Ronny Gabriels Photography

It had been a long day of travelling when we finally arrived in our hotel in Las Vegas on the 6th of September.  The waiting in airports and long flights combined, we had pretty much been travelling for 24 hours. Only to realize when we drove our rental car over the Las Vegas Strip that it was in fact Labor day weekend. Possibly one of the busiest weekends in Las Vegas. Ah well, what’s a traffic jam at 9PM in Las Vegas when you can start your 3 week vacation right? Right!

That Monday was spent walking and driving.  The walking in the AM in Las Vegas and the driving in the direction of Zion National Park. Our first official stop of the vacation.  But first Vegas. Let’s just say that I’ll never become a fan (or maybe when I had too much too drink and couldn’t tell reality from fiction). It is so unbelievably over the top that you are going to have to see it for yourself to believe it. And because the difference between the indoor air-co’s and the outside heat made for an almost sickening environment I was glad to get going for Zion. I’m glad I saw Vegas, but I wouldn’t be too disappointed if I never got back there.

So Zion.  We arrived in Springdale, were our hotel was located, in the late afternoon. The hotel was called “Majestic View Lodge” and it more than delivered on it’s name. You can see some of the photos in the “Zion National Park” gallery on my site. It was the last stop of the Springdale shuttle bus to the park so that meant we could leave the car at the hotel and make our way to the park by bus and there take the shuttle bus into the park itself. All of the smaller parks in the US should implement this. It’s convenient, fast and a great way to have an almost guided tour of the park.  As an extra bonus you eliminate cars from the park which is great for visitors and wildlife alike.

  View from the Majestic View Lodge in Springdale, UT

I don’t know whether it was just because Zion was our first park on the trip or not, but I was pretty impressed with it. Zion was one of the parks I had done almost no research for beforehand, so I didn’t really knew what the park had to offer. A lot as it turned out. Most of the canyon parks are build on the rim of the canyon. Zion national park is actually located on the floor of the canyon which gives you straight cliffs reaching up hundreds of feet right beside you, while having a very green feel at the ground level with lots of plants, trees, a river and wildlife.   

  Bighorn sheep near the Zion National Park East Entrance

The first night we explored the park just from the bus because we had limited time. The second day we made quite some stops and started our hiking with the riverside walk on the far side of the park and the emerald pool trail later that same day.  It was a great warm-up for the rest of the vacation and it gave a pretty good idea of what the park was all about. On day three we started the Observation point trail early in the morning after a golden tip of one of the bus drivers.  Although it was the trail with the biggest elevation change and also took the longest to complete in the entire park, we felt up to a challenge.  The only thing I can say is that the view was worth the 5hour hike.  Look at the photos and dare to disagree.

View from Observation Point in Zion National Park

An overview of the entire park and beyond, observation point is though to reach but worth every step. We did see people coming up the mountain in the sun when we were going down around noon and by the look of their faces it save to say “START EARLY”.  Before 10AM most of the trail is in the shade and my god does that make a difference :-) We took the afternoon off and stayed by the pool only to go back to the park at sunset for some photographic opportunities (I couldn’t resist).

 
Evening shot in Zion National Park (Riverside walk)

Two full days was all we had at Zion National Park before we had to leave and go to Bryce Canyon. Now because Bryce and Zion are so close together we made a “little” (read 5hour) detour via Grand Canyon North Rim.  If you are every looking to visit the Grand Canyon in peace, this is the way to do it.  The North Rim is arguably a lot smaller than the South Rim, but because of the fact there is only one hotel and pretty much nothing else in a two-hour drive radius, it beautifully quiet, plus a lot more beautiful nature-wise in my opinion. As an added bonus the drive up to the North Rim travels over the absolutely stunning North Kaibab National Forest road. So despite taken 6 hours to get from Zion to Bryce (which is basically a 1 hour drive), it was a great day.  The photos from the North Rim will be included later with the other Grand Canyon photos.

So with Stage 1 complete, Bryce Canyon was the next beautiful stage in this three week trip.  Check back soon for the story about Bryce.

Hope you enjoy the photos!  See them here!

