Staring at the sun going up and down

It snowed again. I know I can't complain. Compared to North East of North America, the snow in Belgium is livable. Although it also disrupts our lives, I'm happy that I don't have to live with a meter and more snow. So taking the risk of sounding like a spoiled little brad: I want spring and I want warmth. Like I wrote in the colors of fall our almost gone I'm not made for winter. So I'm not going to write about that. I'm going to write about the one thing I know we all miss. And even though we might se her once and a while. It's not the same. I'm going the write about the sun. And not just the sun, no, it's going to be about the most beautiful thing the sun can do. It's going to be about the sunset and sunrise.

The sunrise makes us aware that a new day is coming. With that new day, there are new chances and new beginnings. In spring and definitely in summer, seeing the sunrise is for the early birds. But I know, when travelling, it's something that is well worth coming out of bed for. The end of the day is not that hard to watch. You don't have to climb out of bed with puffy eyes and a bad mood to be able to see the sunset. But it doesn't change the fact it's still worth it. Being a traveler I had the chance to see a lot of beautiful sunrises and sunsets. I hiked to special places to watch her go down, I woke up way to early to see her coming up. I saw the strongest and toughest man watching the sun go up or down with a childlike stare. I saw couples make up a fight and falling back in love because of it. The sunrise and sunset is a gift of nature. It's free and accessible for everybody.

I love the colors that go together with a sunset or sunrise. The sky gets pink and purple or orange and fiery red. It's like you give a child a chance to color the sky in his favorite colors. Sometimes the colors are so bright you think it's not even possible. But it seems that in nature everything is possible. A thing that is harder to do is taking a beautiful photo of the sunset or sunrise. Because the differences in light it's hard to get a good balance. With a digital camera you have a setting just to photograph sunsets or sunrises. That setting brings out the colors of the sky but because of the closing times being longer it might be a blurry picture. You can use the auto settings, I did before I got passionate with photography, and in most cases it gives the best effect. The photos I'm going to show are from my travels with a digital camera on the auto settings. No shame there...

Sunset, Cottesloe beach, Perth WA

Sunset, On a ferry coming back from Rottnest Island, WA. 

Sunset, Badlands NP, USA

Sunset, Yellowstone NP, USA

Sunset, Key West, USA

Sunset Arches NP, USA

Sunrise, Canyonlands NP, USA

Sunrise, Grand Canyon NP, USA

Sunset, San Diego, USA

Sunrise, Grand Canyon NP, USA

Sunrise, Monument Valley, USA

Sunset, on a cruise to the Bahamas, USA


Enjoy Photography

Caroline

Market day

I love going to markets. Every weekend there is a market in Antwerp. The market is full of different cultures and there is a good mix of market stalls. I have a few favorite stalls where I love buying produce that are not yet in the supermarkets. I should go more often but there is always something else to do.  So I was very happy when my photo group went to the market in September. It was a special thing to do taking photos from a place a know so well. Since I was a little girl the market has changed a lot. New cultures added new stalls where you can get the best Turkish and Moroccan food. The aromas from those stalls mixed in with the more traditional stalls, give you the feeling that you are travelling but then in your own city.

With a camera in my hand I looked at things differently. The colors of the fruit and vegetables popped against the concrete surface. People carrying bags and bags full of food. There is a buzz on the market that I wanted to caption in my photos. Everybody is doing something. I felt an outsider looking in a magical world of buying and selling. You stand still when everybody around you is moving. It was a very fun experience. I was happy going back in November together with some people of my group. It was still an overwhelming sensation even though I knew what to expect.

The first time I want the sky was dull and the second time the sun was out. Every time I shoot in black and white. Some of the photos I want to show I changed it back to color. This way the beautiful colors of the fruit and vegetables are visible and the give something extra to the photo. I played a little with one photo in Photoshop. I added some color on a black and white photo. All of the photos except one is shot with my ISO on 200. On the sunny day my diaphragm was F/10 and on the first day my diaphragm was F/8. Closing times vary depended on the amount of light I had. So here they are, my photos.

