Happy Easter

My friend H. has a beautiful plant (amaryllis) in his bathroom and recently two flowers appeared. The deep red with the yellow stems make them gorgeous.

These bunches of yellow branches were lying on the sidewalk, waiting to be sold in the flowershop. The colour yellow is very striking.

It's quite cold in Holland now. I wish you a happy Easter all the same.

Golden light

Last night the light was beautiful in our kitchen and living room. It had that typical golden glow of sun set. It made strange patterns on the yellow wall above and set the glass candle holders on fire below.

Soft pink

I find it difficult to take pictures of people, especially people in the street. In the Netherlands, people get paranoid when you even vaguely aim a camera at them. It's easier photographing people I know, like family, friends or even at a course or workshop.

This picture was taken during a course, actually just a little afterwards. I like the way the black hair falls on the soft pink sweater. You can almost touch it.
Here, the lines are vertical.



Lines

Above, I obviously fell for the yellow horizontal lines and the light.

Preference file

Reflections, I've said it before, are one of my preference files. The wonderful thing of winter is that branches reflect very well in water, cars and other smooth surfaces.

Plastic Spring

Spring has not yet set in

winds are fierce and Arctic.

In a block around the university

I learned that Spring is not for real

but can only be found in plastic.

Sunday morning coffee

Sunday morning coffee

one a little larger than the other

with milk fresh from the dairy farm

whipped by hand

was finished all too soon.

Budding

I walked around the still pretty bare Hortus Botanicus, the botanical garden of my university, this afternoon. I was a bit down, because it still felt like winter.

I started the day in a good way, the sun was shining, and although it was cold it smelled like Spring. Then during the morning, the sun disappeared and it started snowing again. Please, we all want the winter to go away!

So, even if the prospects were not good for the rest of the day, I went outside for my lunch walk and trotted around the garden. Slowly I let my thoughts go, opened up my awareness and started to see. I noticed little buds even though it was so cold. The red buds in the Japanese garden made me happy.

Rainbow

I haven't been able to take any pictures today, so I post one from about two weeks ago that I like very much.
This was a powerful moment: a tractor had just passed in the small street and evidently lost some petrol. When the puddles started to calm down I noticed the rainbows of colours. I got very excited, which is not a good thing with contemplative photography, because then you don't see clearly anymore. Also, two cars wanted to pass in this little street and I had to step back on the sidewalk.
When I quieted down a little, I took a few pictures, this was the first.

Tile in water

This was an another, how shall I put it, umpf. I saw the tile through the reflection in the water and I felt a little stab in my heart. An instant later there was a thought: beautiful. I looked at it for a while and then took the picture.

Grooming duck

When I was on my daily lunch break around the university, I noticed this male duck grooming his feathers. He was completely minding his own business. I like the way he moved, how that caused the water to ripple and the contrast with the plastic bottle.

Examples of March 2012

Tail lights of a car

Eye in a tree

My own shadow

Roots

Waterbird

Yellow tulips

Reflection in a car

Spring started earlier than this year.

Coffee cups at work

Beads in the kitchen

Rusty tank

Light on a curtain

Water ways

Nr. 5

Green play

I decided to put these two images together, because of the colour, but they are about two different moments. The first being a shadow of the signs on a Chinese Indonesian restaurant in town. I walked with one of my girl friends and her 7 year old son and all of a sudden I saw this sign on the wall.

The picture above was taken in a waiting room later today. I was waiting on my turn, looked around the room and saw this. I like the way the shadows make lines of the curtains on the wall.

Above all, I was happy that the sun was out (between snow showers) today!

Cranes with blue sky

And then today the sky was blue and although it was still freezing, it made a world a different place....

Five shades of grey

Yesterday, Winter came back again. Just after we had a little peek of Spring, it started snowing and temperatures dropped below zero, the sun disappeared and the sky was grey again. 

If you go beyond the grey, you find an astonishing world of perception. Grey is not just grey, it has shades and when I looked up I saw lines and space.

Self portrait

My own reflection with umbrella in a black car really stopped me. The way the drops stream down the car makes it a Haiku.

Miksang Practice Day

So we had a wonderful practice day, it rained all day and the skies were grey. Being outside for a while and opening my vision, made me realize that photographing in the rain is a totally new field of awareness. 

There are drops everywhere, shimmering surfaces, reflections, puddles of water and what not. And even without sunshine there were colours.

Cats

My friend L. whom I visited last weekend, is very fond of animals: cats, dogs and deer. She has 3 living cats, a living dog and lots of animal figurines. I like the two shadows in the above picture and the shape in which the three cats are formed in the one below.

Feeding the ' chickens' .

Red on grey car

This was ever so bizarre: the sun shone all kinds of light on this grey car. The effect of the bright red and the whitish definitely stopped me dead in my tracks. I couldn't go passed it.

High rises

The area close to my work is called 'Zuidas'. It's a business area with lots of offices in high rises and it has its own train station. With the sun shining, I saw plenty of reflections and shadows.

I am not particularly fond of modern tall buildings, the glass works as mirrors and the blue sky was everywhere.

The second day of Spring

Yes, Spring started yesterday! With temperatures around 14 Celsius, blue skies and a lovely sun, people are happy again and are making plans.
The lovely thing about the sun is that shadows appear, like in these pictures. Shadows everywhere, I don't know where to look. It makes such a difference with cloudy days.

My friend's colours

I visited my friends in north today and yesterday. They live in a normal family home, but my friend L. likes colors and you find that in every bit of the house, in the candles, 

tablecloth, wrapping paper with colourful ribbons,

and even the outside picnic table.

Pink characters

This stopped me dead in my tracks, I couldn't go around it. The colours hit me and left an imprint in my eye.

In Miksang you're not supposed to associate, but this made me think of pink Japanese characters.

Who's afraid of blue and red?

Just a short note today: even on a dreary day I found colour!

Blue and pink

Later, the sun came out and it made all the difference! Colours were vibrant,  shadows appeared and textures were more visible. I started looking anew and seeing different things!