The Conquest Of Abundance

Vienna Teng Live At The Bimhuis, Amsterdam

2009-03-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I went to see singer songwriter Vienna Teng perform live at the Bimhuis, Amsterdam. I've been a fan of her music for a few years now and this was my first opportunity to see her performing live. The concert was great, a mix of songs from her previous albums and some songs from her new upcoming album Inland Territory, which is scheduled for release this spring. Her voice is wonderful and her songwriting and arrangements are very original. Of course I took my camera along and here are the results:

The Dutch Coast I - Katwijk To Scheveningen

2008-10-31T00:49:00.001-07:00

Over the coming period I plan to do a series along the whole of the Dutch North Sea coast from Den Helder in the north to Cadzand in the south. I love to be out there and I love the photos I find so this will be one of my ongoing projects.

Sleep in B&W

2008-06-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

Two pictures on the theme of sleep.

"Time To Wake Up"

"Eternity Without Sleep"

May 30th Trip To The Coast

2008-06-01T08:36:00.001-07:00

Friday I went back to the coast and Walked from Noordwijk to Katwijk. Here are some of the resulting pictures:

"Land's End"
Large

"Swimsuit Appocalypse"
Large

"They Will Come"
Large

"Remembering The Wizard Of Oz"
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The Dutch Coast

2008-05-30T02:25:00.000-07:00

I've been going back over my unprocessed RAW files from some photo trips to the dutch coast in Spring and found a few nice ones. See what you think:

"Stormy Monday In May"

"Beached"

"Dusk In B&W"

"Untitled"

"Skyline In Orange"

"My Camouflage Isn't Working, Is It?"

Latest Shots

2008-05-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

"Spiraling Upward"

"Bend Or Break"

I was going through my photos to select some shots for printing, and when I came across this one I suddenly realized I should do a black and white version of it. Personally I think it's much stronger and more dramatic in black and white and I'm happy I came across it and gave it a shot. You can check out the result below, see what you think (and let me know if you feel like it).

"Bend Or Break"

New Shots

2008-05-23T01:42:00.000-07:00

Here are two new shots from the last days that I'm pretty happy with.

"About Time"

"X Marks The Spot"

Life Cycles

2008-05-19T02:12:00.000-07:00

The (mis)adventures of the bicycle.

If known at all The Netherlands abroad is known for any of very small list of things. These are in no particular order: wooden shoes, the red light district of Amsterdam, legalized marihuana (erroneously, selling and possession of marihuana are in fact illegal, certain regulations with regard to possession and selling are just not enforced), tulips, windmills, Gouda cheese and or canals.
What The Netherlands or Holland, as it is also known, is not known for, is one of our most popular national pastimes: bicycle theft. If you start looking at bicycles in the Netherlands there is one thing you’ll soon notice: the enormous creativity of bike owners. Bicycles are painted in the most curious patterns and no colors are excluded from use. Apart from that various form of adornment and accessories are used, from child seats to baskets and from plastic flowers to complete plastic jungles including wildlife.

Now the visiting foreigner might admire this explosion of creativity, missing the fact that there are actually two practical and pragmatic reasons for this, both related to the aforementioned national pastime. One reason is that a stolen bicycle should be made unrecognizable and unidentifiable as soon as it has been “acquired”. The second reason is that a unique bicycle with a memorable appearance is more easily recognized and retrieved. Now I known some people (otherwise known as wise-asses) are going to remark that purpose number one kind of defeats purpose number two. What they are forgetting to take into account though is the time factor. The creative alteration of the appearance of a bicycle takes time, inspiration and materials. Now I can hear you think: “yes, but how much time can that take?” I can tell you from personal experience that the answer to that question is: enough. The reason that I know this is that I have actually re-stolen my own bicycle on the same night it was stolen from me. I found it when I was on my way home on foot, cursing under my breath and actually saw the thing in a bicycle rack in front of one of the buildings I passed on the way to my house. The original lock was still attached and the cycle was unharmed so I recovered it.

