'New' in our collection

We found this wonderful little ship on the Dutch version of e-Bay: A ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEAR OLD small freight barge converted to a very handy, almost live-aboard mobile floating home, or pleasure craft if you like.

We are very busy finding a marina in the area where the house is. That may take a while, but we are confident we'll find a place where she's welcome.

Here is the rest of a series of photos I took of the barge when I went to buy.
And an extra photo by the former owner - but still the bow isn't completely visible.

Too many good things for one post

May 8th was one of those days when just too many attractive images came up in front of my camera.
Here are three of my favourites of that day.

Some of the objects that keep attracting me are traffic mirrors. Here is one with an extra: the Human Factor, very unusual in my photos. Anyway I prefer them to just an anonymous car.

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Another recurring theme is the railway crossing. This was on a busy line in Belgium*), so within minutes I could capture this passing freight train. An impressive experience.

*) Belgian trains keep left.
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Here is a landscape photo that had it all in it, but that 'all' took a few minutes of Photoshop activity to appear.

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All the photos I took that day can be found here in a slide show of the May 8th, 2008 images

Flare is a disadvantage?

But first the Big News: VallyP and I have made a tiny little ditty for Dale, to celebrate the friendship we feel for her. It is appropriately called 'No Substitute for Dale'.


At the beginning of April VallyP gave me a very impressive wide angle zoomlens for my photo camera. Reading the user reports I noticed lots of praise except its tendency to show flare when pointing at backlit subjects.
For those who have no idea what lens flare is, I have taken this picture in very a very extreme backlit situation. In fact the sun shone almost straight into the lens.
Here it is.

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This reminds me of the good old principle that a disadvantage is only that if you forget to turn it into an advantage. I think this photo looks stunning thanks to this so-called lens fault.

Sometimes a picture I have taken surprises me in spite of the very clear feedback that a digital camera has to offer.
This one had a dreamy quality that I hadn't really noticed at the moment of shooting. In fact to me it looks more like a painting by Carel Willink than a photo.
I sent a little thank you to up the authority in charge and here it is for all to see.

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If you want to see more of my recent photos why not follow the link below.

Or the photos most highly rated by users of Flickr.com:

Reflections

I can feel a bit lost in a tourist place among hoards of others carrying cameras. What on earth can one do to make a distinction from all these others taking pictures of the world famous architecture in stunningly beautiful Ghent, Belgium?

I did not want to go the easy route of not taking pictures at all until I was in the gloomy outskirts, which are always a great hunting ground for me.

Then a few very 'different' shop windows caught my eye. There were several shops carrying the most improbable knick-knacks. They in themselves were worth a few pictures, but they also reflected the world outside the shops - and there were my images of Ghent façades in a slightly different way.
Just what the doctor ordered.

Iffy weather

What to do when the dog needs walking, we need some fresh air, but the weather is very instable? Just go out and see what happens. We took the car just across the border to walk along a nice canal called Langelede. We still had to endure some rain, but the reward was huge. The setting sun broke through the clouds and treated us with the most amazing play of light and shadow.

Luckily at least one of us had thought of bringing a camera. Below you find some of the images we were rewarded with.

In the end the rain stopped, and a very pretty countryside was shown in the warmest, richest light that nature has in store for us.


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Quite often, the clouds themselves make a great subject:
This time was no exception.

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This was our view from the back garden.