Dec 18
Achmea is building a new office across from where I work. Over the past months I’ve seen the site develop, and they’ve just managed to put up the Elevator shafts. Sometimes, they keep the lights on after working times to do some overtime (I guess), and when the darkness approaches, or what’s more important, the blue hour, The whole scene looks good enough to photograph. As I can’t open any of the top floor windows sufficiently to put my lens through, I had to take the pictures from the inside, and that gives me a lot of reflections that I don’t want. And I don’t have a 77mm polarizer jet, so I had to take a floor tile (which has a black colored backing) and use it as a shield against the reflections. i upped the saturation, clarity etc. a bit, as well as boosted the contrast to give me this dramatic picture. It was taken with my D700 and 18-35 AF D f/3.5-4.5, which by itsself is a pretty contrasty lens.
For the observant, the SVB building mentioned in my previous post is in the background, but they haven’t turned on their top blue ribbons, nor their huge green lights.
Tagged with: 18mm • achmea • blue hour • building site • D700 • high ISO • Leiden • SVB
Dec 15
It’s that time of the year again, that when I walk to the bus station in Leiden the sun has set and the sky turns that magical blue that justs begs to be photographed. And with my Nikon D700, it’s no problem. And the SVB building is just begging for it. What really helps is that the streets are still wet from the rain, causing reflection which vastly improves the picture. It’s a trick film makers use in their movies. Ever wondered why so many movies have wet streets? That’s why.
So I succumbed and here it is. No fancy PS/LR, this it, almost straight out of the cam.
Tagged with: blue hour • christmas tree • green • Leiden • magic hour • SVB • winter • xmas
Oct 19
On the 8th, 9th and 10th of October, I went to Rome with Marco, a friend of mine who hadn’t been to Italy and decided that it was time he did.
It took us half a day to get there and back, and the remaining 2,5 days was spent roaming the streets and taking plenty of pictures.
Mine tallied up to over 1000 
Okee, that’s quite a lot, but then there is so much to see in that ancient city. I had crammed those 2.5 days full of things to see, but it turned out we did it in 1.5 days. Marco plays tennis so his condition is top notch, while mine is somewhere in the basement.
But on the other hand, his sense of direction (in Rome at least) was totally off, and I guess it serves him that his condition is so good, because then he can run around in circles until he eventually finds his bearings without dropping down out of breath. 
On the 8th we went to the Trevi fountain, and as the sun was setting, the Romans had turned on the lights, making the fountain look even better than during the day.
I straightened the picture, did some perspective correcting and upped the colors, vibrance and saturation.
Tagged with: architecture • blue hour • culture • fountain • Rome • Trevi
