Nomination on Instagram

Ik ben op Instagram genomineerd als #orangewednesday_best door 'Colors of the week'. Samen met nog twee andere foto's is de mijne vandaag blijkbaar goed in de smaak gevallen. Ik doe al een tijd mee met deze hashtag, het blijft leuk om kleuren te fotograferen. Zie hier de andere foto's.
De foto is genomen met mijn iPhone, gewoon in mijn straat op een zomeravond.

orange paint and long shadows

I was nominated on Instagram as #orangewednesday_best by 'Colors of the week.' Together with two other images mine evidently was liked very much.  I have followed this hashtag for a while now, it still is a lot of fun to capture colours. Look here for the other entries.
The photo was taken with my iPhone, just in my street on a Summer's eve.

In the shop with art supplies

Ik was met mijn oudste nichtje even naar de "hele mooie winkel waar ze fantastische spullen hebben" geweest deze zaterdag in Zwolle. "Je wil het liefst de winkel leegkopen", had ik ook nog gehoord. Ik had geen idee wat me te wachten stond, maar daar aangekomen bleek het een winkel in kunstbenodigdheden te zijn. En inderdaad, ik wilde het liefst de hele winkel leegkopen. Dat kon natuurlijk niet, dan maar een paar speciale stiften en een foto van gekleurde lijsten.

I went with my eldest niece to the "very beautiful shop where they have fantastic stuff" last Saturday in Zwolle. "You want to buy the whole shop", I also heard saying. I had no idea what to expect, but after arriving it turned out to be a shop with art supplies. And yes indeed, I did want to buy the whole shop. But of course that was impossible, so I bought a few special markers and took this shot of colored frames.

Red computer cable

Vandaag liep ik een lege kantoorkamer binnen en werd ik getroffen door dit simpele beeld: een rode computerkabel op de grond. Als je het uitspreekt kun je denken "nah, wordt je daar nu door getroffen?" Maar het heeft voor mij te maken met de kleur rood, de vorm waarin de kabel ligt en de textuur van de vloer. Prachtig!

I walked into an empty office space today and was struck by this simple image: a red computer cable on the floor. If ou say the words out loud you might think "naw, were you stopped by that?" But for me is about the colour red, the way the cable lies on the ground and the texture of the floor. Wonderful!

Awesome Autumn colours

Autumn, it is one of my favourite seasons. Nature starts to withdraw itself and is getting ready for a long hibernation which comes along with awesome colours. And they are really awe-some as in breathtakingly beautiful. I stand in awe as I look at them. Here is a collection of images taken during the past three weeks.

 

Colour in space

I enjoyed shooting colour so much a few weeks ago that I decided to repeat that exercise. What I realized after publishing that post is that the story was more about colour in space as opposed as just colour. Just colour would be filling the image as much as possible while this and last time my perceptions were actually more about colour appearing in a certain space or on a surface. 

yellow and green trashcan

orange dinghy

pink bicycle basket

poppy

yellow door window

Shooting colour

I shot colour today, I forgot how happy that made me. Colour is one of the first assignments in Miksang Contemplative photography, it's pure and simple. I got this idea of shooting colour again by looking at one of the other practitioners photos on her Flickr stream. I was like "wow, yeah, I forgot about that, let's pick it up again." Below are a few examples of what I saw during a short walk into town.

Venice: our costumes

And then finally: our costumes! I took tons of photos and this is just a quick selection.

photo by Steffenie

Like I said before, I just took an old frock from the closet because I didn't feel like making a new one. Making a new costume involves a lot of time, work and money and I wanted to spend that on other things. I did buy a new mask this time at a local mask shop: it was handmade and hand painted.

photo taken by a passer-by

My friend Veronie however (far left on the picture above) would love to go to the carnival of Venice each year and each year in a new costume. She and Peter came up with their theme for this year: the dandy. They are dandies with a twist of course, the fabrics and pattern of their costume is far from being dandyish.

me in front of our doorbells

I didn't expect to fit in with their crazy costumes, but looking back at the pictures in the apartment we realized that my costume combined quite well actually with the others. The red of the other ladies is overwhelming and my yellow outfit completed the red and the green costumes. And even though my costume is from a totally different design, the first thing people saw was the bright colours.

the other three in front of our apartment building

Of course we went to Caffè Florian on San Marco square,  it is thè place to be and be seen. On the first occasion we were lucky enough to have seats next to the window. Lots of people outside were gathering in front of the windows to have a peak at us and the other costumed inside Florian.

me and my friend Peter in caffè Florian

me and a costumed couple in caffè Florian

on the bridge at the wall of the Arsenale

"Hello, who's calling please?"

Peter and I at the waterfront

posing in a little park

posing on Fondamente degli Schiavoni

On our third costumed day I took my DSLR out and the others posed for me, a photo shoot meant for ourselves. We looked for pretty and funny places for the shoot. The photo above and below are two of many photos I took that day.

covered platform shoes

Peter in front of a delicatessen

Peter is wearing the mask that is called the Moretta or Muta, it is actually a mask meant for women (as seen in the paintings of Pietro Longhi). It is an oval black mask which was highly appreciated by nobel women. Muta means mute: the mask has no laces to be bound but a button placed inside it to be held in the mouth. So women were mute indeed: they couldn't speak until they really wanted to and thus created an aura of mystery. Contradicted to what it might seem, the Moretta gave women a great degree of independence in deciding who they wanted to talk to and to start a relationship with.

posing for others

Walking around in a costume during carnival in Venice usually means lots of posing. We heard lots of outcries like "bellisima" and "originale". Of course that made our hearts beat faster, but after two days of barely being able to put one foot in front of the other, I hung up my costume and put on my normal incognito clothes.
I can recommend this to anyone with a slight depression: if ever you feel low and it happens to be carnival season, put on a fantastic costume and parade around Venice. You'll feel like a star!

Yoga and Art (Yoku): Ready for Winter II

participant working with soft chalk

Last Thursday I went to another session of Yoku (yoga and art). This time the theme was 'Getting ready for Winter II'. I missed part I because that was in my week off and I was staying with my parents at the time. Apparently they worked on form drawing, something I am not familiar with but which sounded like fun.

chalk on her hands

Session II of 'Getting ready for Winter' was about how you guard your limits versus how you open yourself and letting things in. The yoga session was focused on hip openers.

open and closed

My drawing on the top in this image is what represents openness for me: no hard boundaries, depth, flexibility, no straight lines but vage curves, I am going somewhere. The drawing on the bottom represents closedness: to me that came as an image of a fence: "stop, no further". When we talked about it afterwards, I realized that all the "have-to's" are enclosed in this drawing and my free endeavors are in the first. Then again, a fence or gate also has its advantages: there can be wild animals behind it and then you are protected by it.

fellow participants drawing

In the picture above you see my three drawings of the evening together: top right about openness, middle right about closedness and left the two combined. One participant commented that my drawings of openness and closedness could also be switched around, because there is a lot of open space in the latter. Rationally I could see her point, but it didn't feel like that for me.

 

our lovely teachers Vir and Rosanne

As usual we shared our stories with each other and looked at each other's work. I still find that so fascinating and inspiring. One drawing is so different from the other and then all the stories behind them!

I am quite happy with my final work: I like the graphical look of it and the bright colours. This image came to me bit by bit and not in one vision. There were not a lot of thoughts involved and I can't explain much of it. At one point I saw a sunset in the sea, but that evolved into something else. The green line represents (I think, but this is an afterthought) how your life can lead to a certain point and from there can go a totally different direction than what you ever imaged. Does that make any sense?