Coffee

Coffee, “a great way to start the day with”, “it keeps you awake” or “it is a great conversation starter” are all reasons why to drink coffee. But this is not the only reason why people drink coffee. In the movie Coffee and Cigarettes Steven Wright likes to drink coffee before to go to bed, so he can dream at amazing speeds. Or take this comparison of why to prefer coffee above women. And if you are still not convinced, coffee is even good for your health! But most likely whenever people ask you to drink coffee with them, you should consider the first three options – either they think you look sleepy or they want to do business with you. The last option of course explains why Starbucks is such a success in the US, and why providing wireless internet in all the Starbucks stores was such a logical step to take.

Uhm.. Where was I going again with this story? Ah yes!

I forgot to take a coffee this morning! I found myself in the city, standing somewhere on a small wall together with Indah, taking pictures of the annual FFWD Dance Parade. And even though it had been a long night and an early morning, I remained glued on that very wall for nearly two hours without a drop of coffee! It felt bad not starting the day in the right way, and not socializing with the person I was with. Guess that all I want to say is – Indah, Next time we have to start with coffee!

More weddings to come…

Four wedding invitations for the next four months. One at lake Como (Italy), one in Prague (Czech Republic), one in Antwerp (Belgium) and this week a wedding in Amsterdam (Netherlands).

Last weekend I went to Copenhagen to visit a friend from my study exchange period from about five years ago. He is actually from the Netherlands, but remains in Copenhagen as an expatriate for two years. While we (four of us) planned our trip to Copenhagen, more and more people from the exchange period decided to join us and so our little escape of the daily life became a little reunion in the North. We ended up with twelve persons with origins from – Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Italy, Sweden, Austria, and the Netherlands. A great weekend that left me with a temporarily hangover (even though the alcohol is outrageous expensive) and three wedding invitations (Anyone willing to sponsor me, so I can be present at all the weddings to come, can write me personally. All donations will be fully apreciated, handled with discretion and always be remembered).

I can’t show you a lot of pictures of Copenhagen though, due the bad weather and the short days we had…

“Flickring” for an image!

I have no idea how Flickr became a standard that fast, but since Yahoo! bought the company, it has been going very well with Flickr. Already one of the largest photo databases on the internet with literally millions of images.

So, don’t be surprised if the verb ‘flickring’ becomes the standard when searching for images, as googling became the standard for finding webpages. Of course you can search on the site itself, but the Flickr Postcard Browser is much more fun to use.

Rivals!

Well, maybe no rivals to me, but maybe one day colleagues. But until that day comes I will just enjoy their world of photography;) In this post I made a small collection of some great sites with great photographers. Probably this is going to be a sticky post where I will continuously add new links to. For that reason I will move this post to the navigation side later on. Sit back and have fun and be amazed while browsing their world of photography!

A joint website of photographers is Marge Casey. Many talented photographers can be found here with great pictures. Worth taking a look at! Jill Greenberg has a wonderful site that uses the full screen to show the pictures and experience the pictures as they should be experienced. Dirk Lambreachts shows his pictures in a kinda annoying navigation, but well worth taking a look at. Douglas Fisher an artist in photography and in retouching the pictures. On his website he shows how different elements are being added to his pictures and how he creates in this way an imaginary world that cannot be distinct from real. Albrecht Gerlach is from Brazil and that can be seen from his portfolio. Beautiful warm settings with beautiful people from South America. Sean Kennedy Santos has done a lot of photography for many big brands around the globe (to name a few, Diesel, Sony, etc). His eccentric way of photography distinct him from the vast majority. Carl de Keyzer welcomes his web guests with a pleasant one-minute movie of stills. It gives a great overview of what he has done. Once inside the website, the fast and easy to use navigation guides you trough all his other work. Antoine Verglas a top photographer from French origin. Born in Paris and moved to New York to make his debut as photographer with a documentary of countries top models. Nowadays he shoots for magazines as Elle, Vogue, GQ, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated. Another amazing photographer is Andrew Eccles. He is the favourite for many celebrities, and I have to agree with them! The site navigation is a bit old fashioned, but the photos are breath taking! Another great photographer I like because of his lifestyle pictures is Steven Lippman.

Digitalizing the shoebox

I can’t remember how long ago, but it must have been years ago (please don’t think I am that old, just think that I like to exaggerate a little) when I got that scanner for my birthday (thank you roommates). And ever since, I have been thinking about digitalizing and retouching all my pictures. Well, as you can see in my collection (notice the scratches) there are about four or so pictures that I digitalized since then. Call me lazy – but I would rather call it prioritizing:)

Anyway, today I decided it became time to make a start. So, hopefully over the next weeks you will be able to see some old pictures that might be fun or worth looking at. If you don’t see appearing anything, then I must have forgotten it already or perhaps decided to prioritize again! Today I started with Gigi – it was just a day at the beach and making some snap shots afterwards.