Enjoy Photography


Caroline  

Look up to the ceiling

When I'm out and look around me I see people walking while looking at their feet. It's like everybody is ashamed of something. A lot of times I do the same thing. Strolling with my eyes on my feet. An excuse can be that I don't want to stumble and fall. I'm known to do that. But on a flat surface in a mall for example, that excuse is not going to fly high. People these days don't want to make eye contact, I think. Hiding there real selves, not wanting to be vulnerable. It is really hard to put ourselves out there. Opening up will give us the chance to have an amazing experience but it means allowing us to be hurt too. And nobody wants to be hurt. So that is why we all miss out. It's safer to protect our souls and look at our feet then to put it all out in the open and see what happens.

Well I suggest that we look at the ceiling as a next step to recovery. The floor is just a floor. In most cases damaged from all the feet that walked over it. But the ceiling is different. The ceiling is not damaged. The ceiling is in grand classic buildings and modern new buildings a beautiful feature. And we all miss out on it because we are looking at our feet. And yes, your shoes are beautiful too but do you want to look at them all the time? OK maybe when there Louboutins or Jimmy Shoo however I can't afford them. So lets look at the ceiling... .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Enjoy Photography

Caroline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Paintings, photos and philosophy

My mom is a painter. She follows art school for 6 years now. For that she needs to go to museums and learn about art and art history.  I decided to go with her when the art school had a trip planned to Den Haag. So last Sunday we went to Mark Rothko in the municipality museum of Den Haag. It was so much larger then we thought it would be. Mark Rothko didn't do it for me. I was more inspired by his philosophy about painting then his paintings itself. He wanted to philosophize in his art work not in words. So although he wrote a book he never published it, because he didn't want that his paintings were the illustrations of his philosophy. His paintings are the philosophy. This is, for me, a better and more beautiful way of saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words'.

I agree, in a lot of ways. I write this blog. And I use words in my blog. I try to use words just to set the tone or mood for the theme I have chosen. I use words to tell what I have learned and how I see things. But the most important thing in this blog are my photo's. Without my words it all still works, you see the photo's and you can guess what I want to say. But will you 100% know what I was going for. Some dark night photo's might make the blog dark and depressed, with words I can turn that around and make it about the little lights in the photo's. Without my photo's and just the words, it might still work but it would feel unfinished. So used in the correct way words and images belong together. And although a picture is worth a thousand words, without the words it's just a guess.

I said it was a large museum (massive is better way to describe it). So after we saw Mark Rothko, we went to see the other exhibitions. Those I liked better. The paintings were more meaning full to me. Some where new paintings some where old and considered classics. But all of them, painted more abstract or more 'photographic', where more inspirational for my photography. The composition was more important and so was the lighting in the painting. You could tell with these canvasses that painting was the first medium that people used to show how something looked like. And the way of doing that is still relevant to paintings and photography today. Next to paintings there were exhibitions of romantic fashion, pottery and the world famous Delfts Bleu which is native to Holland.

As always I took photo's of the things I like and also of the things I didn't like just to show what I mean. In the Rothko exhibition there were photo's of him working in his studio, I liked them a lot. So I show you these too. I didn't mark them, there are images of paintings and other things in the exhibition, so not my personal inspired photo's. So here we go, the finishing touch of this blog, the photo's.

The last Mondriaan.

Mark Rothko in the beginning.

The last Mark Rothko.

Mark Rothko creating.

Mark Rothko at work.

Mark Rothko thinking.

Mark Rothko reminiscing.

Some pottery, it was very sexual inspired.

Romantic fashion. I do like the white and bleu one.

Two classic paintings.

Three newer paintings, I love the second one. It would make a
beautiful portrait.

Pottery

Delfts bleu

Delfts bleu on a mirror, I like the reflection.




Enjoy Photography

Caroline