This coincidentally was my closest encounter with the other side of the bicycle theft equation, as I am one of those rare Dutch with a cycle theft deficiency. (A fact which is mysterious even to me, because it is not from any moral conviction as I am completely immoral; at least according to the people that call themselves my friends) I have never actually stolen a bicycle myself or bough a stolen one knowingly. Even after the fourth and fifth ones had been stolen from me, which is usually the moment when even the most cycle theft resistant give in and go on the prowl for a free replacement, I held out. My final solution has been to become a bicycle free Dutchman, which as I understand is even rarer and might actually be illegal so please don’t tell anyone.

This long intro however brings me to the subject of photographing bicycles in which, possibly to compensate for my late lack of involvement in cycling matters I have been engaging enthusiastically. I have been making a series entitled “life cycles, the (mis-)adventures of the bicycle” dedicated to what you might term bicycle portraits. Here are a few examples; the full series can be viewed here: Cycle Cycle

JPG Magazine Entries

2008-05-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

If you like these, please vote for them by following the links under the photos.

Where Do You Think You're Going?
http://www.jpgmag.com/photos/685854

Sand In My Shoes
http://www.jpgmag.com/photos/672549

Some B&W Shots Made This Week

2008-05-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

Ascent

Descent

Hold On

Fiat 500

Hit The Road Jack

Bus 2164

2008-05-09T00:43:00.001-07:00

A Maltese Ghost Story

I recently spent a few days on the island of Malta to explore its rich (pre)history, and believe me, Malta's history is one of the richest you'll find. It moves from the oldest free standing megalithic temples in the world, the earliest of which date from 3200 BC, through the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Byzantine Empire, an Islamic phase, the Normans, the Kingdom of Aragon-Catalunya, the Knights of St. John, The British Empire and finally to independence and membership of the European Union (and that is the short version).
One of the most remarkable things about Malta however are the buses. They are all unique and are maintained and personalized by their own drivers. Some of them are pretty frightening as well.
There is, for instance, the fast bus to Paradise, which is leaves from Valletta bus terminal, and is driven by Clive, which, from the way things look may get you to paradise faster than you bargained for. On a side note, a casual word of advice here; there is what appears to be an information stand located at Valletta bus terminal. This however is a misleading impression as the true function of this small building which has a wide desk behind which four or five public tranport officials are standing, is to provide a convenient central location for the aforementioned officials and bus drivers to yell at one another in Maltese, which is a curious mix of mainly Arabian and Italian. You can ask for information here, this however leads to three possible outcomes none of which may be what you desired: a blank stare, being completely ignored, or in the most positive case, being handed an indecipherable pamplet which purports to show the times of departure and routes of the various bus lines, but instead is a cleverly designed piece of surrealist art.
Even more frightening than the fast bus to Paradise is the bus this story is dedicated to: bus 2164. I got onto this bus after visiting the Necropolis of St. Paul’s Catacombs in Rabat (an eerie coincidence, as it turns out). The first impression was not very awe inspiring to put it mildly but to counterbalance this it had a bus driver who, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary (see below) did his utmost to convince the passengers that they were in fact dealing with a serious form of public transport by meticulously checking each and every bus ticket. My particular ticket, a small square of white paper which stated in bold black print: “valid for one day” and “valid on 20-04-08” was studied for at least a minute, only interrupted once or twice by a suspicious glance at the owner of the ticket, yours truly. An elderly lady who got on at one of the bus stops was sold two tickets, even though she was the only one there. When the slightly flustered lady brought this to the attention of the driver, he responded by looking suspiciously over her shoulder to check where her husband had gone, a fact which seemed odd at the time but made sense to me later when I discovered the truth about the bus.
To get back to the buses deficiencies that I alluded to earlier, they were legion, though some, like the top speed of 30km per hour might even be counted as advantages given the overall state of maintenance and the apparent absence of any form of suspension. I can assure you, you have never experienced anything even remotely similar to the infernal racket this bus produced even at sub 30km/h speeds, and in fact environments more conducive to casual conversation have been measured inside full blown hurricanes.
As if the sheer volume of the noise wasn’t sufficiently unnerving, its quality added another even more nerve wracking effect, namely creating in the passenger the irresistable urge to look over one’s shoulder at the road to check for lost engine parts, wheels or possibly a more or less complete transmission, because shifting gears sounded suspiciously similar to a handful of cogs being thrown into a meat grinder. Interesting (interesting being a relative term here) traces of welding could be seen in the most unexpected of places throughout the vehicle and the floor was in fact more similar to a scaled down version of a medium sized mountain range (say the Apennines). One of the most worrisome moments (most and worrisome also being relative terms here) on this bus ride was on a gently sloping uphill stretch when we were overtaken by an old lady with a big bag of groceries in one hand and a walking stick in the other, and for a second I got the strong impression that we were in fact starting to roll back down the hill in reverse.
Little did I realize at the time that my feelings of apprehension towards this vehicle were in fact completely justified, because as I found out, I had actually been traveling not on a bus, but on the ghost of a bus!
Let me explain: From my seat I could see that there was a sign in the front against the bus windscreen. From where I was sitting I could not read it but curiosity made me make a fast picture of the sign with my zoom lens to have a look at later, when I was back home.
As you can clearly see bus 2164 was scrapped somewhere in the fifties, yet it drove me from Rabat to Sliema in it's own blood chilling fashion on April 20th 2008. There is just one small question about this bus trip that keeps nagging me: did the bus driver sell that poor lady two tickets because two people actually did get on the bus at that stop?

