Amsterdam Reflections

And this is perhaps my favourite image from the weekend. I noticed this highly polished name plate just wandering along a canal, and finally found the right angle to catch a quintessential Amsterdam reflection.

Obligatory Amsterdam Bicycle...

The nice part of this photo is the curves. There is no special trick here, no fish eye lens or anything, just the curves of the spot, including the way the bike is wrapped around the fence.

Tulips in a Window

Day two of my photography course, and here are my pick of today's images. This one was taken through a window as I wandered past, hence the reflections.

Shane

The Gardens of the Rijksmuseum

And this last one was in the gardens of the Rijksmuseum. More tomorrow...

Avenue of Trees on Museumplein

Spring Blossom

This one was just on Museumplein...

Weekend through a View Finder

This weekend I am taking a two day photography course called "Learning to Love your Digitial SLR". Day one was pretty good, and I learnt a bunch of new stuff and got some useful tips. So I am just going to post some images over the next day or so that I manage to take during our 'field outings'...

This first one was taken at the Van Gogh Museum, trying to make the most of the reflective windows, and contrasting the older and newer buildings.

Shane

It's Getting Hot in Here

While I was away in the US last weekend, the Netherlands recorded it's hottest April day ever, with the mercury reaching 28.9 degrees celsius.

The same day, the Rotterdam marathon, one of the higher profile marathons on the planet, was abandoned mid-race due to the extreme heat. By the time it was halted, at least 26 runners had been taken to hospital with heat related issues.

(It is worth noting here that when I raced Ironman Western Australia last year, it was around 28 degrees, but the Europeans just don't have the same sense of being able to do stuff in the heat).

Anyway, below is a brilliant video I picked up last night on Youtube. Well worth a watch...

Shane

New York billboard

The picture tells the story - caught this one across the road from where I stayed in Manhattan last week.

Shane

Fifth Avenue

This image just captures much of New York - taken on Fifth Avenue with American flags, yellow cabs and skyscrapers. The grand church provides a contrast.

Shane

Imagine

Have spent a couple of days in New York this week at the United Nations, attending a symposium on whales, and their protection in the 21^st century. It was a very interesting couple of days, and a nice counterpoint to the ‘Normalisation’ meeting I went to in Tokyo in February. Next stop in the fight for the whales will be the International Whaling Commission meeting in Anchorage in May.

Anyway, I grabbed a few hours walking around New York on Saturday morning, including visiting a fabulous food shop called Zabar’s on the Upper West Side, and coming back via Strawberry Fields in Central Park.

And that of course is the source of today’s photo. The hardest part of getting this shot was beating the crowds to get a clear line of sight. And in the spirit of this, I thought I would include John Lennon’s lyrics in today’s blog…

Imagine there's no Heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

Shane

The Bogan Burger

Featuring yesterday in the Courier Mail, this beast is called the ‘Bogan Burger’. Targetted at "flannelette shirt, barrack for St Kilda" type customers, the $15.50 burger's (10 euros) big turkish bread roll is topped with a steak, a chicken schnitzel, a potato cake, bacon, egg, cheese, onion, pineapple and beetroot. It comes with a mountain of fat potato wedges, and salad.

Deakin University nutritionist Dr Tim Crowe estimates it would weigh in at 7000 kilojoules, which would single-handedly meet most people's daily kilojoule needs. He estimates it would also contain about 94g of fat.

Despite my high metabolism, and generally healthy appetite, I am not sure I could finish this. It reminds me of my Belgian pizza complete with chips and steak, which also get the better of me.

In a world where one in four teenagers has a daily fast-food fix, it seems there is no limit to the ways to over-indulge.

Shane

DC Metro

Quick post today - a photo taken inside the Washington DC Metro. I find the design of the stations pretty interesting. For reasons that are unclear to me exactly, the stations always make me think of War of the Worlds (not the recent Tom Cruise version, but the narrated version that I listened to on records as a child...)

Shane

Too close to real?

The best April Fool's jokes are those that have that air of being credible about them. And this one did. At one level it is appalling of course, but we live in such a crazy world that I did get an email from one of our team (for whom English is a second language) saying 'this is a joke, right?'. You can just picture some 'visionary entrepreneur' coming out with an idea like this, and trying to convince some government or company to pump money in to it...

Shane

Organic food sales climb

Dutch consumers spent €460.3m on organic food last year, up almost €40m on 2005, according to Biologica.

Biologica is the Dutch umbrella organisation for organic farming and food. Founded in 1992, it brings together all players in the organic field, including farmers, traders, manufacturers and retailers.

I probably could have told you this anyway, based on my experience of the extensive queues I always seem to face at the local natuurwinkel (organics store). Not sure what is so appealing about standing in lines, but it does not really seem to bother the locals of my adopted place of residence. And apparently dairy products, meat and bread were particularly in demand, but that is no real surprise either, since that pretty much is the Dutch diet…

Shane

Stand and Deliver

A recent story in Dutchnews reported that TNT Post is to cut its Dutch workforce by between 6,500 and 7,000 by 2010 and bring in a 30-month pay freeze. The job losses could reach 11,000, including compulsory redundancies, if unions don’t agree to a reduction in secondary benefits across the board, TNT Post said. ‘It is a question of the lesser of two evils,’ a spokesman told ANP. ‘Either more jobs go or people accept a pay cut. It is as simple as that.’

What the compassionate company spokesman failed to mention was that, according to research by the Volkskrant, TNT boss Peter Bakker saw his total pay package, including basic salary, bonus and pension contributions, rise 10.6% last year. And as for TNT itself? Net profit from ordinary operations was up 7.5% to €828m.