From the 6th until the 26th of September, Merel and I undertook a big 3 week roadtrip along some of the US’s most famous national parks.  Starting in Las Vegas we drove by Zion, Bryce, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Arches, Canyonlands and the Grand Canyon, visiting Salt Lake City, Monument Valley and Hoover Dam along the way, to end up in Las Vegas again for the trip home.

Of course a lot of photographs were taken (2018 to be precise) and in the next days, weeks (and months if things don’t go well) you can expect a lot of them on my site.  I will prepare them national park by national park in the order that you saw above. Since they were all shot in RAW, please have a little patience because it will take a while to get them right and posted. I’m currently working on the shots from Zion and so you can expect them here hopefully by the end of the week.

What can you expect from the photographs? Expect a lot of landscape and animal shots. I don’t take too many “people” shots, so don’t get your hopes up too much for those.

Hope to see you back here or on the site very soon.

Ronny

Finally, the FIA GT came back to Belgium in what was going to be a great racing weekend. The 24h of Spa is probably one of the most famous races on the European continent and after missing it the last two years, I finally made it.

Maserati MC12

A weekend featuring European GT4, British Formula 3, Lamborghini Super Trofeo and of course, the full FIA GT circus is a feast for everybody who loves racing. Not only do you get the some epic racing cars from the likes of Maserati, Corvette, Aston Martin, Porsche and Ferrari.  This year the field was extended with the GT3 spec Alpina B6, the monsterous Ford GT (including one in 2010 spec) and the trackside Godzilla that is the Nissan GT-R. Add the GT4, Britisch F3 and Lamborghini Super Trofeo cars and any of you interested in racing know why you should have been there. 

Bruxelles corner at sundown

As more often than not, weather conditions made it quite tricky on Saturday, not in the least for the photographers. The weather change constantly from sunny, to dark overcast to rain. This meant that every 10 minutes I had to change the settings on my camera to get some decent exposures.  Sadly this didn’t always work out too well.  When you have to push the ISO up to 400 to get properly exposed shots (of moving cars), you’re almost guaranteed to have lower quality shots.  The end result was that only about 10% of the photos I took made it through the first cut.

The winner of the 24h of SPa – Corvette Z06

In the end I didn’t get all the great shots I wanted, but the result was nonetheless not that bad (after setting my goals from “Professional publication shots” to “Great racing shots made by someone behind the fence”). You can have a look at the final cut of photos on my website in the Photos - Racing Season 2009 menu. I hope you enjoy them.

As a PS a little story about, in my opinion, the best shot I got the entire weekend.

Godzilla (Nissan GT-R) in the Pitlane

This shot was taken while standing on top of the Formula 1 Pitboxes. I got up there by buying a more expensive “Paddock” ticket and joining the “24h Club” which was free with a “Paddock” ticket.  The shot was taken while the cars where getting to the starting grid.  All the pro’s and VIP’s where at that point either on the track or in the pitlane. So ironically if I had gotten press credentials, I would have never been there to take the shot. I like this serendipity.  I was jealous of the “credential” people all day, but in the end, my best shot would have never been taken if I had been one of them. 

50 people started on what would be a very interesting photo walk through Antwerp. It was the second annual Worldwide Photo walk organized by Scott Kelby and it was a record breaking edition. Over 900 cities participated and Antwerp was luckily one of them.

It was my first photo walk and although I was sceptic about it, it turned out to be a great meeting between a lot of photographers who just like photography. When it comes to photography, I’m not the most social of the bunch. In my personal opinion, photography is very much about your own personal vision. A lot of times when photographers come together it ends up being a (unhealthy) competition. Ironically, the World wide photo walk also has a competition attached, but I must say that not too many where actually thinking about that.

So it was a nice exchange of ideas, some chatter and just a nice afternoon of photographing a beautiful city.

Make sure to check the photos on the website. The best of these photos are also uploaded into Flickr.

The first race weekend for me in over a month turned out not to be everything I was hoping it to be.  The VW Fun Cup 25h has quite a nice line-up.  With the Belgian GT and the BTCS racing as an opening act followed by the biggest “amateur” endurance race of the season it promised to be interesting to say the least.  But this still is Belgium and at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit there is one thing you can never discount, the rain. 

