Greetings from Diemen NL #15

 -Stairway to Heaven-.

(Often when I go out into my hometown Diemen, the somewhat sleepy suburb of Big City Amsterdam, I take my camera with me. I try to capture accidental beauty and sometimes unplanned alienation of the banal aspects of the everyday scenery. I started to do this from 2004, the year we came to live here, at first in black and white, from 2006 in color.)

Photo: Stammerdijk/A9, 2022/1/25, Diemen NL, 16.03 am.

Greetings from Diemen NL #14

 Graffiti & fog.

(Often when I go out into my hometown Diemen, the somewhat sleepy suburb of Big City Amsterdam, I take my camera with me. I try to capture accidental beauty and sometimes unplanned alienation of the banal aspects of the everyday scenery. I started to do this from 2004, the year we came to live here, at first in black and white, from 2006 in color.)

Photo: Kanaaldijk, 2022/1/15, Diemen NL, 12.24 am.

A.D. 2018 #21.

A 2018 street image. Photograph: Vienna, 4/25, 6.02 pm. AD. 2018 is a selection from photographs I made during 2018.

April 14

It was a wrong idea to take and publish a photo every day. One photo a day doesn't work for me (anymore). It is very compulsive and often forces me to take the wrong creative decisions. So I decided to quit and give myself ample time to breath freely and photograph when everything is right. Especially time and opportunity. Also I will take the freedom to post some former photos of which I think that they are interesting for more people. Today a selfie I made some time ago in a train toilet. Looking into the mirror I felt myself in a strange cosmos. Lelystad_Almere 15/4/9. 9.51 pm. 

March 25

A typical Dutch Suburban Spring Scene (2). Diemen, 2.28 pm.

March 16.

A message for the spectators at my web log. I know you're looking out there, according to my counting system. Thank you for looking at my photographs until now. Hope to see you tomorrow & the day after tomorrow & the day.......This project of a picture a day will be continued, as far I am concerned. Photo: Diemen, 4.32 pm.  

February 18.

Many railroads form barriers through Diemen, my home suburb of Amsterdam. Diemen 4.31 pm.

Diemer Plek # 73 (Sites from Diemen NL # 73)

Meanwhile Life goes on in that somewhat sleepy suburb of Amsterdam, Diemen. The place where I live and where sometimes a strange atmosphere arises. A mixture between endless rest and some kind of surrealism.

Up: Bergwijkdreef 31/11/30 1.54 pm

Middle: Piersonstraat 31/11/13 3.44 pm

Under: Diemerplein: 13/11/25 3.14 pm

Diemer Plek # 69 (Sites from Diemen NL # 69)

At the backside of the motor highway that circles around my home town Diemen the combination of graffiti and bare branches & twigs turn the photograph into an almost abstract painting.

I wonder how they got those signs behind those trees. It is a pretty steep slope.

This picture came too late for the exhibition at WV15 next Saturday. I would have loved to use it in the show!

Up: De Omloop Diemen (NL) 13/01/02 4.01 pm

Under: De Omloop Diemen (NL) 13/01/02 4.25 pm

Zelfportret # 160-164 (Self portrait # 160-164)

 

Meanwhile I keep making self portraits. That is to say: it becomes more and more a kind of investigation to find out how my face and figure is working as an photographic element in several situations of Light & Time & Place.

The photos appear from top to bottom in a chronological order.

#160 Marche-en-Femenne (BEL) 12/4/18 1.23 pm

#161 Leuven (BEL) 12/4/27 4.10 pm

#162 Roosendaal-Dordrecht (NL) 12/5/11 8.44 pm

#163 Roosendaal-Dordrecht (NL) 12/5/11 8.46 pm

#164 Bakkum (NL) 12/5/14 7.38 am

Vanwege Fragmentarische Aard (100) (Because of a Fragmentic Nature (100)

Look. You don’t see what you think you’re seeing in a photograph. IMO a photograph is the result of thinking elements of reality together into a new reality. The reality of the new image.
I do not want to have my photographs to express an opinion of the original reality they depict. They just have to display the reality of the image itself.
Which, in my case, often is another one as the one the photograph was taken of.
Slight surrealism or visual poetry can be the result!
Up: Amsterdam. 12/4/12. 9.35 am
Under: Amsterdam. 12/4/12. 1.39 pm

Diemer Plek # 63 (Sites from Diemen NL # 63)

I love to look around me and take pictures as if the world is a somewhat strange place to be.
Look at the funny colored paper wrap around the small tree at the upper photograph!
Up: Diemen (NL). Venserweg 12/4/3. 4.25 pm
Under: Diemerbos (NL) Under viaduct A9. 12/4/5 3.15 pm.

Diemer Plek # 42

Sommige saaie plekken lenen zich ervoor om in het late middaglicht schilderachtig te worden afgebeeld.
Foto: Diemen, achter de Tobias Asserlaan. 12/3/11. 17.12 uur

Diemer Plek # 39

Elke keer als ik langs deze plek kom, krijg ik de associatie met een galgenveld. Of het nu mist of dat de zon schijnt.
Met het juiste licht krijgt zo’n bouwschutting ook een onverwachte schoonheid.
Foto: 16/02/2011. Oud Diemerlaan. 13.13 uur

Diemer Plek # 38

Het industrieterrein van Diemen: Onverdachte en onverwachte spleen en schoonheid voor een romanticus.
Foto boven: Verrijn Stuartweg. 15/12/2010. 14.56 uur.
Foto onder: Verrijn Stuartweg. 10/2/11. 11.21 uur

Het land langs # 5

Bruggen zijn onvermijdelijke zaken in het Nederlandse landschap. Voor de fietser die ik ben zijn ze kuitenbijtertjes, zeker met tegenwind . Maar in al hun technische eenvoud zijn ze wonderschoon. Weg en waterbouw in Nederland, misschien wel de meest onderschatte schoonheid van ons land.
Elk onderdeel is onvermijdelijk en er is geen klinknagel teveel gebruikt.
(De lichte knik in de streep van de onderste foto is niet het gevolg van een lensafwijking, de brug buigt een beetje door)
Foto boven: Driemond, 26/1/11, 15.45 uur
Foto onder: Driemond, 26/1/11, 15.46 uur

Diemer Plek # 35

Grijs januarilicht leert dat in lantaarnpalen en boomstammen soms poëtische schoonheid huist.
Foto boven: Diemer Zeedijk. 21/1/11. 16.13 uur

Foto onder: Kanaaldijk. 27/1/11 10.53 uur