Things I love to photograph Part 2

Hi everyone!

In my previous post, things-i-love-to-photograph-part-1, I talked about what I love to photograph in nature, and in this post I will write about the things I love to photograph while visiting a small town or large city.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I live close to the city of Rotterdam, so I love to just go there with my camera and look at the amazing architecture, and try to get some nice images. But I also travel a lot with a very good friend of mine, all over the Netherlands and abroad to small towns, and big cities to capture the beauty of it all. I hope you like the photographs, and perhaps inspire you to go out and visit one of the towns, or cities mentioned below, and look for your special shot. Or just enjoy a nice drink and some food there :).

Check out my tips on taking better images during your holiday, or day trip at www.photos-videos.net. But don’t go there before you checked out this post of course :).

I took about 10.000 photographs so far in the past 3 years, so its impossible to post them all, and a lot are not worth it to be posted here anyway :), so I will just stick to some of the shots I do like to share.

I made some video compilations of the towns and cities I visited with my friend, and my friend visited with his girlfriend over the past 2 years, so feel free to check out our video channel at JPRTravel. We try to have a weekly update there for a new video, but that does not always work out, because I am working on this blog for example, or one of our other sites in my free time.

I really love the way the Nationale Nederlanden building looks in the center of Rotterdam, close to the Central station. It was built in 1991, and is 151 meters high. Its actually called the Delft Gate Building (Gebouw Delftse Poort), and was designed by Abe Bonnema.

Below are several images I took many years ago with my Canon 350D, which shows of the amazing shapes of the building.

As I mentioned in my previous post my-photography-hobby, these images were shot in automatic mode, and my camera decided for the top image that the best settings would be an F-stop of 11, and ISO 400, and for the below image an F-stop of 13, and ISO 400.

Another place in Rotterdam to get some great shots, are the Cube Houses, which are located near train station Blaak and the Old Harbor (Oude Haven). They were designed by architect Piet Blom, and built between 1982 and 1984, and it consists of 38 houses, all created at a 45 degree angle. Its popular nickname is “Het Blaakse Bos”, which loosely translated means, the Forest at Blaak.

The first image is special to me, because this image was used in a book called “Line. 7 Elements of Art”, which is written by Jane Castillo. She even signed the book for me, and sent it free of charge to my home, many years ago :). Its not a very amazing photo tbh, but she liked it anyway, because of the Zig Zag lines of the houses, which she refers to in her book.

You can actually visit one of the houses for a small entrance fee, and at the top floor you get an amazing view of the rooftops of the cube house, which looks like pyramids in the next image.

A few years ago, I went to the beautiful town Monschau in Germany, which is located in the Eifel region, in North Rhine-Westphalia. This is truly an amazing looking town, with a very distinct building style, and a photographers dream imho.

The first image is from a small house wedged in between two larger buildings, and it really stood out for me.

After some time, I walked down some stairs, and I happened to look back, and saw my next photograph in my head, before I took the shot. Not too flashy, but nice non the less. I like the way your eyes follow the stairs up to the lighter area.

While crossing one of the bridges, I looked to my right and saw the next view to photograph. The houses in Monschau are very colorful and this view was really worth to capture imho.

Check the video below, for more images from Monschau.

The next image I took while on a trip through Luxembourg, and we came across the nice town of Larochette. The next image is from the Social office, and I really like the look and symmetry of the building. I decided on Black and White for this image, to really get a cool contrast.

Another great place to visit is Echtenach, which is the oldest town of Luxembourg. There are several historic sites to visit there, including an old Roman Villa, which is not depicted in the below image. There is a large Abbey in Echternach, and the below image is from the Orangery from that Abbey, where they stored fruits during the winter. I was lucky that the gates were open that day, so I could shoot this picture.

During a trip to Namur in Belgium, I came across this colorful house which really caught my eye. I especially like the contrast between the house, the wooden door and the grey tiles in front of the house.

Check out the video below for a compilation of photographs from Namur.

While visiting Veghel in the Netherlands, we came across this half torn down block of houses, and my eye was caught by one of the kitchens being overgrown with plants and flowers.

During a trip to Assen in the Netherlands, this house really stood out to me, with the contrasting colors. I especially love the red and white window shutters.

Speaking of shutters. Besides going all wide when shooting a house, its also nice to get up real close and photograph details from a house, like the shutters from a few windows on a building in Dordrecht.

Or this flower on a window sill. The shutters were closed on this window, and I saw this flower laying next to it, so I decided to shoot the next image.

I will keep this post shorter than the last one, so this is it for now, but in my next post I will talk about photographing planes, automobiles and bikes, so make sure you come back for that! I hope you liked the images, and feel free to share this post, or give a nice reply at the bottom.

Kind regards,

J.