This stuff is growing all over the "Broekpolder", which is the area next to our town of Vlaardingen, where we live. It's old farmland basically, but some parts have been in use for placing house garbage in the past, and the port of Rotterdam used to dump their (sometimes toxic) dirty soil and dredging sludge here. A forest area was created on the 'dirty' land later, and now after about 20 years, it's a very nice and quiet recreational area with limited wildlife and we go there a lot to walk the dog. It's just outside the city limits and you would not have the idea of being nearby pollution, industry and the city at all.

I like this picture because of it's DOF, the background is tall grass behind the water, but that's hard to recognize.

Photo # 6

This is one of the first photographs taken with my new camera. I have bought a Canon EOS 400D (or Digital Rebel) DSLR last Saturday, and I am trying to get used to it. This picture was taken in our backyard where the Wisteria is growing like crazy. She carries flower twice a year, once in spring and once by the end of the summer. Lovely flowers...great colors. A splendid object to photograph, and what better to try out the new stuff? I have to learn a lot, since I have never used a DSLR before, so at first I'm shooting everything in automatic, afraid as I am to destroy something....Look out for more, surely I'll get there one day and set aperture/speed/ISO manually!

Photo # 5

This shot I took last February when I visited Paris for business. I walked around a bit in the evenings, and took a series of shots near the Louvre Museum. This one attracted me most, because of the shape of the piramid and the loads of glass in it, as well as the light glass against the black evening background. Went back to Paris with the family some weeks later, on a long holiday weekend, and we took mega numbers of shots again...The nicest ones are posted on my Flickr pages (link on the right hand side).

Photo # 4

"Benno"

OK, OK, I have to admit, my idea and solemn pledge was to furnish this blog with one photo a day, but....work consumes a lot of my time, my family too, my church too, and so does Flickr...no more excuses, I will at least try to upload one a day...

This shot was taken last Sunday during the Easterbreak, when we visited my mothers' weekend mobilehome in Heesch, Noord Brabant in the Netherlands.
There is a great forest-moor area surrounding the campsite, and our dog (a golden retriever male by the name "Benno") just loves to wander around and....take some dives. There is some natural water on the moor, and nothing better than getting a little more dirty than he usually already is...So here he was, just out of the water, shaking his body to get rid of the water, or at least, most of it. He just loves this (..)

Photo # 3

lioness

We spent the day in Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam, and found this lioness whilst she was guarding her two youngsters. They were waiting to be fed, and I guess this, together with the audience, made the lioness somewhat nervous. She looked if she would strike and kill immediately, if someone would try and approach her offspring. Beautiful creatures, although not meant to be in captivity I guess.

Photo # 2

"Times Square"

This picture was taken at or near Times Square in New York in March this year. Times Square has this immense array of lights and is a feast for every photographer. The images keep on changing all the time, all the adds and the news tickers, change at the blink of an eye. This billboard however was continuously the same, and I found the contrast between the red and white gigantic model, overexposed, and the office building behind her where you almost can't recognize a thing, very nice.

Photo # 1

"Hot Rolled Steel Coils"

After being succesful sometimes on Flickr, I found it's time to enter into a weblog as well. I want to try and post at least one of my pictures on a daily basis, and comment on the images a little further than what Flickr allows for. This picture was taken last Friday, 30th March, in Fos-sur-Mer in the south of France, on a quayside of Arcelor's Factory. Arcelor produce steelcoils amongst other products, and these coils are being shipped on two of the vessels the company I work for, have in management. The steelcoils are normally being transported from the south of France to the Spanish mediterranean coast, to the port of Sagunto, or to the westcoast of Italy into Piombino.

These coils are standing on the quayside, ready for loading on board the seagoing vessels. I found the alignment quite nice, and if there would be no explanation, I doubt if much people would recognize this for what it is..