Month: February 2020

Michael Wolf Windows • Monday Window, 24 February

Michael Wolf window 2 • Monday Window

Michael Wolf Windows is my entry in Ludwig Keck’s challenge Monday Window 24 February. The late Michael Wolf was a German photographer who lived for 8 years or so in Hong Kong, working as a photographer for Stern Magazine. According to Wikipedia Wolf has stated said that a decline in the magazine industry led to photojournalism assignments becoming ‘stupid and boring’ and from 2003 he decided to work only on fine-art photography projects.

Architecture of Density

One of these projects was called Architecture of Density. The photos below show you why.

Michael Wolf window 2 • Monday Window
Michael Wolf window 1 • Monday Window
Michael Wolf window 4 • Monday Window
Michael Wolf window 6 • Monday Window
Michael Wolf window 5 • Monday Window
Michael Wolf window 1 • Monday Window

‘The Back Door of Hong Kong’

One of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the world, Hong Kong has an overall density of nearly 6,700 people per square kilometer. The majority of its citizens live in flats in high-rise buildings. In Architecture of Density, Wolf investigates these vibrant city blocks, finding mesmerizing abstractions in the buildings’ facades. He called it in one of his last interviews semi-lovingly ‘The Back Door of Hong Kong’. I, having spent enough time in Hong Kong, not so lovingly just dubbed this after him. Michael Wolf Windows.

Obviously, these are photographs that I took of his giant photographs on display in the KunstMuseum in The Hague (back in 2018). The first thing that struck me is the lifelessness of this body of work. The second thing that is clearly noticeable is that this work is almost devoid of perspective.

For my previous Monday Window click here.

Click below to see what fellow Monday Window bloggers cooked up.

monday window-badge-2

What are you reading then? • The Really You!

The really you
The really me

Rory, a.k.a. A Guy Called Bloke, in his The Really You series this time wants to know ‘what are you reading then?’ Among two other things. Here’s the Q & A:

Q: What are you reading then?

Currently a wide array of books (fiction, but mostly non-fiction), short stories, blog posts and the like. Newspapers I only read on weekends. And two Dutch monthly magazines featuring short stories and excerpts novels.

When it comes to books I’m currently halfway through ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck‘ by a blogger called Mark Manson. Quite entertaining. I’ve been known to live up to this…at least to the second part of Manson’s title. Have to work on the ‘subtle” part though…according to someone who’s quite dear to me. But hey, I’m only halfway through the book.

Another lovely book is Most people are decent by Rutger Bregman. Which subtitle translates into A new history of the human being. If you’ve never heard of him, please click the link.
I’m trying to improve my writing and am currently also reading Stephen King’s On Writing and a book by one of Holland’s renowned novelists Renate Dorrestein which title translates into something like Under the bonnet of writing.
Furthermore I dip in and out books for – and some by – Parkinson patients. Especially the mental effects. I deliberate dip in and out of them since PD is already noticeably present a lot of the time.
But currently I’m engrossed in Susan Sontag’s Illness as a metaphor / Aids and its metaphors.

Q: What prompts you to respond to prompts?

I mostly responds to photo-prompts. They need to trigger something really in order for me to go out and shoot photos with that prompt in mind, or go look through my old photos. A few prompts that have captured my attention to do so are Monday Window, Thursday Doors, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Tuesday Photo Challenge and of course Cee’s Photo Challenges. Writing challenges just are not my thing to participate in them, although I love to read them.

I tend to be rather wordy, which makes my writing less suitable for a blog post. A comment on a blog post I received is that posts are rather superficial and tend not to have a long shelf-life.

Q: What is your favoured style of writing-genre?

Don’t have one really. As long as it’s well written, offers me new ‘things’ or a perspective on things I’m game.
Oh, I generally hate self-help books. Be it physical or spiritual self-help.

Narrow • Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #84

narrow • octopus • Lens-Artists

In the #84 edition of the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge the glove that Amy has thrown us is to find something ‘Narrow’. Streets in Southern Europe sprang to mind, but a quick browse through the entrees into this challenge revealed it’s been done.

