Souvenir Foto Friday: Amsterdam in Motion

Assignment 6: Blur on Purpose

I read the assignment notes for this on Flickr before the notes went up on the Souvenir Foto website; and I had a little panic.

Blur on purpose? It was like a return to the dark days of childhood photography. Handshake, cutting off people's heads - not good. How on earth would I blur on purpose without it looking like I gave the camera to a small child?

So I hit the internet, ah google, my old friend.

What I discovered was that there is a whole movement of photography dedicated to blurring on purpose. While the photographs I found were stunning, details on technique were not very forthcoming.

I did discover that it was all to do with playing around with shutter speed and aperture. Which meant I had to learn about shutter speed and aperture. Which meant that, three months after getting the camera I was finally going to have to break out the instruction manual.

Dammit.

The instruction manual was informative. It certainly told me how to set shutter speed and apperture but I still didn't understand what I was doing.

Next stop, the Digital Photography School . I read up on Shutter Speed and Appertures. Then moved on to Aperture and Shutter Priority Modes.

Now we were getting somewhere.

I had been particularly taken with a Blur on Purpose photo I had seen during my research, (now regretably lost in the internet) a black and white shot taken in Japan which showed blurred movement on a crisp background. I knew I wanted to do something like that, which would mean playing with the shutter priority mode, which blurs movement.

I took myself into the centre of Amsterdam and positioned myself on a busy cross roads. Then I just started clicking. I aimed for dense crowds and bikes. I shot at eye level and from the hip to see which came out best. I varied my shuttter speed until I found one that let in just enough light while still giving a good blur of movement, 1/20 on a very bright day.

In post-processing the black and white wasn't quite working for me though. It looked good but the bike wasn't quite right. When I had looked at the photo, the bike had seemed ethereal, almost ghostly and I wanted to play that up. So I cropped it down and layed the holga-ish effect from Picnik over the top. And it worked.

I am particularly pleased with the crispness of the shadow on the ground against the blur of the people above.

The original of the photo is in my photostream.

Souvenir Foto Friday: Long Live the King

I missed Souvenir Foto Friday last week - shocking. Luckily I got my assignment in on time - I just didn't have enough hours in the day to post it up here.

So, without further ado I give you Assignment 5 for Souvenir Foto.


Following on from last week's assignment to shoot a letter. This week we had to shoot a word. The more advanced in the group will be doing this as a diptych, and if I had more time last week I would have tried it but I just couldn't get my head around stitching two images together. Nor was I able to find a scene with a word and an appropriate image which I could shoot as is.

For my word I chose a local grafitti artist, Laser 3.14. In a city which is best described as graffiti tolerant Laser 3.14's work is prolific throughout Amsterdam. Snappy one or two lines of what has variously been called, poetry or prophecy sprayed on temporary structures all over the City. People have taken to "collecting" shots of these phrases, cataloguing the ones they spot on the website.

This particular word comes from the phrase "Elvis versus the disdained" which is sprayed on a Salvation Army charity clothes bin near our house. I cropped it and added a boost effect from picnik to pull out the bright contrast in the colours and the variation in paint density from the spray can.

A photo of the full phrase is in my photostream.

Souvenir Foto Friday

Because X is a dichotomy of a letter. It has many meanings and interpretations. It is a spy letter, sneaking round corners, hidden in disguises.

It is a soft slide of the tongue to the teeth, Xylophone
It is religion and symbolism, Xmas, Christ on a cross
It is treasure, marking the spot, X
It is a promise, X, drawn over the heart. I cross my heart…
It is a declaration; mark an X next to the candidate of your choice
It is a negation, X, you got it wrong.
It is direction, X, North, East, South and West
It is affection, X, I kiss you, X, I miss you
It is the tipping point of a decision, X, a crossroads, which road will you take?
It is a gasp and the catch at the back of the throat, seX

This is my submission for Assignment 4 of Souvenir Foto. Simply to shoot a letter. This X was taken from directly above as I stood on the tram tracks, hoping that a tram wouldn't suddenly zip round the corner and squash me flat. Mission accomplished.

Flowers

Last Friday's flowers are still going strong.

The Anatomy of a Cake

Recipe here.

Souvenir Foto Friday

You may remember, back in March the lovely husband bought me a new camera for my birthday. Its a fantastic camera and I am taking more pictures than ever with it. I have no camera training and have always been a "point, shoot and pray" kind of a girl but over the last couple of years I find myself increasingly drawn to photographic art and have really wanted to develop my own skills.

So when, Miss B of Le Blahg, opened her "Photo School", I wanted in. Unfortunately, it came at just the wrong time for me, we were away in America, so I missed the first two assignments. But I am in for the third.

Joining a group like this one, focuses my attention on taking good photographs. It gives me a subject to look for and encourages me to try out new techniques. Plus, its free. Win, win, win.

Without further ado, I present my submission to the Week 3 assignment, the subject of which was numbers and viewfinder cropping...

COUNTDOWN

Cross processing sharpened the numbers, rounded corners to make it look pretty on the blog. Effects added via picnik.

It isn't the project I wanted to do, very much my second choice. I had really wanted to take shots of all the different styles of house number in our neighbourhood (and I will), I just ran out of time this week.

