January 16, 2021

Sailing from Rotterdam to Amsterdam (time-lapse video)

Filed under: Architecture,Film,History,Nature,Photography by Branko Collin @ 4:22 pm

In 2013 Shell had to transport an eight-story metal building from Rotterdam to Amsterdam.

They hired a company called The Timewriters to create a time-lapse video of the transport, which has now been released in glorious 4K format on YouTube, accompanied by a beautiful, if somewhat ill-fitting Dvořák piece.

The day-long journey begins on the Nieuwe Maas river near the Feijenoord neighbourhood in Rotterdam, then goes past Gouda, Alphen aan de Rijn and Schiphol Airport to end in Amsterdam. If it hadn’t been dark by then, you might even have been able to see my house at 9:14.

This is worth watching for the bridges alone.

And then you come back a second time for the places you know and a third time to figure out how and why the Dutch created their environment the way they did.

Also check out the comments on YouTube, lots of insights from people who recognise certain types of trains, planes and places.

(Source: YouTube / The Timewriters)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 1, 2020

24 Oranges stays on Flickr, but no longer as ‘Pro’

Filed under: General,Photography by Branko Collin @ 5:57 pm

In 2008 we joined Flickr, a photo sharing site that was also one of the first social networks. Shortly after we switched to their Pro account because it made sense at the time – back then it looked like we might soon be bumping into the limits of the free account.

Recently, the new owners of Flickr, Smugmug, have done us the honour and favour of stimulating us to re-evaluate how we want to keep using the service by raising the price of the Pro account by 300%.

We have decided to stay on Flickr, but switched to the free account. The effect on you, dear readers, should be limited. We have maxed out the number of photos we can post to Flickr, so we can no longer do that. In the coming months Flickr may also decide to delete our oldest 232 photos. Smugmug have said that they will not remove CC licensed photos, but it is not clear if they mean all such photos or just the ones that would cause a PR stink if deleted.

We have always distributed our Flickr photos under a Creative Commons license. Please rest assured that this license remains valid, even if you can no longer find the photo.

(As a tip for your copyright audits, you may be able to find the link between a photo and a permissive license on the Wayback machine, even after a Flickr user decided to change a license; also, Wikimedia Commons often copies photos, including their licenses, from Flickr.)

(Photo by Liz West, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , , , ,

November 4, 2019

Police pose with pickpocket, then arrest him

Filed under: General,Photography by Branko Collin @ 10:18 am

Last Friday, while one police officer in Amsterdam was taking a photo of a pickpocket stealing a wallet, another police officer took a photo of their colleague taking a photo.

The pickpocket had entered a train waiting at Amsterdam Central Station and sat backwards in his chair to be able to reach into his mark’s pocket. After finishing their photographic hobbies, the police officers got on the train and arrested the thief.

A police officer’s testimony counts as evidence in Dutch criminal cases, so the officers were not required to take a photo of the pickpocket first. They did so nevertheless, and have not said why.

Two weeks ago, Dutch parliament asked questions about high resolution photos depicting murder victim and FC Emmen football player Kelvin Maynard as he was fighting for his life after having been shot in Amsterdam. MP Chris van Dam (Christian Democrats) thought this was disrespectful. Asked if the police aren’t stepping in the shoes of the press if they themselves start taking and distributing photos, minister Grapperhaus (Justice and Security) replied that the police have the right to inform the public.

Tags: , , ,

October 21, 2019

Photoshoot with original Leeuwenhoek microscope and specimens

Filed under: History,Photography,Science by Orangemaster @ 11:22 am

Specimens, including cows’ optic nerves, sections of cork and elder, and ‘dried phlegm from a barrel’, prepared and viewed by the early Dutch businessman and scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek have been reunited with one of his original microscopes for a serious photoshoot, recapturing the look of seventeenth century science and recording the moment with high-resolution colour photographs for the first time ever.

Last month, the specimens were sent from the Royal Society in the UK to Leiden and the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave (the Dutch national museum of the history of science and medicine) in their original packages to be reunited with an original Leeuwenhoek microscope. Science and art historian Sietske Fransen, current leader of the Max Planck Research Group ‘Visualizing Science in Media Revolutions’ at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History orchestrated the event. She conducted readings of Leeuwenhoek’s letters, while photographer Wim van Egmond and Rijksmuseum Boerhaave curator Tiemen Cocquyt carefully filmed through the priceless original silver microscope. In combining words and images, the team hope to arrive at a better understanding of Leeuwenhoek’s groundbreaking observations and his use of artists to capture microscope views.

Dutch businessman and scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek from Delft, one of the world’s first microbiologists, had a collection of specimens including cows’ optic nerves, sections of cork and elder, and ‘dried phlegm from a barrel’, which flew back across the North Sea from the Royal Society to Leiden and the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave—the Dutch national museum of the history of science and medicine–where they were reunited with an original Leeuwenhoek microscope. The museum provided the opportunity for taking photographs through the original microscope, as well as the shooting of moving images.

Although Leeuwenhoek’s specimens have been imaged before, this is the first time that the latest digital techniques have been applied to the surviving specimens.

