No Source of Light • #JanuaryLight Entry into the JanuaryLight challenge by Becky B. of Winchester for Jan. 27.
It was a particularly bleak morning last week in Rotterdam, with no apparent source of light.
For a peek at my previous submission in this challenge, click here. Or simply use the menu on the side.
Theater Light • #JanuaryLight is my next entry into Becky B of Winchester’s January Lights challenge.
Today I visited a performance called Monet and the Blue Angel in the Kunstmuseum in The Hague. Of note was the background made of pieces of a reflecting material onto which colored light is projected.
The story is about Claude Monet’s moments of doubt and pain after his wife has died and the critics tore his work to shreds. It caused a three year long dry spell in which he produced virtually nothing.
With the help of his daughter-in-law, Blanche Monet, he rose to the challenge and stuck with his genre of impressionism, while his contemporaries (ao Kadinsky and Willem de Kooning) had moved on to abstract expressionism.
For my previous entry into this #JanuaryLight challenge,click here.
Reflection • Photo for the Week #52 is my entry into this weekly challenge by Brashley Photography.
A bit of a dichotomy in terms of reflections: in the left fender of this gorgeous E-Type V12 Coupe the reflection of barren trees. On top of the right fender that of the signage of the workshop.
Reflection of the skylight of the workshop, as well as self in the trunk lid of a Mark III.
More reflections of the skylight. This time captured on the hood of a Jaguar street racer in for a tune up after it had participated in the Mille Miglia street race.
Reflection of the sun in the door style of an 4.2 liter E-Type Coupe. And a shadow of self.
So much for this Photo for the Week entry. For more reflections, click here
Fandango’s Friday Flashback • January 24. I’ve not been a blogger nearly long enough to be able to go a year back. So this re-post of ‘Why Do You Blog?’ on #FFF is from December 24, that I wrote for Dr Tanya’s Blogging Insights that she posts regularly on her Salted Caramel blog. Do check it out if you haven’t done so already.
Dr Tanya – in her great blog Salted Caramel – has been running her Blogging Insights series for nearly three months. In this quest she has unearthed a wealth of insights from bloggers, and by keeping this all in-the-public-eye so to speak it can be of tremendous value for bloggers. Not in the least for rookie-bloggers like myself. So far she has fired off 11 salvo’s, or sets if you will, of questions. Some of these are pretty easy to answer. Others require some ‘soul-searching’. Now she has given us, who like myself are pretty new to this form of ‘mental exercise’, the opportunity to catch up with the front-runners.
So here are my answers to the first salvo.
No, I don’t. Primarily because I don’t own my own set up any longer. Although I find hardly any joy in the so-called professional blogs. These seem to be (well-written in some instances, bordering to the hilarious) answers to specific issues. Too limiting in my mind.
Yes and no is my cryptic answer here. To my surprise (or is it really) my blog has very little traction from my real life friends and family. Instead, the vast majority of my visitors are people who I have never physically met. Welcome to those digital new ‘relationships’.
As far as my other social accounts go, it is quite the opposite. I hate Instagram, and am hardly present anymore on Facebook and Twitter other than to draw attention to my blog posts.
Nope. I did not start a blog to earn an extra source of income.
If only… No. To say the opposite would be quite preposterous. I started it as a writing exercise, but got distracted by many of the photo challenges. Now, just shy of six months of blogging, I’m slowly returning more to the writing part of it.
So I’m learning every day, from every post I write and certainly from most of the bloggers that I follow and read everyday.
That is exactly how it all started for me. Two things happened though. Firstly, most of my ‘writings’ are just to blow off steam and a way to come to grips with things. Just to name one of a few: I’ve been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease roughly 15 years ago (I’m just 60 now, so 15 years ago I was one of the youngest PD-patients…just my luck) and coming to grips with this new reality has been (and still is) an arduous journey. Which, so far, I have largely kept to myself and the loving ‘rock’ in my life. While I slowly start posting some of my PD-infused experiences (let’s not exaggerate this, 2 posts as of yet), most of my writing are an outlet to prevent me slipping into self-pity. Therefor strictly personal rants. For now…
Main reason number one is listed above. Main reason number 2 is that I needed something to keep me ‘off the streets’ so to speak. After a long career in advertising, more than 30 years or so, I was finally laid off. My PD had made work impossible and to some extent irresponsible. Not that it wasn’t good work that I was still capable of producing. Some of my finest and most awarded work – two times winner of a Film Grand Prix at the International Cannes Advertising Festival (sorry, but I think I did earn these bragging rights) – was at a stage when my PD really started to kick in to an extent I couldn’t hide it anymore.