And as the unions pointed out, the pay freeze would only apply to senior management’s basic pay for one year.

But this probably does not seem like that remarkable a story. Unfortunately these stories abound.

Without getting too philosophical about the merits of communism, capitalism or any other economic and/or social model to organise a society around, it seems obvious to say that there has to be a limit. The case with TNT Post exemplifies greed and demonstrates a lack of humanity and compassion that drives our modern society. There are so many other examples – while executive salaries continue to blow out, and military spending grows, nurses and teachers are paid some of the lesser wages in our society, and we continue to cash in the environment at the expense of the generations to come.

We are all stuck together on this little blue planet – surely we can do a better job of getting our priorities right than our current collective efforts?

Shane

Can we get enough of spring?

Went for a walk in the Vondelpark this morning, a beautiful Easter Sunday morning full of spring. I had always been taken by how exuberant Europeans were when the weather turned for the better. I guess I truly understand it now – after the long winter, and the dark days with weak sunlight, the spring feels so full of wonder. I know understand that urge just to be outside, to soak up the bursting energy of the new season.

Even in the city the signals from nature are so strong – the budding trees, the flowers, the change in the air. And here in Amsterdam, it is the birds – the ducklings, goslings, moor hen chicks and occasionally the cygnets.

Of course, the spring theme in this blog may be becoming a bit repetitive – sorry about that! Guess I have acclimatised just a bit too much. And I was picked up on a recent posting by my friend Missy M, a fellow Aussie, who wrote to me saying ‘what’s with the long warm summer – what about hot?’. She is right of course, although this is Amsterdam…

Shane

Let it Out

The ancient forests of this world, such as Canada's boreal forests, are essential in fighting climate change and providing homes to wildlife like caribou, wolves, eagles and bears. Unfortunately, they are also pretty attractive to logging companies, and governments are pretty happy to let the companies get in there.

Kimberley Clark is the owner of Kleenex, one of the most popular brands of tissue products in the world. Unfortunately the company still reckons it is OK to clear cut ancient forests and turn them in to products that will get used once and then thrown away. Despite the fact that other companies can used recycled products, Kimberley Clark keeps on purchasing virgin fibre from endangered forests. You can read more about it here.

So Greenpeace has been on the case for a couple of years now, and recently did some culture jamming on Kleenex's flash new advertising push. The video below is completely self explanatory, but I thought it was worth including this quote from a contributor to Alternet, who described it this way:

"There are at least two reasons why you don't want to miss this: 1.) It's fun. That's all. That's the important part of any activism. It makes the lives of the people who do it more exciting, fun and meaningful -- which this action clearly does and 2.) They're not calling anyone evil or advocating for the disbanding of Kleenex's parent company Kimberly Clark. They're just saying, you know, please stop this totally unnecessary and irresponsible behavior so we can blow our noses without worrying about sullying some virgin.... er, forest."

Shane

Images of War

The good weather on Sunday inspired us to head across town to visit the Jewish Historical Museum, to see an exhibition of works by Robert Capa. As the museum website says the “exhibition takes a broad look at the work of Robert Capa (1913-1954), the legendary war photographer and founder of modern photojournalism. His photos of the Spanish Civil War and D-Day are etched in everyone’s memory and have shaped our image of the twentieth century.”

A colleague at work told me about the exhibition, and it contained some powerful images. I did not consciously know of Capa before going, although as the introduction suggests, I have probably seen some of the more iconic images before. Capa’s power lay in capturing not so much the images of war, but of the people caught up in it. The exhibition was a series of strong black and white images that conveyed so much emotion. With informative display panels, it really was very interesting.

One panel noted a famous quote from Capa - "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." The irony in this quote is that like many war photographers, Capa was ultimately killed in the filed when he stepped on a land mine.

Showing at the same time was an exhibition of photos by the Dutch photographer Eva Besnyö (1910-2003). As this bio notes, her work “has featured in countless publications and exhibitions. Yet after her death many still unknown and previously unpublished photos were discovered in her archive.” The current exhibition presents a selection of these photos, and includes portraits of women taken in the 1930s, photos of postwar reconstruction in the Netherlands and a series of portraits made in the 1940s and 50s of artists, writers and actors.

Both exhibitions are showing until 20 May, and if you are in Amsterdam are well worth a visit.

The image here is one of my own. It is the building opposite the Jewish Historical Museum. I don’t know what the building is, but I found the lines interesting, and with the brilliant blue spring sky, thought it was a nice shot.

Shane

Another slice of spring

Here is a another spring-like photo I took on the weekend - the Amstel River, just near the Waterlooplein. The classic Amsterdam postcard scene!

Shane

Spring is here!

Spring has arrived with a vengeance this weekend in Amsterdam. The flowers have been out and the trees budding for several weeks now, but this weekend the temeprature actually felt like spring. And the citizens of this city responded emphatically, as they always do when the sun comes out, by heading out in droves. The cafes were packed, the street-side tables filled with people soaking up the rays. And the park was full as well, with people picnicking, playing football or just lying around.

We got in to the spirit of it, stopping at the Museum Plein in front of the Rijksmuseum for an impromptu picnic ourselves. There was not a lot of planning involved here - we dashed in to the Albert Heijn supermarket, grabbed a few goodies, and just went and sprawled on the grass, as so many others we doing. The wind was still a bit on the chilly side, and those getting around in just t-shirts clearly were overdoing it just a little, but the warmth on the skin was a wonderful feeling. May it be a long warm summer!

Shane