Timelapse of clouds floating over windmill

Earlier in the year I was back in the Netherlands for work and in the process (I visited my family over the weekend) came by the area where I grew up. It's an extraordinary area with reclaimed "polders" that were once milled dry using windpower. Here is a virtually unknown one that is close to where I was born. It sits in the middle of a large agricultural area in between historical villages somewhere midway between Utrecht and Rotterdam. I created a simple little timelapse of clouds floating over the mill using Lightroom's slideshow and assembled them using iMovie together with a few stills. I am not a videographer clearly, but this is still fun. It's in 720p HD in the vimeo link and it should work fine on iPads, iPhones, and Android devices.

Molen Timelapses from Jao van de Lagemaat on Vimeo.

If the vimeo link overloads (yeah right ;-) ), here it is on my smugmug site:

Google+ post. Flickr link.

Lighthouse

The lighthouse. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 at 20 mm, f/11, 1/500s (Sunny 16 rule), ISO 200
Image on flickr. Image in a Google+ post.

This is an interpretation of the funny tiny lighthouse at the end of the stretchdam in the Volendam harbor.
For context on the photoshopping of this image see yesterday's blog post.

The Ethics of Editing

The lighthouse - left: artist's interpretation, right: original view.

The above shows a small project I was working on. It is a picture of the lighthouse on the wavebreaker at the tip of the harbour of Volendam. In the distance you can see Marken and a ferry boat heading for the Volendam harbour. When I took the picture I was struck by the stark symmetry of the stones and the lighthouse but couldn't do anything about the ugly steel and wood structure on the right hand side. So I photoshopped them away to see what it looks like without that structure. My Photoshop skills are not superb so this is not perfect but it clearly gives an impression. It's no Gursky (who extremely heavily edits his images to the point of complete fantasy) but I like the increased starkness. The right hand side of the above image shows the image without the editing. While a nice illustration, I remain ambivalent about such editing. Interestingly, while I was doing my cloning, Google Reader popped up the latest article on the Luminous Landscape by Peter Eastway. The article describes how the image was taken from a dull landscape to a sunbathed glowing hillscape. The sunspot on the nearby hill in that image is completely Photoshopped in. It never existed. The description of the treatment mirrors earlier ones on a castle in Italy and a rock formation in Australia. Especially the latter one makes me uncomfortable as the image never happened at the same moment. The sunlit rock is from a different image than the dramatic clouds. While it makes me uncomfortable, you can't argue with results. Eastway's images are quite dramatic and spectacular. Gursky's pictures sell for millions of dollars. So perhaps my ambivalence is holding me back. In the end the art is in making the artist's vision come out. This doesn't have to be limited by the drab reality of the conditions that were present at the moment of the taking of the picture. Most photographers will edit out jet contrails or overhead powerlines. At what point does this go over the line?

The Swans

Two Swans with young (pulletjes) in a polder near Ouderkerk The Netherlands. Taken on a quick bike ride with my mother.


The Swans. Buy a print.

Tech Data: Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-55 mm f/3.5-5.6 at 45mm, f/9.0, 1/200s, ISO 200
Image on flickr. Google+ post.

Sunrise over De Lek

Symmetry. Buy a print. Enlarge.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 16 mm, f/11, 1/60s, ISO 200. 2 stop Grad ND. Slight edits in Lightroom 4 to bring out the fog near the little pier and the sand.
Smugmug image. Flickr image. Google+ post.

This image was created looking out over De Lek river towards the rising sun. As a child and teenager I spent lots of time swimming from these sandbars near the river as well as sailing it. On the opposite side of the river is Langerak and Nieuwpoort where our old wooden sailboat was usually in the harbor.

Sunrise at the Bol

I went to photograph the sunrise at a small natural area forming a riverdune in the Lek (an extension of the Rhine river) in The Netherlands yesterday morning with my father (an art silversmith living in Schoonhoven - check out the link, he makes extraordinary stuff). This is an interesting area with lots of beautiful flowering trees, tidal planes and more. Here is an interesting reflection captured in the clay-like mud.


Fingers. Buy a print.
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm f/2.8 at 11mm, f/16, 1/50s
Smugmug enlarge. Flickr image, Google+ post.

This was a wonderful morning where we saw lots of pheasants, hares, and other animals but also gorgeous skies.

Winter seaside evening

Diagonal
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 at 11 mm, ISO 200, f8.0, 1/250s

These are pictures taken when visiting the North Sea beach in Egmond aan Zee last winter. We were in the Netherlands on a bittersweet visit to see a family member diagnosed with a terminal disease. The night before we flew back, we decided to go to the beach as it is such a Dutch thing to do and our kids rarely see a real ocean beach. It was bitter cold and windy and there was snow on the ground but we had a great time finished off by a great cup of hot cocoa at a nice little coffee place right at the beach. Technically, these images would have been better if I had had my grad ND filters with me, but we were traveling light.
At this point, we were still thinking that we would likely never see our family member again so we felt rather melancholic, but by a miracle after we had already returned to the states, doctors discovered that the original diagnosis was not correct and it was operable and after a heavy but successful operation, he is currently cancer-free. Too many of our friends (three in recent months died of cancer) have not been that lucky recently so this was good news in a bad news time. Cancer is a nasty disease.


Disturbance
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 at 11 mm, ISO 200, f16, 1/160s


Nuclear furnace
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 at 11 mm, ISO 200, f16, 1/50s


ripples
Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16 mm f2.8 at 11 mm, ISO 200, f16, 1/60s


Silver Birds
Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200 VR at 95 mm, ISO 200, f5.3, 1/400s


Yawn
Nikon D300, Nikon 18-200 VR at 170 mm, ISO 200, f5.6, 1/320s

A roof over one's head

D300, ISO 200, 18-200 mm VR, 95 mm, f5.3, 1/25s


D300, ISO 200, 18-200mm VR, 82 mm, f/5.0, 1/30s

Both taken last winter in the town where I grew up and where my mother still lives.

Farm images

D300, ISO 1600, Tokina 11-16 mm at 11 mm, f2.8, 1/3s handheld.
These are pictures of the farm where my sister and my father's wife board their horses in the Netherlands. When we were there last winter, we went out for a horseback ride in the bucolic Dutch landscape. Of course it started snowing like crazy while we were out there.


Old barn window boarded up with pastic
D300, Nikkor 18-200mm at 22mm, ISO 6400, f3.8, 1/15s


This is Kasper, a gorgeous and very large horse. He was waiting to go back into the stable. The yellow light is from one little really old light bulb to the left.
D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 12mm, ISO 1600, f2.8, 1/15s


Supplies
D300, Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm, ISO 1600, f2.8, 1/13s


Old car
D300, Nikkor 18-200mm at 44mm, ISO 800, f4.5, 1/6s

Winter in the polder

Nostalgia
D300 at ISO 800, Nikkor 18-200 mm f3.5 at 95mm, f/5.3, 1/40s


Winter 2
D300 at ISO 1600, Tokina 11-16,mm f2.8 at 11.5mm, f/2.8, 1/20s