Abstraction in winter tones. Spotted on the way to the supermarket: these cable spools dusted with snow made for a nice found abstract.
Rainbow reflections. According to my notes, these are reflections in the Weerwater, the artificial lake near our Almere home. I can't remember what was reflected here, but it did make Explore (#257).
Paris impression. I have to admit, I did not intend this. It only goes to show that not every technical failure is an artistic failure.....
Winter in Holland. Shot from a balcony on the 10th floor near Rotterdam with extreme zoom and very cold hands. Surprised at the many positive reactions on this.
Parallel universe. A study in minimalism: the result of strolling around in the bar of the Amsterdam Movenpick hotel whilst my wife was having business discussions
Order and chaos. A picture I took while walking our spaniel Jazz in the Almere park after a fresh batch of snow. The contrast between the vertical order and horizontal chaos in this group of trees is interesting.
Clockwork. A shot taken in an interior decoration shop in Utrecht. I include it here because of the many positive reactions.
Fabrics. The same interior decoration shop. These strongly coloured curtain samplse make for a nice photograph.
Bottles. Another shot from the interior design shop in Utrecht. Just a few bottles, nicely lined up, never expected this to get as many good comments as it got.
Hurry! Hurry! A candid from our trip to France in the autumn of 2009. I spotted this bride in Paris, running from location to location for her wedding shoot.
Nightmare. Taking photographs of paintings is in my opinion only valid if you add some ingredient. Here I think the inclusion of a spectator facing the full angriness of the depicted figures works rather well. The painting is by Luo Jie, it is titled Angry young men, and was created in 2007. We saw this as part of the Red Storm exhibition in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe. Explored (#401).
Riot of colours. Images with lots of colours usually did well at Flickr, and this is no exception. Shot in the same museum as the previous one, this is not an art installation, but a rack of coat hangers.....
Heads hanging. Once more the same museum, but back to art. The angle makes this a valid interpretation of the art piece.
Morning sun. A pastoral moment in the Almere park. A surprise hit, helped by the pastel colours.
Spiralling. A classic shot of a spiralling staircase, in this case in the castle of Blois, France. Although it scored far more faves than many of my explored images, this one did not make it.
Interior. The same castle, and the floor tiles will have contributed to its popularity.
Transferring. Another Paris metro shot, not much response on Flickr, but one that I'm rather fond of myself.
Dragon's nest. I took this image of chocolate easter eggs in a plastic bag at my brother's home. Although one of my favourite shots of 2010, reactions were lukewarm at best.
Jazz in Paris. A personal favourite for obvious reasons. After we had to let him go in 2017, aged 15, I had this one printed on aluminium and it has been at my desk ever since.
Ladies. A fortunate shot, as I was going for a shot of the girl on the bridge floor, when the second girl walked straight into my frame. Once more, not much reactions on Flickr, but I like it a lot.
Almere tower abstraction. At the time, a new building was completed in the centre of Almere, and I shot a few images that were rather successful. This one was faved a lot, and I have no idea why it did not get to Explore. On the bright side, this was the second shot of mine to be exhibited in public (one of 20 winners of an Almere photography contest).
Morning mood. A walk in the park with Jazz, when I came across this beautiful scene. Like the previous one, dozens of faves, yet no Explore. More importantly though, when we opened our art gallery in Kampen in 2012, our first sale was a print of this shot.
Almere tower abstraction 2. Similar story in all respects to the previous one. I like the pattern of the white plates here.
Paris cross. Back to France, this silhouette shot had good responses at Flickr.
Almere architecture abstraction 42 or so. I seriously lost count by this time. I was also not planning to include this image in the archives, but seeing how many faves it got, I felt I had to.
Paris street in tilt/shift. A shot I took from one of the higher levels of the Printemps in Paris. By applying a tilt/shift effect via an on-line site, the scene appears to be from a miniature world. Many positive reactions.
Surreal window decoration. A shot I could not remember taking at all, when I saw it in the archives. It's a shop window display in Paris, and it was rather popular at Flickr.
Nuts. My pick from a series of squirrel shots I took on a business trip in Houston, where this critter visited the hotel's parking lot.
Hilton. The Houston Hilton is in walking distance of the Marriott, where I usually stayed on these trips. Its architecture makes for interesting photographs, due to the symmetry which is broken on thee top for added effect.
La femme en rouge. Another shot from above while waiting in the Paris Printemps. The splash of red is a frequent feature of my shots.
Ma princesse. A beautiful shot of my beautiful princess with the beautiful city of Paris as backdrop.
Jambesque. A sexy candid on the streets of Paris. Not much reaction on Flickr, but I've always liked this one with its stark contrast.
Reading. A Paris candid, taken at the book stands along the river Seine. Not spectacular, but a shot worth keeping.
Inspired by Kate. Named after a Flickr friend who specialized in square abstracts. This is actually a shot from 2007 that I had never used. Using newly gained insight I cropped and postprocessed to get an abstract that collected a lot of faves. It is actually a reflection of our kitchen's venetian blinds.