2e Pinksterdag

It is a holiday today in the Netherlands, Pinksterdag (officially today is tweede - 2e - pinksterdag) or Pentecost. I just couldn't resist the pink flowers for Pinksterdag.

Het Bos

I know, I know. I should be posting some of the 279 photos of our trip to America, or reviewing some of the restaurants we visited, or telling you all about the surprise the Lovely Husband planned for me and I will, I promise. However, yesterday was a gloriously sunny day in Amsterdam. So glorious that instead of editing photos and cursing myself for forgetting to write down what we ate at each restaurant, we got on our bikes and cycled in the Bos for a couple of hours.


The Bos (or Forest in English) is a mere five minute bike ride from our current front door and once we move to Number 75 (46 days and counting...) will be even less than that. Like many things in Amsterdam it is a man made area which means that while it looks like a huge wild land it has been designed with functional use in mind. There are bike tracks zig zagging through it and large expanses of water as well as smaller ponds. Our closest entrance to the Bos is a bike path so we don't enter at the very congested points (road entrances with parking). We zipped along quite happily in 24 degrees of sunshine and while we definitely saw a lot of people it didn't feel overcrowded at all.

The Bos is home to a huge variety of animals, domestic and wild. You see a lot of horses as there are two riding schools in the Bos. You also see a few Scottish Highland cows roaming freely.


The biggest expanse of water the The Bos is the Nieuwe Meer (New Sea). Its perfect for sailing and there were quite a few power boats out as well.



You can't cycle all the way around the Nieuwe Meer without taking a detour out of the Bos so there is a boat service (web site in Dutch) which takes you and your bike from one side of the Meer to the other for a a couple of Euros. Which is exactly what we did after a brief pause to snack on more chickpea salad (this time with fresh parsely torn up in it) and icy cold bottles of water which we had stashed in frozen wine sleeves in the panier of the Lovely Husband's bike.


We headed home alongside a boat race, crews sliding through the water as excitable supporters rode valiantly along the banks of the river.

I enjoyed every second of it...

Ok, maybe not every second. Inadvertantly cycling into the nudist area was a grave navigational error (oh my eyes, *shudder*) but other than that, truly, a perfect day.

A belated Queen's Day

These are the photos I meant to post on Queen's Day but delayed due to events on the day.




All images by me. More photos here.

View Halloo!

One of the features I love most about No. 75 is the huge bay window looking out onto the street from which we can see the canal.

We are going to put a 1.5 seat armchair right here so I can curl up with a book and watch the world go by


The view to the left:


and looking down:


and to the right:


Sigh, I can't wait...

Dreams of Summer

Its not that the weather is bad (quite the opposite, it remains unseasonably warm and sunny) but I seem to be carrying a small black cloud above my head at the moment. I flew into London Gatwick this morning (I was meant to be flying to London City, but that's another story) and landed just behind a plane coming in from Cancun.

Just shy of two years ago, gosh, nearly two whole years ago the Husband and I were those bleary eyed early morning passengers. We had flown from London to Cancun the week before we were due to move to the Netherlands to see one of my very best girls marry the love of her life.

Note: Do not, ever, EVER try to move countries when you are jetlagged. Just don't do it.

I digress, it was beautiful in Cancun, I had scoured the internet to find something other than the concrete monoliths you usually have to stay in on the Hotel Strip and we wound up in a teeny $60 a night hotel where we were treated like royalty. We had a fabulous room, with a double jacuzzi on one balcony and an unrestricted view of the sea from the other.

Yes, that would be two balconies, two, for $60 a night. Hurrah.

On the first morning I awoke to this:


I spent most of my days, perched here:


The colours were like nothing I had ever seen before.

I am on countdown to our big holiday this year, two weeks in the US celebrating the 40th birthday of another favourite girl, exploring the Southern States and swinging back for a few days via my beloved Manhattan. A city I lost my heart to in 2004 on my first and thus far only visit.

I can feel the little black cloud lifting already...

Images by me

Dinner

Squash and Goats Cheese Galette, originally uploaded by Emmy (No.75).

I'm thinking of making this for dinner tonight, but we have been having it quite regularly over the last few weeks. Maybe I should use our fallback of Roasted Broccoli and Shrimp.

Spring has sprung

We had a fabulous Easter weekend in Devon. A visit to Dartington Hall Gardens showed that spring is in full bloom.






All photos are by me, the rest of the set can be found on Flickr.

My Italy - The Lakes

Images by me. Taken at Lake Maggiore in 2007.

And at the Noordermarkt I found...

Bric-a-Brac Galore



Chandeliers and Furniture



Red and Orange



Sunny Yellow Kitchenware



Fabric as far as the eye can see.

All photos by me.

Photos taken at the Amsterdam Noordermarkt.

A Walk in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is glorious today. Perfect for a walk to the market. Come along with me.

No need for pedal power today



Taking time to cross the canals



pausing to look at a shop dressed in white



Looking up to see houses swallowing the sky



Crossing another canal where houseboats bob gently in place



My shadow keeping me company



Looking at houseboats and trees, before finally arriving at the market.

All photos by me.