A M S T E R D A M
What a crazy short trip! After spending Xmas time with my family back home, I decided to do a short trip to the Netherlands for some Amsterdam Photography. It’s funny that I’ve never been to the “city of freedom” even though it’s only 3 hours away from where I live. So, traveling there has been on my to-do list for quite some time. Let me tell you something: I will return for more.
| Impressions |
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| Shooting in Amsterdam |
Tourists love the canals of Amsterdam where you can take a boat ride and see the city from an unique perspective. I am not the average tourist though unless you consider car park houses, office facades and staircases typical tourist points of interest. For my Amsterdam Photography short trip I did a lot of research to find spots I wanted to shoot before traveling there. Luckily, Marco – an Instagram friend of mine – helped me out and got me started on a few spots. If you are interested in his architecture shots you can find his feed here: @marcorama.
Since it was winter in Europe, weather conditions can be quite windy, rainy and cold. Sunny days with blue skies are rare. Shooting architecture on an iPhone can become somewhat difficult with bad lighting conditions. For this short trip I wanted to focus a bit more on my Minimal approach to photography. Compared to my Paris trip, most of my photographs taken in Amsterdam stress monotone backgrounds with an added human element in motion. Overall, you will find a lot less details and structures. I describe Minimal photography as simple to look at, yet difficult to compose. Luckily, I found some great facades and walls while exploring the capital of the Netherlands.
In the Minimal Picture above you can see me in front of a pink background. At the bottom of the image you can see a brighter horizontal line which adds some perspective to it. Interpreting the brighter area as the ground and the pink area as a wall is a natural first thought. Moreover, my pose looks like I am falling headfirst onto the ground. However, the distance from the ground to the person makes you wonder if this composition is reality or if I am (again) playing with the perspective. In contrast to some other photographs, this one was taken from a very high point of view. You are actually looking at me laying on the ground, thus creating a totally different point of view. Fun Fact: the color of the ground is actually this tone of pink. Who designed this?
| Featured Photograph |
The featured photograph of my Amsterdam trip is located in a car park house in the South of Amsterdam. The place has become somewhat iconic though you wouldn’t find it if you had no idea where to look for it. After getting there I was taking some snaps to find some compositions I like. I ended up walking all the way up the car park house using the spiral tower lane for cars.
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The symmetry of the two spiral towers immediately caught my eye. The left side is for cars to drive up to higher floors and the right side is to get back to ground floor. Since it was a moody grey morning in Amsterdam, I decided to go for a grey unsaturated tone spectrum. The bright sky in the background serves as a great contrast to the dark foreground and the subject of the image. Without the subject, this photograph would be far less interesting to look at since he gives some movement and focus to the image. By stepping from one side to the other he connects the symmetrical parts but also makes us question what exactly he is doing. Do I know? No. Does he know? Unlikely. However, the distance to the ground creates an atmosphere of danger which adds another layer to the image.
Final Words: Please note though that you are not supposed to go there at all. Be safe whenever you want to capture the aspect of risk.
“Leaving 2018 behind and stepping into 2019. Let’s be creative this year! “