Advanced line play. Another shot taken of a new building in the centre of Almere. This one ended my Flickr Explore draught, making it to #379.
A dream within a dream. Another work-up of an older shot from 2007. The reflections of trees in the wet garden table. I processed more than in the past and flipped it upside down.
Candid camera. A Paris candid of a different kind. This shot made me do a double take when I saw it on the computer. These are not his hands but his wife's sitting next to him.....
Capacity audience at the invisible men convention. Another shot with a bit of humour. This one was taken in the centre of Almere. The strong line play makes it an interesting image.
Notre Dame. The type of tourist shot I normally don't go for, but the combination of the light and the sky works pretty well.
Watching the sunset. Yet another Paris candid, at the banks of the Seine. One of the best in the series to my taste.
Escheresque. Funny story this. The popular photography site Photo Tuts Plus had a feature on abstracted architecture in photography. Amongst the 80 examples picked, one was mine (the roof of a Shanghai museum, see the 2009 overview). More importantly, five shots were selected as lead-off illustrations of the five main tips. One of these, illustrating "Find the fantasy" was this shot of mine of a Shanghai high-rise building, first posted to Flickr in 2009. I did not notice it was mine to be honest - it had received no attention whatsoever in 2009 and it had dropped out of my mind. I reposted the shot in 2010 and the faves rolled in.
The Swan. This is the famous Erasmus bridge across the Nieuwe Maas in Rotterdam, nicknamed the Swan. Strong viewpoint, and lots of positive reactions.
Relaxed modelling. Tourist venues (such as Paris' Trocadero with a view of the Eiffel tower) are an ideal spot for candid model shots. Everyone is using cameras and clicking away and all around you people are posing for friends and family.
Paris patterns. This one is all about spotting opportunities. An abstract right in my comfort zone, zooming in on a Paris apartment building decoration. Explored (#260).
Liquid colours. One of many water reflection abstracts in my stream, but this one (shot in Almere) did better than most in terms of reactions and faves.
Peak. Shot while waiting outside a scarves shop where my wife and one of the directors of Shanghai Stories (a high-end fashion chain from Shanghai, for which she did freelance work at the time) were looking around. A detail of a fence with beautiful colours in the bokeh.
Paris patterns 2. Balcones abstracted by turning the image 90 degrees. Of course this works well in black and white to put all emphasis on the lines.
Hand. A mannequin's hand, and once more a colourful bokeh - a winning combination. Shot in Paris near the two preceding images.
Liquid colours 2. Another water reflections abstract shot in Almere. Not a personal favourite, but lots of people faved it.
Flight of fantasy. This is a personal favourite, and also got many positive reactions. I shot this in Barcelona. The combination of pieces peeling off from a wall and their shadows, with extreme post-processsing to create a practically white background, suggests planes in flight.
Ceiling. A shot many people will have taken, the ceiling of the famous Paris Lafayette department store. Still, with dozens of faves, one of my most popular shots of that year.
Still climbing. A candid that I like very much. I shot this elderly couple climbing the castle wall in the Portuguese city of Braganca.
Chaussures. My wife descending the stairs in the Paris Lafayette department store. Bu going for black and white, emphasis is on the spiralling patterns of the stairs.
Braganca castle. A shot of the castle where the earlier candid was taken. Not my usual style, but I include it because it was rather popular, and was used in a Portuguese travel advice site.
Portuguese landscape with farm. Somewhere on the road from Braganca to Porto. Again, not my typical fare, but it is composed pretty well, and is a pleasing landscape shot.
VanGoghesque. One of my favourite water reflection abstracts. I took this one in Amsterdam near my work, whilst walking our spaniel Jazz during the lunch break. By rotating the reflection shot 90 degrees, I created a pattern that reminded me of van Gogh's paintings.
Abstraction in yellow black and blue. Same area of Amsterdam, same occasion. A detail of a bridge with its stunning colour combination.
Cubism. One I am rather pleased with. It started life as a straightforward early morning shot of the buildings I saw every day in Almere across the lake whilst walking our dog in the park (they have featured often in my stream). The I applied a painting like texture and cropped the image so only the reflections of the towers were left.
Yellow River. Back to Amsterdam, I caught this reflection near my working place. Not a personal favourite, but lots of positive reactions.
Abstraction in blue and black. I spotted this sign on a paper towel dispenser in a Portuguese bathroom. Mixing it up with a texture resulted in a special type of abstract.
Freezing. Early December and winter hit Holland hard. This is once more the lake near our Almere home. A tricky shot to look at, because the perspective can be quite ambivalent.
Richteresque. Another study of reflections in the partially frozen lake of the Almere towers that feature so often in my stream. It reminds me of some abstracts by Gerhard Richter.
Winter in the park. A shot of the Almere park near our home that got far more response than I had expected. It does feature nice patterns though.
Save the last dance for me. Our Jazz having fun in the snow with a dog he met in the park. Apart from the obvious nostalgia factor, I include this because it was singled out in an on-line article as a strong use of the triangle in the composition.
Park Lane. The last shot of 2010 to be selected for the archives. The same Almere park, and a quite effective composition.
