The Great Global Kiss

Yesterday was the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO). There were events around the world to honor the day. The Amsterdam daily Parool has picked a kiss at the Homomonument at the Westermarkt as its photo of the day.



Photo acknowledgment: Elmer van der Marel for Parool, May 18, 2010

Zoom!

Amazing panorama photo of the gala performance (April 15) in celebration of the 70th birthday of Danish Queen Margrethe II... Zoom up, zoom down, zoom in, zoom out. Zoom!. I love the technology linked with this celebration.

Photos

Rather than relying on print media or radio/television reporting of the horror and chaos in Haiti, I find the still photos give us an intimate, better point of view. Here are two series...

Troy Livesay's flickr photostream

Boston Globe photos

Not for the faint-hearted.

Fill 'Er Up

My friend posted this on his Facebook profile: "The random things that drive by my workplace."

AMSTERDAM ART PAST AND PRESENT

From the collections of the Stadsarchief Amsterdam, the documents centre for the city - fascinating 1930s colour separation images by Bernard F. Eilers. Three samples of over 300 photos:

Herengracht



Albert Heijn grocery store, Kalverstraat 84



De Bijenkorf department store, Dam Square, 1937.




24oranges

The now infamous Vijzelgracht, a street in downtown Amsterdam where entire houses are sinking into the ground due to a series of major screw-ups in digging the new North-South metro line, was a sorry sight. Families were evacuated and their houses boarded up and declared ‘unfit to live in’.



Across the street, local artist Peter Doeswijk who lives and works on the Vijzelgracht came up with a cultural solution to poster up the boarded houses and hide the inevitable graffiti: by using famous artworks of Dutch Masters (Frans Hals, Vermeer and the likes). He has had other poster exhibitions on the Vijzelgracht during the actual construction and without his efforts, the street, which boasts famous manors such as the one of the Maison Descartes (French institute) would look even worse than it sounds.

Vijzelgracht photos taken by the Orangemaster.





Thanks to Prog Gold for the links to the Eiler's photos.

WORLD PRESS 2008 AWARD GOES TO US FORECLOSURE PHOTO

RNW reports from Amsterdam

The international World Press Photo jury has selected a photo by US photographer Anthony Suau as photo of the year 2008. It shows an armed police officer searching a deserted home in the state of Ohio.

Pistol drawn, the officer was searching the house to make sure the residents had moved out, after they had been evicted having failed to keep up with their mortgage payments.

The black and white photograph was part of TIME magazine's Tough Times in Cleveland report on the effects of the credit crunch.

Dutchman Roger Cremers clinched the first prize in the Art and Entertainment category. His winning entry in colour features two visitors to the Auschwitz Nazi death camp. Dressed in the same track suits, the two men are seen from the back taking photographs of a monument on the site.

Dream Amsterdam

Radio Netherlands Worldwide -

Trouw and AD print almost the same Spencer Tunick photograph taken early on Sunday morning in Amsterdam. The photos both feature the spiral bands of a multi-storey car park with 2000 naked people standing facing the camera. De Telegraaf places a picture of naked cyclists leaning backwards and looking upwards on a bridge on the inside pages. Below it is a picture of the artist with a megaphone held to his mouth, "Thank you Amsterdam".












The pictures have been taken as part of the art festival, Dream Amsterdam, held for the first time last weekend. Each year, the festival asks a famous artist to create a piece of art in the city. Don't worry if you missed the spectacle, life-size photographs will be on view in the city centre throughout the summer.

Comment: I totally approve of the event. A friend in NL writes that yesterday's Dream Amsterdam got immense publicity. However, I don't like men and women reduced to just a mass of fleshcolour. I would tend to agree with my friend, "I prefer more the close ups of naked bodies and the beauty of a person in detail."

The car park (Lijnbaansgracht, next to old Police HQ) is very beautiful. Coincidentally, my friend and I had the same reaction: it has kind of NYC Guggenheim-feel to it.

Trouw story in Dutch.

In English and Dutch - Dream Amsterdam

Green Jay

For obv reasons, I delighted in this post over at left i on the news - Eli's been down at South Padre Island, Texas; check out other recent
Texas Gulf Coast bird photos here, here, and here that he's taken this week and posted for our enjoyment. Joy!


The Green Jay is one of those tropical species whose range in the United States only extends to the extreme southern tip of Texas. This one was photographed at Laguna . And this picture, as striking as it is, doesn't even do justice to the richness of color, since it was photographed in the shade (I could never get a good shot of one in sunshine).

Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge