Westland

Yesterday we had one of those magical outings that don't take long. We went to an area between Rotterdam and the North Sea appropriately called Westland and visited a village not so appropriately called Maasland.

Val managed the dog while I did my best not to only stop and take fisheye photos for panoramas.
The annoying thing can be that the travel companion always has to move away from the camera because it takes pictures all around.

Anyway, we saw a variety of the most wonderful scenes again, and cottages of dream quality, very traditionally Dutch and a feast for the eyes.
I took the panorama below because I found the colours of the private bridge so appealing, and the whole setting of the house so romantic because it sat on its own litlle island.

So here's the panorama. Don't forget to drag the cursor inside the image and use shift and control for zooming.



Or view the bigger size HERE

Point #3 about me: Panoramas

A point that isn't new to blogland is I love panorama photography, see for instance the post preceding this one.
In a comment there I promised making a QuickTime VR panorama about the cube houses near where we live.
Here it is, made today - and feel free to ask why my feet aren't on it ;-)
And while we're at it, this is the best quality I have delivered so far.

Click and drag in the image to navigate. Press shift to zoom in, press control to zoom out.
Nice and cute and small, but why not click on this link to see it at a proper size?

Eight points about myself, like mustard after the meal*)

It took Lannio's recent comment on this blog to make me realise that talking about something else is still talking about myself, which - believe it or not - I find difficult.
So instead of listing eight points about myself let's see if I can deliver eight points about Poland. I'll spread them ou over a number of posts.

1 You think there are two ways to show foreign programmes on tv, being 1: post-synchronise the dialogues to your own language, and 2: use subtitles?
Think again, because the Poles have a third way: let one (male) voice do all the talking including dialogues between women!

2 Now that it's allowed after the Communist regime the Polish people show a lot of affection for the American culture. Not surprising given the number of relatives they have there.Police cars in Holland and Germany tend to sneak around unobtrusively. Not so in Poland, where they use the most unnerving oyoyoyoyoyoy sirens - and they use them a lot! This makes Wroclaw sound like New York.
Here's a photo, taken in Wroclaw, but only because I say so. I bet your guess would be that it's somewhere in America


*)'Mustard after the meal' is a Dutch expression meaning 'that's a bit late and inconsequential'.

PS Here is a test: a QuickTime interactive panorama embedded in this page.
And it works! Use the mouse cursor to drag your way through the panorama.
Oh and by the way, I made that panorama myself. It has nothing to do with Wroclaw, but it is around the corner from where we live.

Wroclaw Central Station

I spent a few hours of the night inside this station in Wrocław, the first night, and later came back to take the train to Kozle. Waiting time was over an hour, so I had the opportunity to take photos of two of these platforms. Later I discovered that they were so similar that with some serious tweaking I could mount them in a common frame. Here's the result.
Need I say "VIEW BIG"?
Or, while we're at it, HUGE? (13 megapixels!)

Here is a rather touching film about people in this station. Featured in it are some that I recognise...
(Added later:) Ouch! I thought I'd stated clearly that I'd found this film on YouTube. Turns out I was wrong. Sorry for the misleading non-info.


Every day I discover at least one excellent photographer on Flickr.com
Today's is someone calling himself gatorhank. Go see.