 

For my third race weekend in a row, the rain spoiled a lot.  Where I was hoping to stay at least ‘till after dark, by 4PM I had been rain-soaked twice and my knees were killing me (what happens in very humid weather). So what should have been a long day at the track, turned out to be a short day. 

Too bad, because the atmosphere was there, a lot of entertainment and some great racing.  I got shots from the Belgian GT and BTCS races and some more shots from the paddock where VW was ever-present.  So all in all it certainly wasn’t a waist, but it could have been so much more. The photos can be found, as always, on the site under “Photos --> Racing Season 2009”.

So I’m driving to southern France tonight (after the Scott Kelby’s Photo Walk here in Antwerp) and will get back to Spa next weekend for, I hope, a rain-free and spectacular 24h of Spa FIA GT. So hope to see you all there for one of the most famous endurance races in the world (damn Le Mans ;-))

This morning the 26th of June at around 5AM CET, not a week after his 78th birthday, my grandfather past away.

 

Herman Gabriels

June 20th, 1931 – June 26th, 2009

A while ago Scott Kelby presented his second annual worldwide photo walk on July 18th.  The idea is to have photo walks in cities all around the world on the same day as sort of a massive social photography event.  This year, Antwerp has it’s own photo walk, to which I have already subscribed.  I would like to invite everyone in the Antwerp area to join as well, since this is a great opportunity to get to know some other photographers from area.

I just checked and there are still 33 places left, so join today.  More information can be found here.

Hope to see a lot of you there and may the weathergods be with us that day ;-)

Fairly late, but just to let you know that the photos from the 12 hours of Spa on June 6th 2009 are online (and have been for some time). It was a new BTCS weekend and again the rain was there.  The 12 hours of Spa started on saturday afternoon and raged on until 3am.  Of course I was planning on staying at least until after dark but the rain prevented that plan.  After more than 4 hours of rain with little sleep the weeks before, I trew in the towl and set my sights on the 24 hours of Spa (FIA GT) for night shots of the Spa circuit.

I did get some nice shots of the Belgian GT race, the BTCS and some paddock shots.  So I hope you enjoy them nonetheless.

 
New Renault Megane Silhoutte at 12 hours of Spa

For the first time this racing season it was raining on Sunday morning.  Since I have been postponing buying a rain cape for my camera and lens this left me with a bit of a predicament.  Was I going to get stopped from shooting a race by the most Belgian of weather conditions? Of course not! Enter my good friend the clear plastic bag.  I ripped a hole in it were the lens went through, screwed the lens hood on and pulled the bag over my lens and the entire camera.  Problem solved and on we went.

The first BTCS race started in the rain and for about 2/3s of the hour and a half race, the rain kept coming.  And then it stopped.  The track quickly dried up and it turned out to be a pretty good day at the races.  What I liked about the rain though is that it got me some new kind of shots.  OK, they were still pretty basic, but the rain gave them a whole different feel. Shooting on a clear day is nothing like shooting in the rain, so the resulting photos are not going to be the same either. At the long end of 400mm is quite hard to autofocus in the rain because the camera is caught of guard by the water on the track, the lights on all the other cars and finally by the spray the cars leave behind.  So concentration is key to getting good shots in these conditions.

Kia Pro C’eed in the rain 

As I said before, the rain stopped for the final half hour of the BTCS race and never came back.  So I hiked along the Zolder track discovering new places from which to shoot at the circuit during the VW Fun Cup race that followed the BTCS race.  It got me some great shots and a lot of good ideas for further races at the Zolder circuit. 

VW Fun Cup

During the entire day, the paddock was filled with animation with a stunt show, a miss mechanic “sexy” show and a tuning show.  I went to see all three events, but it wasn’t really for me.  The stunt show with motorbikes was pretty cool.  It was too crowded to get shots though.  The sexy show was, … funny actually and that is not what you want with a show like that.  We’ll leave it at that.  And finally the tuning show.  Well I know “tuning is not a crime” but what they do to some of those cars should be.  I’ll never get why you buy an Opel Corsa and spent thousand of euros to get body-kits, engine tuning, exhausts and so on for it.  Just buy a decent sports car and have fun with that, plus you don’t look like … well I’ll let everybody fill that in for themselves. I just will never get it, sorry.

