A photographic odyssey in Amsterdam

Okay, let's start with some random alternate titles for this post.

• What you can do with a camera and a tripod in Amsterdam
• How a 32 year old was thrown into the deep end with photography
• The discovery of the long shutter speed
• How to introduce a character?
• Reflections are a matter of perspective

Feel free to use another one in your head.

So, what I'm going to try, is take you along a microjourney I had on my previous Saturday night. I had decided to take the camera I'd bought last year for videos into the night and shoot away. My intention was to do the Amsterdam clichés. But I can tell you that that failed. 

Here we go. 

I left my house when the sun was still up. Towards the canals. But then I saw these garbage men on the Albert Cuyp Market. They had fluorescent outfits

I've always been fascinated by garbage men. They're cool. So I took another picture. This time I increased the shutter speed. I wanted to try that out for later. You can see that they're working hard. They're building a new metro line in Amsterdam. Called the North-Southline. Long story. But I tried to take a picture of the entrance. Again, longer shutter speed and a tiny aperture. It's quite sharp all the way through. That's because the little hole of the tiny aperture acts as a lens without focal point. Pretty fancy, huh? This wasn't what I came for, though. Grabbed my bike and went to the canals. I saw a nice little corner house. These houses here don't always have 90 degree angles. I'm guessing the angle of this one was about 75 degrees. If you look at the map of the centre of Amsterdam, you'll understand. And there are strange aliens driving through the streets. I'm guessing this one was a on scooter. And this one was in a car. Again, long shutter speed and a tripod. I was actually just trying to capture the nice colours of the house. Shop. They gentrify here as well. Some Bulgarian bus passed by, driving backwards. The driver messed up my shot, so I started taking pictures of him instead. I guess he didn't like that, because then he drove forward again. But I wanted to go to the next square anyhow, which, I thought, was a good first destination. Amstelveld. I think I still had this vague idea that I'd cross the entire centre that night. Amstelveld is a great place, but I got distracted by the water. And there was a nice bench there. Thought I'd be more comfortable sitting down. Because it started to get darker and I needed to increase my shutter speed to almost 30 seconds. Which led to this. Okay. Not immediately. I took a video first, and some pics without boats, and some sound fragments of ducks, but then this one passed by. I noticed this great red reflection, which was very sharp. I guess that's because it was moving forward and the waves were moving too, so every instant of reflection of the surface was basically captured separately. Thought it was neat, so I tried it again. Now it had some white. That combination looked like it was about to play a beat. I focused on just the reflections. And I wouldn't be me if I didn't start to mess things up entirely. And another one But then I got back to normal, and decided I could add some perspective to the picture. That led to this. On the same bench. I also wonder why I didn't come up with this earlier. Procrastination, I guess. But this edge of the shore was annoying, so I changed the angle and waited for some boats to pass by. It was this beautiful first spring evening. It never gets very hot here at night, but it was certainly pleasant on this mission. Still that edge. It was hard to see in the dark. But I liked these reflections. Then, a boat showed up with an even brighter red light. They had some blue lantern on board. That was cool. Would've liked to be on that boat. But I also liked being on the shore. Notice how the boat in the back is white? Not anymore: This boat had a nice green light starboard. I think they all should have that, but hey. Nobody cares about the law. I did, in this case, because this was awesome. I stood up to take pictures of the actual Amstelveld, but I wasn't as inspired to do that as I was at home. Or let's say, I got distracted by this sympathetic statue. I tried out some shit with the background, but then I thought he needed a dance partner, so I took the torch of my phone and gave him some moves. He grabbed it out of my hands and added a little flare of his own. So, I photobombed him. There are limits. I proceeded, and found the back of the Amstelveld building had a good reflection to it. A car passed by. I guess that white light is a reflection of the living rooms behind the camera. I proceeded towards the Rembrandtplein, a scooter guiding my way. Suddenly, Amsterdam looked like Venice. Well. They have been calling Amsterdam The Venice of the North for a while. Or perhaps I made that up. Nonetheless, the lights here look like the Italian flag. That's the Rembrandtplein in the background. Now, when I arrived there, I was a little lost. It was getting late, I hadn't had diner and there were some nice beers waiting for me in the fridge. My mind set on going back soon. I expected that my first night photography session had been succesful. Besides, the Night Watch didn't really adhere to his name, because he didn't even see the fluorescent light behind his back. I was making a fool out of him, doing my best to ignore the tourists. By the time I was almost lying on the floor, this girl approached me. She said: "Hi, I'm Peach." Several thoughts crossed my mind, but I decided to go for: "Hi, Peach." She asked me if I wanted to take pictures of her show. I told her I was about to head home and asked how long it would take. She'd start in fifteen, and the show would take about the same amount of minutes. I'd just been stumbling from one distracting picture into next for a while, so I wasn't sure if I was ready for that kind of a commitment. That's what I told her. Then she said it was a fire show. I was sold. Initiating the thought of how I would overcome this gigantic time gap, I got distracted by this amazing magnolia, standing in the middle the Rembrandt square. I'd never seen it before, even if I've been coming here regularly! We were friends straight away. There was a big spotlight on it, which made taking pictures a delight. But I think Peach had accelerated her proces, because she was standing in front of me in no time, saying she was about to start. Or perhaps it was the time warp. She started perparing. Some guy asked what was about to happen, which was funny, because I had not the faintest idea. Something with fire. But I'd find out soon, because there she went. Notice the strange contrast between this sort of a monumental rock, accompanied by a monumental tree and this mystical appearance on the left, versus the tourists and the beer commercial on the right? And why is this guy taking a picture of me, by the way? Hmm... The next picture was moved, so I augmented the blacks to hide that. : ) This RAW picture option is quite fenomenal. First time I'm using that as well. There she went again. Here, I also tried to get the reflection of the tiles. It kind of worked. But this wasn't at all what I'd trained for that day. Super quick. Waaa. Still, I'm happy. We talked a bit after the show. Turns out she writes poetry too! Free people are fun. They have me recognize something of myself. Then I went back home. Needed to see it all on a bigger screen. But might try to improve this session one day.