21st Zomercarnaval

Against all weather forecasts, the 21st Zomercarnaval again became a wonderful sunny day!


Queen of Carnival 2005: Imara Thomas (21 years old)

Approximately 900,000 people (source:www.zomercarnaval.nl) visited this yearly returning event and besides the beautiful costumes and cars/trucks of the 47 participants, also a lot of delicious South American food could be tried this day. For me this day existed mostly out of taking pictures with the Pro’s (Indah, Ids, Ferry, and Nur) and later on tasting some of the good food that was supplied at the party:)

A day @ Kralingseplas

Wow! It took me some weeks, but finally I managed to make a selection of all the pictures we shot on that sunny day in July.

Thanks to Rose (The lady on the pictures) and Agit, we managed to have a great day (spending most of our time on the terrace, drinking coffee and wine)! You can see the result in the photography section under People and then Rose.

Tomorrow (July 30) the yearly returning Zomercarnaval will be held in Rotterdam. Hope the weather will be great, so lots of new pictures can be added. Everybody who is going, have lots of fun, and maybe see you there!

Jason Mraz

Actually I have been running behind the facts about the music and the TV scene for years now. Well, to be honest I do not care about the TV scene very much, but how could I ever missed the hype around The O.C? In different reviews I read it is the most appealing ‘soap’ since years. It is called the “Surf, sand, sex and scandal… soap” (Amazon)! And I missed it… Damn! But then again, I saw two episodes of 90210 and missed out completely on Melrose Place and others equivalents.

But fact is that Jason Mraz scored a hit back in 2002, named “The remedy (I Won’t Worry)” for The O.C. . A fantastic way to get noticed as a young singer (1977) from Virginia. And so Jason did. Strong lyrics and different styles of music, varying from acoustic, blues, soul, and folk. If you like John Mayer or Maroon 5 you might give it a shot and try his new album, called Mr. A-Z.

The Messenger Bus line

Today I noticed that a youth friend of mine started his weblog and website some weeks ago. It is really nice to see through a weblog what is on a friend’s mind and what keeps him or her busy nowadays. Not that I am too lazy or to ignorant to ask, but people just do write different things in their weblog than they talk about.

Same goes for the new generation friends I currently have collected on MSN, Y! and ICQ. In the early days it was kind of expected to chat to each other in a formal way and constantly. Now it serves as an informal channel to say hello from time to time, even though their names sit and wait in my tray everyday. It feels a little like people sitting in a bus that passes by everyday, but only very rarely a window is opened to actually start a conversation. And to be honest; I don’t blame them – I sit on the same bus, everyday!

New life

Isn’t it incredible? Those tiny fingers, hands not much bigger than my thumbs, and a skin as soft as a peach.

Two days ago a friend of mine and his wife got their first child. It all went so fast – only two years ago they met each other, not even one year ago they got married, and now they have their first child. And of all couples I know, they are still the most ‘in love’ ones.

Seemingly it is important to bring something new from time to time to your relationship and keep it exciting in this way. Every new step you take is something new to explore, and this time don’t do it alone, but you do it together. And this will most probably make the bonding stronger. It is good to see how they handle the relationship and still manage everything surrounding them, while you often read in newspapers that researches about relationships of higher educated people learn us that having children is something that does not fit anymore in this new life pattern and society.

So, what kind of relationship does fit in our society of today? A relationship where both people are very ambitious and work on their career, while trying to manage their relationship if there is time left for it. Everything is done very coordinated and planned – dating for a period, having a relationship for years while living apart (since we don’t want to rush things of course) and finally moving in with each other. By the time you live together it all of a sudden seems you don’t share the same thoughts anymore or maybe even never did. Have you been living besides each other for years, or is it just you are not made for one another? What to do now? Keep trying with a chance you may fail sooner or later, or both accept your losses and see what else the world has to offer? It is not an easy question to answer, and I think many people tend not to answer the question at all, and ignore the second option.

I am neither a fan of researches nor a fan of statistic numbers, and especially if it comes to living your life. Also I am not a pessimist, but the divorce rate does say something. So, guess my friends are actually doing a great job by ignoring the research and do it the traditional way. And for the others – make your decision if you want to live according the expectations of our society nowadays.

And for my friends and the little one – their story has not come to an end by their first child as they have just bought a new house with five bed rooms…