(Link: phys.org, Portrait of Van Leeuwenhoek by Jan Verkolje (1650-1693))

Tags: , ,

July 1, 2019

Photos by Edwin Olaf on Dutch stamps

Filed under: Photography by Orangemaster @ 7:57 pm

In a series entitled ‘Erwin Olaf: 40 years of photography’, postage stamps commemorating the tens of thousands of photos the Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf has taken in his lifetime have been issued by Dutch post.

Only five images were chosen for the sheet of stamps, which could not have been easy. Olaf has carried out assignments for big names such as Louis Vuitton, Vogue, Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum and Rijksmuseum, among numerous others.

The country can now enjoy five iconic photos in stamp format: Pearls, from the Squares series, 1986; Julius Caesar, from the royal Blood series, 2000; Nadia, from the Paradise Portraits series, 2002; Portrait # 5, from the hope series, 2005 and Portrait of Alex, from the Palm Springs series, 2018.

The stamp sheet itself was designed by Rienus Gündel Franciscus in Amsterdam.

Olaf has also designed Dutch coins.

(Link and image: shop.postnl.nl)

Tags: , ,

February 3, 2019

Dutch street photography by Merel Schoneveld

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 11:28 pm

Merel Schoneveld is a selt-taught Dutch street photographer who considers the streets of Rotterdam and The Hague, as well as the beaches of her home town Scheveningen as her hunting grounds.

According to her biography, she has only been a street photographer since 2016. “One day, in the fall of 2016 I was walking around town trying out a new lens for an old camera I had. A camera I hadn’t touched in years. I knew nothing about street photography back then, all I knew is that I had to go back and do it again.”

“Since then capturing and collecting moments from the lives of total strangers became a serious obsession.”

Schoneveld’s work is on display this week at the Rotterdam Art Week from February 7 – 10.

(Photos: Merel Schoneveld; via VICE)

Tags: ,

November 9, 2018

Famous IKEA photo of Amsterdam explained in documentary

Filed under: Art,Bicycles,Photography by Orangemaster @ 3:27 pm

Amusingly called Vilshult, named after a very small town in Sweden, this famous IKEA picture of an Amsterdam canal is world famous. It was taken by photographer Fernando Bengoechea, originally from Argentina. However, sadly, he apparently died during a surfing trip in Sri Lanka in 2004 when a tsunami hit, and his body was never found. You’ll need to watch the whole video below to get the entire story.

After having received the picture from his girlfriend as a present, Dutch director Tom Roes decided to find out all about the black and white picture with the red bike. He has been made fun of a lot and told he had no taste, which probably pushed him to make this documentary. And whether people like it or not, IKEA has sold a whopping 427,000 copies of it.

Here’s the Dutch documentary about the famous IKEA picture of Amsterdam here (cc available in English):

(Link and photo: vice.com)

Tags: ,

September 15, 2018

Amsterdam’s discarded mattresses to be published in book

Filed under: Literature,Photography by Orangemaster @ 6:05 pm

Earlier this month, we told you about French woman Nastassja Guay Bonnabel who draws naked people on mattresses. This week, Dutch documentary filmmaker Miguel Narings wants to put all his discarded mattresses pictures in a book, possibly including some from Bonnabel.

Why does a filmmaker want to make a book about discarded mattresses? Because Narings also has an instagram account where he has been posting pictures of abandoned mattresses in Amsterdam for a few years.

He has started a crowdfunding campaign to get this book published, and has a stock of over 1000 photos, including some sent to him from around the world.

The book will be called ‘Mattresses of Amsterdam’, of which the book’s graphics will be created by graphic designer Bella Donna. Narings needs 8,000 euro to publish his book and as I write this has collected 535 euro.

(Link and photo: parool.nl)

Tags: , , , ,

September 7, 2018

Dutch hobby photographer makes National Geographic

Filed under: Animals,Photography by Orangemaster @ 7:00 am

Nature and wildlife photographer Rob Rokven from Oisterwijk, Noord-Brabant snapped a great picture of a Highland cow that will be featured in the 2019 National Geographic tear-off calendar. A picture was taken at the estate of Huis ter Heide, near Tilburg.

Rokven explains that there was a calf right behind the mother in the picture, and that right after he took it, an upset father Highland cow was heading towards him, which is when he ran off.

As a big wildlife fan, he sent in his picture to National Geographic and found out last week that his photo was chosen. And it will be the second time, since in 2018, he had a deer that made it into the 2018 calendar, a photo taken at the same place.

(Link and photo: Omroepbrabant.nl)

Tags: , , ,

July 8, 2018

Iris van Herpen presents bird-inspired dresses

Filed under: Animals,Design,Fashion,Photography by Orangemaster @ 5:24 pm

Amsterdam-based Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen has created a series of dresses that replicate the feathers and soundwave patterns of birds in flight, which was presented a few days ago at Le Trianon, Paris for the Paris Haute Couture fashion week.

To go along with them, Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta of Amsterdam’s Studio Drift had an installation of moving glass tubes that also capture the motion of birds in flight. Inspired by Studio Drift, Van Herpen also used chronophotography, a Victorian photographic technique that captures movement in several frames of print.

(Link and photo: dezeen.com)

Tags: , ,