all the other models, wannabe's and other bloggers whom I recommended Miriam to invite to this party. Unfortunately I didn't see one of 'em. Too bad because, despite the fashionshow was 'so and so' (in Holland we say: 'Mwah'), the party was quite fun. Free booze.
Here's the low quality amateur-ish promotional video of the party with Dutch model Doutzen Kroes. (I don't think it's an official promo-video though...hehehe. It's in Dutch by the way!)
Some shots of the night! Waiting 'till the fashionshow starts
This was not the runway! Dancers standing one floor up, entertaining the people during the short breaks.
Fotografen
I didn't take any pics of the models during the fashionshow because I was standing too far away from the stage. At the end, I sneaked a little closer, accidentally stepped on someone's shoe, apologized and took this pic.
I did take a pic of Doutzen Kroes when she was walking the runway at the end. But it only shows her bum (I was too late...). If I would get at least a 100 comments of people (probably guys) who wanna see the pic, I'll then post it up.
And then it was time to parrrty. Free booze.
My dates for the night: living doll T. (please, click on the T!!) and lovely L.
For all you photography lovers out there, here´s a small selection of black & white pics made with the antique camera. These were all shot with an expired Kodak Tri-X 400 film.
If my folks would knew this...they would probably block my bank account.
But I live on my own, am (extremely) old and (very, very) wise enough to calculate the amount of money on my bank account before investing in luxury needs and the daily primary needs like grocery shopping.
I´ve been thinking of getting an antique TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) camera like a Rolleiflex. But after doing research, I´ve found out there were a lot of different models. One of ´m is the Yashica.
I found this baby on the weekly bookmarket in Amsterdam on Art Square ´t Spui. Definitely one of my favorite spots in Amsterdam.
I couldn´t believe my eyes, because the day before I did research about TLR camera´s...alllll day long. What a coincidence.
The Yashica B (1957!) came with the extremely rare (green!) box, a yellow filter, a leatherbag (leather from the outside, and sexy red silk from the inside) with a small bag attached to it (for the yellow filter). And there was another tiny leather bag, for the lightmeter!
Viewfinder. When making a picture, you have to place the camera against your belly and look through the lens from above.
Mystery: When it´s rainy, all the cars get stuck in traffic. When it´s sunny, it´s overly crowded everywhere: bars / cafés, parks, squares, etc. (Don´t all those people have to be at work or in school...?)
Secret: Have you ever heard of the Indian Rain Dance? It´s a dancing ceremony, performed by Native American Indians, asking their Gods or Spirits to send rain.
I have the power to summon rain as well, just like the Indians. The only difference is: - it has to be in a rainy period (of course, I can´t summon rain in the middle of a sunny day) - I only have to show up outside. There´s no dancing involved.
The Rain Man During a rainy period, when I am going outside, it starts to rain. Whenever I go either inside or when I take my umbrella with me, it stops. As for the umbrellas I take with me, they all work like a magic-stick / rain preventing stick. They can make the rain go away.
It started when I was in High School. It probably had something to do with the fact that my then favorite Basketball player was Shawn Kemp. They call him ´The Reign Man´. I wanted to be just like him. And now I sorta am...because I am ´The Rain Man´.
- An extremely rare view when I´m holding my magic stick (that sounded quite dirty...) on a rainy day -
- Passion Pit - Seaweed Song - Manners - In The Man Who Knew Too Much style...an exclusive new beautiful song which really suits this post well, by Passion Pit
Another bummer in my life: I accidentally deleted almost all of my pictures on my external harddisk from december 2008 until Queen´s Day (April 30th) 2009.
Maybe I should start making pictures with a Polaroid and / or Fuji Instax camera´s... Or just analogue camera´s like the one I really would love to own at the moment: Yashica Mat 124 (or a Rolleiflex!).
Fortunately, this picture was one of a few ones ones that survived the delete-session. - My ex-neighbour, Rolf, and his friend Aysan (London) posing while selling old stuff on the streets. -
This beautiful Fuji Instax picture was taken by a lady / customer while strolling through the busy streets of de Pijp in Amsterdam, during Queen´s Day...searching for beautiful and antique, cheap ass stuff. Aysan asked the lady if she could take a photo of her and Rolf...I find it such a perfect picture, I had to take of pic of it!
Why am I being punished all the time? Maybe I´m just being clumsy.
One more image, shot by Richard Avedon. Taken by me at Foam museum in Amsterdam. :)
I took this one when I visited the exposition for the second time...with Evelyn! And despite the very small print, this one of Twiggy & Richard Avedon together in a studio in Paris (shot in april 1967) definitely is one of my favorites!
- Richard Avedon, self portrait, august 20th, 1980 -
My apologies for the lack of posts. This week has been quite hectic for me already and it's only wednesday! And it's going to be more hectic this weekend! I'll tell you more about it, later this week. Or maybe even next week!
- And of course, another bike picture. :) -
So, I haven't made any fresh & interesting pics lately, but hopefully I will have lots of cool pics for my lovely, loyal readers (you) after this busy weekend. I also notice the decreasing numbers of visits of my blog, everytime I haven't posted anything new....(oh noooo!). So therefore, I'll post some 'older' pics (which were taken between februari and somewhere middle march), instead of letting you wait a whole week for a new post.
- I forgot the name of this person...such a shame, because I really like this portrait! Taken, sneakily, at FOAM Museum -
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