Photos of Amsterdam
by dag on Mar.14, 2009, under Uncategorized
I’ve been continuing to experiment with my photography, and taking a ton of photos, thanks to my 16 GB SD card, which can hold over 6000 6 Megapixel files. I’ve taken about 1,500 pics so far on my trip, so 4,500 to go before I have to empty the card. It boggles my mind to think how much easier it is now than, say, 10-15 years ago, when 1,500 photos would’ve required 50 rolls of film or more.
Below is the Arena in southern Amsterdam where I went to see Watchmen (which was AWESOME). There was someting odd about this place.
The above was an accident that occurred when I was attempting to merge three exposures into an HDR (high dynamic range) photo. You’re supposed to do this with three or more pictures from the same angle, but I accidentally added one picture from a slightly different angle. I love the escheresque double-exposure-like effect that photoshop produced as it desperately tried to reconcile the two images into one.
Here’s another shot of the arena. I know I’m supposed to be oohing and ahhing over all the historical architecture, but really this quite new area I found quite beautifully designed.
I’ve also been experimenting with using long exposure in different ways. The following shot is one of many I took out the window of the tram, holding the camera against the glass so the motion is entirely the apparent movement of the lights across the canals.
One night, I noticed that I was standing at the perfect angle that the dorm room mirror was reflecting a lamp in a window of a building far away.
Like in many cities, taggers have scratched into the glass of the metro and trams in Amsterdam. I love shooting photos through glass like this.
March 18th, 2009 on 1:26 pm
When you ‘hover’ over that first picture, you get ‘pigeon-museumplein’. Not sure on this one. Is this actually a pigeon museum, along with its more overt charter? Do those pigeons get paid or commission or something, or at least fed by the staff? Or are they stuffed? (Not the flying one, of course!)
March 18th, 2009 on 6:10 pm
That’s not actually flying, it’s a sophisticated exhibit that makes extensive use of taxidermy and animatronics. They’ve also programmed it to eat crumbs and crap on cars 🙂
Actually that was just my shorthand when I named the photo Museumplein is the place the pic was taken. Plein in Dutch means “square”. In this case, it’s more of a park, really, a big grassy flat expanse. Called Museum Square because it borders on the Van Gogh Museum and the RijkMuseum, which is like their national history museum, but which I found rather pitifully small after the museums in Paris. Anyway, the scene you see there was taken at the edge of the square. I love that perfectly flat but tilted triangle of grass in the background. That’s actually both the edge of the square and the roof of a supermarket. Also a popular hangout for pigeons. I basically spent 30 minutes or so hanging out there, because all my life I’ve wanted to get a good photo of some birds and it always messes up or I haven’t had the patience to get a good one. So I just hung out and took like 50 shots, and this one is the one I’m most proud of.
March 19th, 2009 on 2:28 pm
Previous comment notwithstanding, I want to be sure to say here that all these photos are really nice, very well done! Capturing transient and ethereal sights like a pigeon taking off, canal lights ‘sweeping’ the canal, a distant reflected lamp, are compelling – this is my Goldsworthy appreciation working here 😉