Ask Me a Question

  • May 29, 2009 12:30 AM

I’m feeling a little uninspired in my blog. I feel like it’s become a dumping ground for photos, and the text descriptions are dry and factual with no meat. I’m looking for some inspiration and I thought maybe you could help…

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Ask me a question!  Is there anything you want to know about living in Belgium, my recent travels, crafts, photography, or anything else I typically talked about in the chattier days of my blog?  Maybe it will spark some ideas for future blog posts…  In the meantime, I’m headed to Switzerland for a long weekend.  Be back Monday.

A Walk in Walk

  • May 27, 2009 12:10 PM

Thursday was a holiday here - Ascension Day – and Thomas had the day off. We joined the A-club for a hike in the village of Walk. Walk isn’t much of a town, but it’s in a gorgeous part of the Ardennes.

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On our hike, we saw a castle, followed a river, detoured through Le Parc Naturel Hautes Fagnes – Eifel, got caught up in the middle of a mountain bike race, passed some horseback riders, and even saw a salamander, two frogs, and a bunch of tagpoles. The entire hike was 20km (~12 miles) up and down hills, and by the end, we were exhausted.

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Afterward, we headed over to a really cute nearby town called Malmedy, where we got pizza. This town, and the drive to Walk from Brussels, was beautiful. We passed rolling hills, deep valleys, and tiny towns off in the distance.

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Overall, it was a fantastic hike and a great way to spend the day off. If you’d like to check out more of the photos from the trip, they’re on Flickr:

Natural Lighting Class

  • May 20, 2009 12:00 PM

Last month, I took an online photography class at BetterPhoto.com on Natural Lighting. I didn’t plan on posting my photos, but Thomas convinced me otherwise. There’s something different to me about photos that I submitted for homework and critique, than the photos I post on my blog. Honestly, most of my blog photos are snapshots – taken just to record my life. I try to make them into good shots, but most of the time, I’m using auto settings with aperature priority. All the extra thought and consideration I put into my class photos makes me feel more sensitive about them.

Still though, I said I’d share, so here goes…

Week 1′s lesson was to learn about the dramatic light at sunrise and sunset. I took the same shots at 6AM, 8AM, and 1PM to see how the lighting compared. I was a little rushed so I’m not completely happy with the photos I took, but I was able to identify the golden light hour.  For me, it was around 8AM.

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Week 2′s assignment was moody lighting – working with fog, mist, rain, or artificial lighting. After a thorough critique on my first week, I used a tripod and thought about my photo settings this time.  I was very pleased with what I captured.

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Week 3′s assignment was about backlighting, including silhouettes, transillumination, and rim lighting. Finding interesting subjects for this one was challenging, but I finally figured it out.

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Week 4 was about window light and I think I got my best shot of the class for that week. Thomas graceously volunteered to be my model.  I sat him next to the front window during sunset and pulled a dark curtain behind him.  I got a few shots that I was really happy with.

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Overall, I really enjoyed the class. I felt a little rushed trying to find time to go out and shoot, but I learned the lessons taught and picked up a bunch of other good tips. I’m thinking of trying another one of their classes this Summer – maybe child and baby portraits if I can find some volunteer models.  If you’d like to see some of the other shots I took during this 4-week class, I’ve posted them on Flickr:

Detour in Kinderdijk

  • May 18, 2009 10:12 PM

Wow, I didn’t mean to abandon my blog for so long. We’ve been busy.  I went to Germany, Thomas went to Spain, and we both went to Luxembourg. I’ve also started working on a volunteer project where I’m learning how to use Joomla Content Management System.  I’m way behind in photo-editing, but we just decided to stay in town this next weekend, so maybe I’ll catch up then.

In the last post, I mentioned that we had an unexpected overnight in Amsterdam.  Since no cars were allowed in town for Queensday, and the trains were free, the stations were packed.  When we tried to get back, we couldn’t get past the crowd up to our train and missed it.  Instead, we spent the night at a hotel and headed back the next day.  But since we were already in the Netherlands, we decided to detour in Rotterdam and check out Kinderdijk.  It’s a cute, little village where there are 17 working windmills.  

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I don’t think my photos capture what a pretty day it was.  The weather was great, the windmills were cool, and we had a great time.  And I finally got some decent photos of a Crested Grebe.  We’ve seen them in Brussels, but when I get close, they dart under water and swim to another part of the lake.  I was able to sneak up on this one.

You can see more photos from our trip on Flickr:

Queens Day 2009 – Amsterdam

  • May 7, 2009 6:49 PM

Last weekend was Queens Day (Koninginnedag) celebrating the Netherland’s Queen’s birthday. We went to Amsterdam, which has a particularly big party with free concerts all over and a city-wide garage sale. We had a great time wandering around taking photos of the party-goers.

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We had a weird experience taking photos. When people noticed us shooting their direction, they rushed over and asked where they’ll be posted. I kept expecting them to demand that they’re deleted, like I’ve experienced in the US, but they just wanted my website. We probably had 10 different groups ask for our info.  I wonder if any will actually check it out.

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The crowds were huge and all decked out in orange. In this photo, I turned off all other colors, so you can see just how much orange there was. It was a great time, with everyone hugging, drinking, and dancing in the street. I’ve never seen a big celebration like this in the US before.

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Also, you may have heard in the news about the car crash/attack on the Queen. Several friends and family were worried when we didn’t come home that night and update our Facebook statuses – more about our surprise overnight in the next blog post. Anyway, they were concerned that we might have been hurt in the event, but we actually weren’t even in the same city. We saw it on Twitter during our train ride there, but weren’t concerned because it was 80km away.  Sorry to worry y’all.

The rest of our photos are posted on Flickr: