Sand and Sea
Category: The Netherlands
Theme and Variations
Strolling
Strolling around the towns of Middelburg and Veere. Though we come here regularly, I rarely photograph (always preferring the dunes and the sand and the sea), so I thought I’d share these for a change. The atmosphere and the light were just right … and I had brought my camera to what was originally an outing to have lunch. Thanks to my wife for her patience. | This is another contribution for Jo’s great Monday Walks – join her…!
Dunes
Like Jo at restlessjo, I love to walk on the shore. On Walcheren (southern Netherlands) the shore comes with great dunes. On this particular walk, the winter light invited a closer look at details. The sand looks quite rough because there had just been a little rain and wind did not have enough time to smooth the surface afterwards. I would like to contribute this post to Jo’s Monday Walks.
You can join Jo for her latest walk here.
Graceful
“Gracefulness is a tricky quality – it manifests itself as an effortless, subtle harmony between a subject and its environment,” writes Ben Huberman in The Weekly Photo Challenge. Nicely said, I think – and here is my response: I often find nature’s gracefulness (if I can call it that) by the water.
Seascapes
Sea Shells
Late Afternoon by the Sea
Renesse Underground
Same scene, different pictures, and I do not know which one I prefer. So I decided to show them both, trying to prove the point that – as has been noted – that it is the difference that makes the difference: Both appeal to me, but for different reasons.
I looked at the original picture (bottom) and asked myself if it would look more ‘radical’ if I cropped the black parts to the left and right, letting the ocean view running past the margins of the picture. Now that seems to make the picture more difficult. There seems to be some hint that the world continues beyond the frame of the picture, and in some way the picture seems to correspond with its surroundings – the white background of the page – more openly.
In comparison, the original picture might be more conventional. The bright parts can be seen as a picture within the picture, and it is almost neatly framed – almost: The left part of the frame shows a post, its shapes are just visible. And the left side of the frame is also a bit “heavier” than its counterpart. It seems like this picture offers more information it is possibly more restful, suggesting that what we see is a whole complete in itself. It might be more affirmative.
Writing this, I realize there is a bias – but I really wanted to say that these are not just two more or less identical pictures of a piece of ocean, seen through some posts, but that form makes quite a difference, not necessarily between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ one, but in content.
Beachclub Zuiderduin
Near Westkapelle, Walcheren, January 2016.
Strandpaviljoen “Zeecafé”
Near Oostkapelle, The Netherlands, 2016.
Walk on Beach
Walking on beaches is a passion I seem to share with Jo. Which is why I would like to share this walk (or maybe even series of walks) on her Monday Walks collection: Walking the beaches of south Holland, you find many things – among them the strandpaviljoens, beach cafés standing on stilts at the seaward base of the dunes, a welcome refuge from rain and cold and in case of an appetite for fish & chips. As a landscape photographer, I have always hated them because they are prone to get in the way. But this winter, I decided to turn the tables: You’ll see a couple of strandpaviljoen pictures this month.
Depth
Who would fathom the depth* of the little harbor of Goes (Holland)? I was not up to it: too cold! | *Today’s theme at the Weekly Photo Challenge. Head over for an in-depth browsing through beautiful photos!
A Walcheren Walk
A Monday walk in early January took us south-east from Zoutelande. We did not quite reach Dishoek though on account of the icy wind. The breakwaters lent themselves to trying some abstract photography though, before we found a bit of shelter in the dunes on our way back (along with some WW II bunkers which were photographed with black and white film and will be part of my “Fragments of a Language of Terror”).
Luft und Land
On Nature’s Whim
Isn’t it sometimes hard to tell if something was arranged or just happened? Esspecially when looking at photographs, we often are at a loss.
The situation you see here was composed by nature, and I only positioned it in a frame. While many photographers arrange people and things so they look natural in their photos, I love to do it the other way round – I do not arrange but love my subjects to look like they were deliberately positioned.
On the Shore
Life and Death on a Beach
Turning the Usual Into Something Unusual
Making people look at what they usually overlook, making them see what they did not see before has always been one of the central objectives of photography. It is indeed rewarding to charge everyday scenes and objects with mystery. But the longer I photograph, the better I seem to understand that first and foremost it is light which accounts for an unusual appearance – both in the wotld that surrounds us and in pictures. There is nothing like getting drunk on light…
empire of lights 