After the VW Fun Cup followed the second BTCS race and with the positional scouting I had done during the VW Fun Cup race, I got some very nice shots from that second race, if I may say so myself. 

BMW M3 in the second BTCS race

They are of course all on the website, so just go and have a look.  They can be found in the “Photos” menu under the “Racing Season 2009” subcategory.  Enjoy, and let me know what you think.

On the 10th of May, the Spa-Francorchamps circuit was filled with the roaring sounds of the Le Mans Series.  After the F1 Grand Prix and the 24h of Spa, this was maybe the third most important event of the racing season at Spa.  It’s hard to describe what makes the Le Mans Series so attractive, but for me it stands a lot higher than F1.  Sure F1 is impressive, but with 20 cars on the grid that all look and sound more or less the same, it gets boring real fast.  I think that’s where the Le Mans Series have the edge.  Not only can you see a lot of the incredibly impressive machine that are the LP1 en LP2 cars (bigger and heavier sounding than F1, except for the Diesels when it comes to sound) there are also a lot of GT cars in the mix, so even after hours of racing, boredom is not something you think of.

The day in Spa started of misty and damp in the morning for the race of the European GT3 and GT4 cars. Basically this was a race of the Belgian GT extended with some cars from the British GT championship.  The conditions were less than optimal especially for taking pictures.  Sad surely, but in the end this day was not about the GT championship.

Audi R8 GT in the mist

By the end of the GT race, the skies and the damp cleared and it was time for the Formula Le Mans.  A championship contested by a lot of LP2 prototype cars prepared by Oreca in France.  It’s supposed to be a springboard to the actual Le Mans Series for young drivers.  In my opinion it’s the best opener for the Le Mans Series you could think of.  A lot of young eager drivers in some awfully fast machine make for some very exciting racing.  By then the sun had also come out in full force and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day at the races. The cars glistening in the sun gave for some very nice crisp shots that you can check out at the website of course.

 Formula Le Mans

Finally it was time for the big boys.  The Le Mans Series took the stage for a 1000km race, or 143 laps around the most beautiful circuit in the world.  With the two Lola Aston Martins from Aston Martin Racing (in nostalgic Gulf orange and blue) and the two official Peugeot Diesels the field was pretty well equipped for a dry test run of the actual 24 du Mans.  Sadly the new Audi R15’s were absent because for reasons beyond any European racecar fan, the only test in the American Le Mans Series.  Nevertheless, the race was on.  And although the racing was interrupted by several safety car procedures, the race was very exciting the entire afternoon.  The sun was burning, literally, and the racing stayed pretty close right up to the end.  I got some fantastic shots out of it and although I had sunburn on my face and arms, I got to go home knowing that I had seen one of the big events of the season. 

 Lola Aston Martin

The photos of that day are now finally up on the website, so have a look (Photos menu and subcategory racing season 2009) and let me know what you think!  And check back here later this week for a report of the BTCS Zolder star festival last weekend in Zolder.

It has been a little quiet here hasn’t it?  I know and I’m sorry.  The last two weeks have been a bit hectic.  There were some photos that had to get priority in post-production and publication.  This means I now (including the ones I shot yesterday at Zolder) have about 2500 photos to go through for post-production and publication.  And of course I want to write a small blog post for all the shoots I did over the last two weeks.  Luckily in Belgium, this week has a holiday in it, so I hope to be up to date again by the weekend. 

What can you expect this week?  A report on a shoot for a first communion party.  The pictures of this are online, but are password protected due to the private nature of them. Second a report and photos from the Le Mans Series race at Spa-Francrochamps on the 10th.  Some of the photos of this race can already be seen on my Flickr page, but check back here or on the website for more and high-res photos.  And finally, there was the Zolder Star Festival yesterday at … Zolder of course.  So photos and a report of this event are also coming later this week.

Hope to see you back here soon. 