So I was suddenly faced with that question that had been troubling me for almost a decade ‘is there life after advertising?’ Is there hope for a one-trick-only-pony who’s too old (the official version) or too ill to still perform?
Only now, with the support of my girlfriend, I can answer this question with a resounding Y E S !
Blogging gives me a sounding board, something where I can ventilate, rant, comment and write without being lambasted or shot down. I find posting, and reading blog posts fun and inspiring and motivating. So thank you all for putting up with me.
If you want to sprint ahead and read my answers to Dr Tanya’s latest set of q’s, click here.
Oldsmobile Light • #JanuaryLight is my next entry into Becky B of Winchester’s January Lights challenge.
Battered and bruised Oldsmobile. My rental for a couple of days. Ran fine, but it used ‘some’ oil judging by the steady white plume of smoke coming from the exhaust. Everything, including the AC, worked. Except for the lights. Any lights. Tail lights, head lights, turn indicators and brake lights. Factory fault said the owner smilingly. To be ‘safe’ after dark I just had to switch on the interior ceiling light and drive slowly. I have always loved pragmatism.
For my previous entry into this #JanuaryLight challenge,click here.
Leading Lines • Lens-Artists Challenge #80. In this week’s edition Tina’s line ‘It’s not so much what you put into your image as it is where you want the viewer’s eye to go and how you get them there’ almost leapt off the page.
Paradoxically, the way (I think) the leading lines in this photo work is that they initially draw the eye to the left, into the direction of ‘Mehr’ (meaning more), the darker side of the photo. Only in the second instance the eye moves to the lighter side of the image. Towards the word “LICHT’, meaning light.
In this photo with a leading lines story there’s no such paradox I think. The eye moves along the clothes line from the darker left side to the lighter right side. Only then it ‘tumbles downward’ into the lake and only then moves to the right.
In this photo the leading lines speak for them self. The eye is drawn towards the center of the photo.
So far for my viewpoint on Leading Lines for Lens-Artists #80. You can find more entries in photo challenges here.
‘Hotel New York Doors’ is the entry for January 23, 2020 Thursday Doors. Hosted by Norm 2.0.
Recently I spent a couple of nights at the Hotel New York in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. This hotel used to be the head office of the Holland America Line. Passengers to New York were waved off and returning passengers were welcomed here.
Strangely enough, none of the entrance doors are located at the front of the building. All are located at both sides of the building.
So far for this Hotel New York Doors entry into Thursday Doors.
You can safely ignore this piece as it’s only here to appease Google and the likes. But if you really want to see my last entry into Thursday Doors, you can find it here.
Ship’s Signal Light • #JanuaryLight is my next entry into Becky B of Winchester’s January Lights challenge.
Lights like these were generally used on the bridge of a ship to send messages in Morse code by opening the ‘blinkers’. This particular light hangs from the ceiling in a hotel room in the Hotel New York in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
You can safely ignore this piece as it’s only here to appease Google and the likes. But if you really want to see my last entry into January Lights, you can find it here.
1963 VW Beetle Window is my entry in Ludwig Keck’s challenge Monday Window.
Took this one off a Facebook group. This 1963 VW Beetle Window made me laugh out loud.
As a reference, the fastest recorded acceleration speed of a production car was clocked for the Porsche 918 Spyder at 2.2 seconds, according to this site.
Click below to see what fellow Monday Window bloggers cooked up.
For more of my entries in Monday Window simply start here.
Fandango’s Friday Flashback • January 17. Thanking whichever God I might believe in I was reminded of this by the WordPress reader. Not having blogged that long, I only have this post to share that dates back to a 17th of a month.
‘On Display’ so to speak is part of Thierry Mugler fabulous haute couture creations in a must-see exhibition in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. For those of you where the mention of the name Thierry Mugler only rings a faint bell in the distance, here’s a brief attempt to refresh those grey cells into working order.
To quote the site in the above link, Thierry Mugler is ‘undeniably artistic figure – visionary couturier, director, photographer and perfumer’. You can find more on this famous couturier here.
I’ll leave you with one more, albeit blurry, photo taken of a film on display in this wonderful exhibition:
Thierry Mugler is on display until March 2020, so if you’re in the neighbourhood…
Especially since Museum Boijmans is closed due to reconstruction.
