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 • bluehour • building site • D700 • high ISO • Leiden • SVB
May 23
Partymania got me a gig at Paard van Troje last Saturday. It was supposed to be held in the main hall, but it turned out that they only expected three hundred people, and since the main hall was used for some sort of concert, followed by an nine hundred strong after party, Stug was moved to the small room.
I walked round, shooting various people, until some people I photographed pointed out to me that they already had the partymania website card that I give after I take a picture. So I gathered my stuff and left after I tried to photograph the second DJ of the evening.
Funny thing though, there was a French DJ who was difficult to photograph since he moved his head to the rhythm of the music.
You can find the rest of the pics here. I know that the picture below looks better, but that’s because the picture below was done in photoshop and the ones on the website were done with Lightroom which can go a long way but not as far as I’d like it to go 
Tagged with: chicks • D300 • high ISO • Nikon • Nikon D300 • Partyshoot
May 15
The same guys that organised Hed Kandi last time in Paard van Troje organised an event called “Frame” on sunday the 11th of may . I did the shoot for partymania.
Although I didn’t like the LJ (guy that does the light) –okay, he’s probably a nice guy, but the way he lit the stage was crap (in my professional opinion). Half my shots of the dancers were blown out, bin-worthy pix.
The crowds stayed away, due to the warm weather and the beach party events, unfortunately. After I shot the dancers a second time I went home, much to the surprise of one of the backstage guys “Dude, you can’t leave, the DJ came all the way from the USA!” he exclaimed.
Well, I guess I shocked him when I said that I couldn’t tell one DJ from the next, that I was only here to take pictures, haha. 
Tagged with: 18-200 • D300 • dancer • high ISO • Nikkor 18-200 • Nikon D300 • Party • Partyshoot
May 11
A while ago I saw on the beeb that the British museum were having a few statues from China’s first emperor’s terracotta army on display in an exhibition, and I was wondering if it was worth a visit. As I had other things on my mind I forgot about it altogether, until the parents of Jan Paul told me they went to the Drents museum in Assen where they had a few items from emperor Qin’s terracotta army.
I couldn’t pass up such an opportunity and dragged my mom along for the ride. Although the ride to Assen was long and Assen was about as exciting as an unpeeled onion (okay, it is quieter than Amsterdam and a lot less claustrophobic) the exposition made up for that. Now I’m seriously considering going to China.
I took most of the pictures at ISO 1600 and higher (the one below is ISO 3200), in manual mode, and tweaked the final image with Capture NX, then photoshop. I guess the picture below is the best, as it was difficult photographing the statues at their best. I guess I’ll do better in China.
Tagged with: Assen • china • high ISO • ISO 3200 • Manual • museum • Nikon Capture NX • terra cotta army
Nov 13
Last week I wiped the proverbial dust off my Nikon F100, loaded up some Neopan that was supposed to be used up by may 2007, put a 28mm lens on it and a red filter, then walked around Leiden snapping pictures during the whole week.
Today I got the negatives back (I know, I’m a lazy bum because I dont want to develop the film myself-well it serves me right that the fu…errr..darn thing is scratched 
)
I scanned in the ones that looked most promising, and I think this wall looks pretty cool. It’s probably from between 1600 and 1800’s by the looks of it. I love the grain, the contrast.It’s a good oppertunity to get rid of the loads of film that occupy the bottom drawer of my fridge.
Tagged with: B&W • black and white • crumbling wall • f/2.8 • Fuji Neopan • high ISO • iso 1600 • Leiden • Nikkor 28mm • Nikon F100 • shallow DOF • wall