As mentioned in the previous post, the Belgian GT started their season on Zolder this of the 26th of April with the Belgian Race kick off event that not only featured the Belgian GT cars, but also the Benelux racing League, the Belgian Historic Cup and the Dunlop Sport Maxx Endurance cup.
Although the the day didn't pass without a hitch (again see previous post), I did manage to get some nice shots from the Belgian GT, the BRL and the BHC.

Flaming Aston

As I was a little late with this post, I’ll stop talking and just let you enjoy the photos.  Check them out on the website under the photos menu and the Racing Season 2009 subcategory. 

Sunday on the Zolder Circuit. Great races of the Belgian GT championship, the Benelux Racing League and the Belgian Historic Cup. Great photo opportunities. Me shooting away and then it happened. The most stupid thing that can happen when you’re a photographer. My batteries went dead. Now normally that’s not a problem, because I always carry spare batteries that I can put in the Battery grip I use for my Canon 400D. The thing is, I have never had to use the spares and no they weren’t dead either. I loaded the spare batteries in the special holder and put it in the battery grip. So far so good. I tried turning the camera on and nothing happened. I took the special holder out and put it back in again, still nothing. So I took it back out and took a close look. What I didn’t see the first time (or ever before) was that on the bottom side of the holder, there were slots for two more batteries. So the holder took 6 instead of 4.
There I was with only 4 batteries that might as well be dead too, because without the two extra ones, the camera wouldn’t turn on. After looking for batteries in all the shops around the circuit I had to come to the conclusion that my day of shooting the races was over. Stupid and embarrassing. So now I will not leave the house with a) fully charged camera batteries and b) ENOUGH spare batteries.

The moral of the story is of course, try out everything before you leave, even the spares. I will not forget this lesson easily, and I promise you that if it would ever happen to you, you won’t forget either.

So I took a lot less photos this Sunday than on other racing events. That doesn’t mean there were no good ones. They will be posted later this week, after I had a chance to have a look at them. So see you back here later on for the report of the races that I did get to shoot.

PS: the red in my cheeks is finally fading after two days ;-)

Contrary to wath the Belgian weather service had predicted, Leuven's “Grote Markt” square was bathed in sunshine and thus the perfect setting for an very unusual sight.  On the square, several of the competitors of the BTCS (Belgian Touring Car Series) were parked.  It didn't take too long for a nice crowd to form around the cars. Some who knew this city demo was happening (identifiable by the cameras they brought), some were quite surprised to see racing cars in the city center. And that last part of the crowd, was what this demo was all about.  Bringing the championship to the people who might otherwise never get to see them. 

 BTCS on Leuven’s “Grote Markt”

Now what's so attractive about BTCS, you might ask?  Well the main attraction of championships like these, is the fact that it features touring cars.  They are built on the foundation of normal roadgoing cars you and I drive (see later).  They are not hyper-designed race machines like Formula 1.  Although those are also impressive, most of the people know they exist.  What a lot of people don't know is that the car they drive is also racing in a championship.  Confronting those people with this fact, might bring new crouds to the racing circuit, and after all that's what it's all about. 
Because a lot of people believe that going to the races is expensive. It's really not!  They are of course thinking of the ridiculous prices you pay for F1.  You pay 75€ for a ticket that restricts you to one part of the track or even one seat.  For BTCS races you pay 15€ max (for most races free tickets can be downloaded somewhere), but it not only gives you access to the entire circuit, it also provides access to the paddock.  If you want that in F1, you'll pay astronomical amounts of money.  That's why championships like BTCS are a lot more fun, because you can bring the entire family or go with some friends and don't have to worry about having to cancel your vacation because you ran out of money. A little analogy might be in place here. If the F1 is the huge concert in some big stadium, the BTCS is the free concert in a public park that you take the wife and kids to. Both are great concerts, both are fun, but only one is affordable for everybody.

Now back to the city demo in Leuven. Because after a couple of hours on the city square the cars took a little trip to the square in front of the station.  To get there, they had to drive through the main city shopping street.  Resulting in an unusual sight of racing cars riding along at walking speeds and a lot of surprised shoppers standing by and watching. The parade ended after a couple of minutes in front of the station, where the racing cars were parked next to their raodgoing brothers and sisters.  Another perfect way to prove to people that in fact the cars they drive can be made into racing cars.  There were of course some signing session by well known drivers, a demo of a BTCS pitstop and some goodies to take home. 

