“Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.” – Thomas Mann
Photos: click for larger sample
Experimenting with the 6x17 format
Regular 2x3 format
Experimenting with 4x5 format
Experimenting with 6x17 format
Failure to fall within the 6x17 format
Experimenting with 6x17 format
Regular 2x3 format
Regular 2x3 format
Back in August I sold one of my lenses to fund a new one and last week it finally arrived: the Zeiss 35mm F1.4 Distagon. The lens is quite special. Not bitingly sharp wide open and also not very contrasty. But from F2.8 onwards, this changes drastically. As such this lens has the attributes of a portrait lens (lower contrast at wide apertures is good for people’s faces) ánd a landscape lens at smaller apertures.
Included in this post are some samples.The first one is taken at a lake in Kessel-Lo, the others are from a short stay in Rixensart this weekend.
Handheld wide open landscape shot
Farmers' golf (?)
In the hotel
Wall painting
Unedited picture of me
Biting contrast and colors
Elements
Contrast and colors again
At the end of August, the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) organized their 6th annual conference in Reykjavik. Perhaps partly due to the exotic location, the conference was a huge success with approximately 2500 participants. One of those was me, presenting a formal model on the role of oversight committees in closed rule legislation.
Reykjavik itself is quite small. Too small for a city trip. However, it functions quite well as a base to discover the rest of the island that is Iceland. I only got to take one tour, which I wouldn’t recommend, but other conference participants were able to see very different landscapes, ranging from glaciers to hot springs. Nonetheless, Reykjavik is a great place to spend a day. Maybe my sensitivity to them is due to my trip to Cologne (Köln) with Karolien for Libelle, but the great number of trendy concept stores surprised me.
Below you can find some pictures that I think convey the feeling of being in Reykjavik. I mostly used my Zeiss 100mm F2 to capture the town’s great variety of colors (that are unfortunately best displayed in ProPhotoRGB, not in the web’s sRGB). An added bonus of this lens is the incredibly low level of distortion that could otherwise make an image such as the red wall with white window much less powerful.
An academic on his way to the conference
A Mondriaan in the making
Where the twain have met in 1986
Uplifting Reykjavik
A very nice church
Preparing for the Winter
A typical window in the city center
Icelandic conversations
Streetview
Continuity
Saturday April 2, I got up early to document a morning at a farm in Limburg. These farmers have held cows for decades, but anticipating their retirement, they will let them go the following summer and focus on growing crops for the next few years.
Every morning of every day of every week of every year of every decade, they get up to milk the cows in the morning and they have to be back home in the evening to milk them again. Even considering the challenging physical labor, this is what makes me respect farmers the most: how inescapable their job is.
Below you can find a series of pictures that tell the story of that morning. Last blog post I talked about my technique and the gear I used for it. Three main lenses were used: the Carl Zeiss 35mm f2 and 100mm f2, and the the Canon 50mm f1.2. I had to include the 50mm since farmers get up very early, and thus low light was a serious issue. The f1.2 aperture sucked in the light: the first picture of the series shows more detail than I could see with my own eyes. The Zeiss lenses were a little too slow to use from the beginning. They have faster lenses in their lens gamma that must be amazing for my style of photography, such as the 35mm f1.4 but I do not own them. As soon as light permitted, I switched my Canon out for the Zeiss’ ones.
Rise and shine
Cleaning out the milk area
Cleaning out the stables
Prepping
Send in the cows
Milk machines
Still early
He's a craftsman
Enormous amounts of cleaning on a farm
Still early
Four helping hands
Cleaning
Cats
After cleaning: check up on the cows
More cleaning
Taking care of his guests
Euhm ... cleaning again
... and again
She looked like a cow
Hurrying, always
Taking out the horse
Like a dove amongst the crows
Prepping the food
Portrait of a queen
Finished feeding the cows
Dear reader,
As some of you know, I went to Stanford University for three months last year. It is with great pleasure that I remember going to San Francisco on the weekends. Yesterday I made a book containing what I consider my best photographs taken during those weekends. You can preview it virtually (even though most browsers show a strange color cast to the black and white picture, but tests show this is effectively absent in print), comment on it and even order it if you like.
The last week I went to Zürich for a conference called PEIO. Because of the brutal time schedule, I got to see almost no daylight, except in the two pictures below. Fortunately, the talks inside were (almost) as exciting as I expect(ed) Zürich to be.
This Saturday I went to Antwerp. My girlfriend works for Libelle, Flander’s most popular women’s weekly. They organized a winter fair and even though I liked the atmosphere, Antwerp drew me out to its city center. Walking around, taking pictures and listening to music. I almost felt back in San Francisco.
WinterFair
Libelle WinterFair in Antwerp's harbor
Antwerp's Harbor
Old vs New
Beauty
De Stip (part of a television show)
Jolly
I took a walk down memory lane the other day. It feels as if I haven’t been there in decades.
My parents' place
What Overpelt is built around
Across the street: where I attended both preschool and high school
Where I spent a lot of time waiting
Primary school
Primary school (bis)
Here I spent every Wednesday evening and Saturday morning
I’ve been quite busy. At work, but also at photography. Two weekends ago I had my first wedding as the prime photographer and I truly enjoyed it. Of course it would be unwise to put the pictures on the Net before showing them to the bride and groom, so you’ll have to wait some time for a selection on this blog.
This week Karolien and I took a couple of days off and combined this with last weekend to flee to Paris. Despite France’s known chronic illness (strikes) plaguing our train back, we completely enjoyed it. Some pictures can be found below (click them for a larger version).
Complete triumph
Great view
Chaperoned
Bubble in Paris
Is that Amy Winehouse?
Saying goodbye 80's style
Paris à deux
This one has a very Brooklyn kind of feel
Resting
Finding our way
Not usually into these things, I truly enjoyed this evening
The next day you're out
Bridge
Pont des Arts
INCREDIBLY lit!
The Louvre at night
Where I chose to do "something with economics" several years back
Yesterday the final day of the Beleuvenissen took place. This is an event on four Fridays where musicians come to play on several stages. Yesterday I went to see Buscemi and Vaya Con Dios. Because I was quite tired I only took my 50mm lens with me, limiting me in the range of possible pictures. I only have the three below to show you. As usual, you can click them for a larger version.
During Buscemi
During Vaya Con Dios
During Vaya Con Dios
|
