Category: Photography

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.

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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.

Fandango's Friday Flashback • February 14

Andy Warhol's Lines

Fandango’s Friday Flashback • February 14. I’ve not been a blogger nearly long enough to be able to go a year back. So this re-post of ‘Andy Warhol’s lines’ on #FFF is from October 14, that I wrote for Becky B.‘s Lines and Squares challenge.

Andy Warhol’s lines • Becky’s Lines & Squares #14

Andy Warhol’s lines

Andy Warhol's lines

Here’s my entry to Becky’s Lines & Squares Challenge, Oct. 14, which is sparked by Victoria C. Slotto’s post Warhol-Pop Art in Words. A wonderful explanation and tribute to one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He’s up there with Edward Hopper and Tamara de Lempicka. Of these three, he’s truly the one who democratized art. Mostly just by idolizing ‘household brands’.

The Whitney Museum of Modern Arts wrote the following on this piece:

Green Coca-Cola Bottles was created the year that Andy Warhol developed his pioneering silkscreen technique, which allowed him to produce his paintings through a mechanical process that paralleled his use of mass culture subjects. Here, the image of a single Coca-Cola bottle is repeated in regular rows, seven high by sixteen across, above the company’s logo. The repetitive imagery and standardized format evokes the look of mechanical reproduction, but the black outlines were probably stamped by hand from a single carved woodblock onto green areas printed in a grid pattern. This engenders subtle differences in the work’s pattern; each of the bottles differs in both the evenness of the green underpainting and in the clarity of its stamped profile. The bottles are also often slightly askew, disturbing the overall regularity of the grid and making them appear simultaneously handmade and individualized, streamlined and mass-produced. In his deadpan and ironic way, Warhol at once criticized and glorified the consumerist idols and surface values of America’s media-saturated postwar culture. “A Coke is a Coke,” he explained, “and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking.”

If you’d like to see more of my entries to Becky’s Lines & Squares challenges, just click here, here, here or here.

I hope you like this tribute on Fandango’s Flashback Friday.

Abandoned • Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge

Abandoned bicycle

Abandoned • Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge is my entry for this week’s episode of this challenge. A.k.a. Bicycles, Tricycles, Motorcycles, Unicycles. But I’d like to put this into a somewhat different context. That the recession is well past us is something we all know. Consumption is on the rise…still. Especially the consumption of durable consumption goods (see the table at the end of this post for instance). Here’s the thing though: I’ve often wondered whether this is a good sign. Since most ‘markets’, especially those for durable consumer goods, are saturated.

What can this mean?

Which means basically that for every purchase of something new, something old gets discarded. And it shows. Bicycles, motorcycles, HiFi’s, even cars are abandoned unceremoniously in the streets. Around the problem of illegally dumped bicycles in the Netherlands I’ve already written a short post. To show that abandoned old and tired consumer durables is however a real and global problem see for instance the below photos.

Abandoned stuff

Abandoned Honda • CB&W
Abandoned motorcycle, Cadaquès, Catalunia, Spain. Photographed February 6, 2020.
Abandoned vintage radio • CB&W
Abandoned Philips vintage radio. Photographed in The Hague, January 9, 2020.
Abandoned toilet • CB&W
Abandoned toilet, Cadaquès, Catalunia, Spain. Photographed February 4, 2020.
Discarded bicycle • CB&W
Discarded bicycle. Photographed in The Hague, January 7, 2020

I’ve got tons more of these pictures taken in the streets of Amsterdam, The Hague, Cairo. I’ll be posting these off and on.

What do I hope to accomplish with this post?

So…what do I hope to accomplish with this post to a select, presumably higher than averagely educated audience such as you? Well for starters, T H I N K if you really need that new piece of stuff before you acquire it. And I’m sure that you do, because don’t we all love new toys? So when you do buy that new shiny toy you/we so desperately need, T H I N K what you will do with your old one. Make sure it’s being recycled? Give it a new life by giving it away to a second hand shop? Whatever, as long as you do not abandon it without giving it any thought. We’re drowning in enough shit as it is…

Here’s the promised table:

Source: CBS (Central Bureau of Statistics). This table reflects just the consumption in the Netherlands.

Cry for Action • Tuesday Photo Challenge

Action Lead • Tuesday Photo Challenge

Cry for Action • Tuesday Photo Challenge is my submission into Dutch goes the Photo challenge – Action. Ive taken a slight slant on the word ‘action’. I was walking around the city of Rotterdam at the end of January. What was unavoidably to notice was the cry for some action of shopkeepers in their (losing?) battle against online sales.

Action7 • Tuesday Photo Challenge
Action6 • Tuesday Photo Challenge.jpeg

Two things surprised me:
1. the variety of outlets. While my impression was that clothing stores were having to resort to these tactics, what I saw was electronics stores all the way to a jewelry store aggressively discounting their wares.
2. the use of the English language. But I guess it’s a bit more chic to use another language…

Took these photos with a Leica V-LUX 2. I haven’t tweaked or color corrected them in post!

For my previous submissions in Tuesday Photo Challenge, click on Fantasy, Peace, Glow, Mist, Common, Moroccan Portal, Psychedelic Ride or the Queen of Lazy Mischief.

Spanish Doors • Thursday Doors

Spanish doors 5• Thursday Doors

‘Spanish Doors’ is the entry for February 13, 2020 Thursday Doors. Hosted by Norm 2.0.

The past 10 days were spent in Cadaquès, Spain where I encountered one illustrious door after another. So not to overload this post with all the remarkable doors I found in this wonderful, ex-hippie village, here’s roughly the first third of this little paradise for door aficionados. I’ve limited this week’s entry to the blue doors that are so characteristic of Catalunia.

Spanish doors lead• Thursday Doors

Hardly any door is on the same level, due to the rather rocky terrain.

Spanish doors 1• Thursday Doors

Spanish doors 9• Thursday Doors
Spanish doors 6• Thursday Doors
Spanish doors 10• Thursday Doors

So far this blue Spanish Doors episode. Next week I’ll post the 2nd batch…

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.

Siesta Windows • Monday Window 3 February

Siesta windows • Monday Window 3 February

Siesta Windows is my entry in Ludwig Keck’s challenge Monday Window 3 February.

Siesta windows • Monday Window 3 February
Siesta windows • Monday Window 3 February

Photo taken on the village square of Cadaques, Spain.

For my previous Monday Window click here.

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

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