I’m not sure if this qualifies as narrow. It does makes sense in Dutch though…

Narrow • eels intertwined • lens-artists
Narrow • Octopus • lens-artists

Narrow they are, at least in Dutch, as well as original. At least I never saw eels and an octopus on display in a museum before. I hope you saw them first on this #84 Lens-Artists Photo Challenge.

You can find more entries in photo challenges here.

Salvador Dali's Doors • Thursday Doors

‘Salvador Dali’s Doors’ is the entry for February 20, 2020 Thursday Doors. Hosted by Norm 2.0.

Last week I posted some blue doors that I encountered in Cadaquès, Catalunia, Spain. This week’s post is centered around the doors of Salvador Dali’s house there.

Salvador Dali's doors 1 • Thursday Doors
Museum entrance door

Fortunately I was able to capture these doors in the patina they’re in. I was told by the foreman of the crew doing renovations the doors would be painted blue again.

Salvador Dali's doors 3 • Thursday Doors-2
The official front door of his house

Don’t you just love this patina?

Salvador Dali's Doors • Thursday Doors
The door of the ticket office

To put everything into a bit of context, here are two photos of the house.

Salvador Dali's House 1 • Thursday Doors
Salvadore Dali's house 2 • 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.

Numbers on a Jaguar C-type • Tuesday Photo Challenge

Numbers on Jaguar side • Tuesday Photo Challenge lead picture

Numbers on a Jaguar C-type• Tuesday Photo Challenge is my submission into Dutch goes the Photo challenge – Numbers. What you see in this photo is a rare, street legal Jaguar C-type racer en face. Complete with the license plate numbers.

Numbers on Jaguar front • Tuesday Photo Challenge full

This historic beauty had just come into the shop for its regular maintenance and a much needed tune-up after its latest adventure. The 90th anniversary edition of the famous (notorious might be a better word) Mille Miglia.

The Mille Miglia

This thousand mile race (as its name says in Italian) ran from 1927 to 1957. After it was resumed in 1977, the “Mille Miglia” has been reborn as a regularity race for classic and vintage cars. Participation is limited to cars, produced no later than 1957, which had attended (or were registered to) the original race.

Mille-Miglia-Arrow

The route (Brescia–Rome round trip) is similar to that of the original race, maintaining the point of departure/arrival in Viale Venezia in Brescia.

Numbers on a Jaguar C-type

This particular Jaguar had entered the Mile Miglia twice in recent years. As the stickers on the side say the 2011 edition, as well as the 2017 special 90th anniversary edition. Judging by its starting number of 468, the car was seen as a somewhat serious contender. From 1949, cars were assigned numbers according to their start time. For example, the 1955 Moss/Jenkinson car (which won the race that very year), #722, left Brescia at 07:22. While the first cars had started at 21:00 the previous day. In the early days of the race even winners needed 16 hours or more, so most competitors had to start before midnight and arrived after dusk – if at all. (Source: Wikipedia)

Numbers on Jaguar side • Tuesday Photo Challenge full

The cockpit

The cockpit-like interior shows that racing this C-type was anything but relaxing. Try to imagine racing it for more than 16 hours straight on Italian roads.

The C-type interior • Tuesday Photo Challenge

While the seat looks somewhat comfortable, I can assure you its not. It even lacks a headrest.

I took these photos in the shop of Kooij Cars in the Hague with a Nikon Coolpix D500. Minor colour editing in post with Apple Photos.

For my previous submission in Tuesday Photo Challenge, click here.

Insane51 Berlin Mural • Monday Mural

Berlin Mural • Monday Mural 16:9

Insane51 Berlin Mural • Monday Mural.

We found this mural at the foot of the Oberbaumbrücke in Berlin.

Berlin Mural • Monday Mural

With the help of scooj (https://scooj.org/ and see his comment below) the artist is a Greek by the name Insane51. It is kind of a 3D mural, with a blue lens you get to see the woman, with a red lens her skeleton.

Sami then pointed this YouTube video out:

Insane51 Berlin Mural

That also led me to his video of how he makes his art:

How Insane51 works…

Discovered on December 3, 2018. Entry in Sami’s challenge February 17. For more of my entries, see for instance this.

All-in-all I find this ‘collaboration’ of an Insane51 fan for this Monday Mural post truly great!