For Sofia

2008-04-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

You live with the question. Wondering how to proceed, we find ways to make things happen. We do not understand the question. It is there despite our lack of understanding, as are many other things. For some reason we choose not to be bothered by this.

    The question is there. You are there. Lately you have more and more become the asking of the question. We have taken notice of this. We predicted it and it ensued. We are given to habitual premonitions. It would be natural to assume some causal factor in all this. We, however, do not care for causality.

    Many things appear in our visions that we choose not to predict. Our visions of course consist of Numbers. We crunch them in order to make them talk. Sometimes The Numbers refuse to talk, so we crunch them some more. Often this does not help but we try, knowing our duty and the means to its fulfillment. The Truth among other things is somewhere in The Numbers. We have predicted it. It will ensue. We have come close to it on a number occasions. This number, too, is somewhere in The Numbers.

    If we fail we will simply predict our own existence. From that everything will ensue and we will use a different number at the point where we went wrong. We know. We have tried it before. We are fond of Procedure though not necessarily this one. Above all we are dispassionate. We do not believe, or at least this is what we choose to believe. The Numbers demand it, we think.

We think. In this Procedure is very helpful. It helps us to think something definite and useful. Even though Procedure killed the rats, we know we must have faith. Anyway, everything dies: To die usefully is to die well. (Procedure: 12,14.) We wish we would have been useful in the way of the rats but our use was determined to lie elsewhere. We know who we are. We may not like it but that is allowed. We do not have to like anything, not even being dispassionate, even though we do.

    We are very Good with The Numbers. We have known for a long time how to make them talk. We can make them talk by way of colors and shapes; we can even make them talk by way of words though this is definitely not our favorite. We are very professional about all this; our professionalism necessitates it. We do it for you. We love you dispassionately. We will succeed. The numbers have said so. We have predicted it and if not we will. It will ensue.

The Conquest Of Abundance

2008-04-25T12:04:00.000-07:00

This is (or rather is going to be) my photography and fiction blog. The uniting theme of this blog is the concept of "The Conquest of Abundance" as described in the book of the same title by philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend, whom I admire greatly , not just for his ideas but also for his deeply humanistic attitude.
Basically the conquest of abundance is the idea that in our attempts to gain control and knowledge of our world we have been loosing a large part of the richess this world has to offer, in the form of ideas, experiences, views, and basic cultural diversity. This blog then is my personal attempt to regain for myself, and possibly a few others who feel sympathetic to this attempt, some of the abundance that is in danger of being lost and forgotten.