Category Archives: Lens

Dark Foilage

It’s bright, it’s sunny, it’s green. The mood is not so. It’s been a challenging year of self-realization and acceptance or meagre attempts at it. However, after almost a year of hiatus, I picked up my camera with the intent of taking at least half a dozen pictures and post something. That is progress, a high point of the year so far.

Black and white just seems appropriately poetic to acknowledge the summer’s wildflower blossom, changing season and sombre feels of what looks like yet another lost year due to the-virus-that-shall-not-be-named

Grove walk and foliage in black and white

There is a small park with narrow paths cutting through groves of planted trees where I often go for a walk. Right within one of the copses is a spot where the treeline is just dense enough to isolate oneself in greenery. I love standing there, taking a moment for myself, while briefly enveloped in complete calmness.

I have only started doing this during the last six months, though I’ve been living here for almost 4 years.

Occasionally, I wander a bit further towards a pier with sailboats parked on calm waters, to have a sit down and relax.

Winterparadijs

Christmas is here, which means lots of fun markets and fairs, which translates to expensive food, shitty drinks, random music but good company of friends and excellent opportunity for capturing some photos. That last two bits usually makes braving the cold on a weekend afternoon, quite worthwhile.

Winterparadijs event is one of the largest that happens in Amsterdam and despite me living in this city for almost 7 years, its the first time I ended up there.

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Spottersplaats

It literally just that a spotters place, for spotting airplanes, near the Schiphol Airport. This particular spot is right beside the westernmost 18R/36L runway of the Schiphol Airport, which also happens to be the longest.

Every time my father visits me, we make it a point to go visit and often. Armed with my favorite lens (135mm f2) and the camera (Sony A7iii), I set out to capture some night shots

What sets this place apart is the proximity to the runway, with a little fence and a moat to separate, while being just a stone’s throw away. Such a lax and relaxed existence around airports is quite an unimaginable sight either in India or the US.

I particularly enjoyed watching people watch airplanes and capturing the silhouettes they cast

The sight of the airport infrastructure twinkling in the night on the horizon had a pretty dystopian feel to it.

Sunny Sunday in Amsterdam

It was a sunny day. After vegetating for most of the weekend, I decided to step out and cycle around for few hours exploring some of my favorite spots and discovering some new ones.

Reeds with the advent of spring have found themselves growing out of their oblivion. I never get tired of taking pictures of them.

I proceeded to bike towards the sluice locks Oranjesluizen, which connects river Ij with Buiten-Ij. I discovered that it has been around for close to 150 years (opened in 1872).

The red bridge Schellingwouderbrug stood out separating the deep blues on either sides of the horizon today.

What surprised me further was the fact that the water level towards the inland was much higher than Ij.

I leisurely biked around, exploring the dijks on the other side of the sluice locks. The house boats, all bunched up looked exceptionally pretty

The underbelly of Schellingwouderbrug looked quite dramatic and so stopped to capture few shots. I then took the ramp on the right to get onto the bridge itself.

After crossing the bridge, I followed onto Zuiderzeeweg and reached a spot near camping zeeburg. I often pass by this area when I am commuting to work on bike. Today I took time to stop by and explore

Then sunny backdrop was quite deceiving and it was quite cold all throughout my ride. My fingers were going numb and so I decided to call it a day started to circle back home.