BTCS driving along the “Bondgenotenlaan”

Although I must admit that most of the people there were already racing fans, I think quite a lot of people's eyes were opened to a form of racing they had never heard of.  It's funny how everybody stops and stares when a proper racing car crosses their path.  And despite the fact that a lot of people are now buying eco-friendly small town cars, you can see in their eyes, secretly they still want a racing machine. 

 BTCS next to their roadgoing counterparts

The photos of the city demo can be found on my website (under Photos/Racing Season 2009).  For people who are reading this because they are trying to find out what in the hell they say in Leuven on Saturday, take a look at the BTCS website here.  The next Belgian race is on the 16th and 17th of May in Zolder.  Free tickets can be downloaded here.

Hope to see you all soon on the race track! Next event, this Sunday, the Belgian GT opening race in Zolder!

Last weekend the Belgian Touring Car series got underway with a great opening event called “Francorchampions”.  Besides two races of the BTCS on Sunday it also featured two races of the VW Fun Cup and a race for the Dutch Supercar Challenge (DSC). 

Although very different, each of these championships has it’s qualities.  The VW Fun Cup is focused on less professional drivers all driving the same cars.  Fun is really the only way to describe these races when you see them.

VW Fun Cup in action

The Dutch Supercar Challenge focuses on much heavier machines and is Holland’s number one racing championship for good reason.  A very wide range of cars, several divisions and a lot of entries make this quite a spectacle to watch and hear (my ears still haven’t recuperated entirely after the hearing the sounds of the thunderous Marcos racing in the DSC).  This will, by the way, not be the only time that the DSC comes to Belgium, so if you have a chance to go see them, do so!

 Ferrari 430 in the Dutch Supercar Challenge

But of course the big event of the weekend were the first two races of the BTCS.  A clear cut Touring car championship that features a lot of cars, some very close racing and some very well known national drivers.  It’s always a pleasure to see these exiting races and since the people who organise the championship provide free tickets for almost every race, it’s cheap too. What more could you possibly want.

  Mazda RX8 in the BTCS

As always, photos of the event can be found on the website.  Check under the sub-category “Racing Season 2009” of the “Photos” menu.  Enjoy them and feel free to comment on any of the shots or of course on this blog.  See you soon!

As mentioned in the last post, this weekend marked the start of the racing season at Spa-Francorchamps with a race for the Dunlop Sport Maxx Endurance Cup.  And yesterday evening I posted the photos of that race (and some of the Gentlemen Drivers Cup) on the website. 

Because I will hopefully be shooting quite some races this season, I made a seperate sbub-category under the public photo gallery named “Racing Season 2009”.  Here you will find all of the photos of the upcoming races. 

So please check out the photos and feel free to leave comments.  I have to say that although I used new equipment, the result was better than I had feared.  Enjoy.

Dunlop Sport Maxx Endurance Cup, April 5th 2009, Spa-Francorchamps

Yesterday, my 2009 racing started with a race of the Dunlop Sport Maxx Endurance Cup at Spa-Francorchamps.  The crowd was quite small, which gave me the perfect opportunity to test some of the new equipment I will be using to shoot motorsport this season.  With just a handful of amateur photographers there, most of the best sports for shooting the action in Spa where open.  So I took my time to familiarize myself with the new lens and the monopod.  To my own surprise, it took quite a while getting used to the equipment. The amount of good shots where very limited but I have to say that by the end of the day, I got the hang of it again.  Hopefully next week, at the start of the BTCS season, again in Spa, the result will be a lot better.

Shots of the DSMEC race will be posted later this week after I have deleted all of the bad ones. ;-)

As mentioned before, next week, the BTCS (Belgian Touring Car Series) starts at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.  The race will be supported by the VW Fun Cup and the DSC (Dutch Supercar Challenge). These three events make for a very interesting race weekend.  And best of all the entrance is free if you print the invitation you can find on the website of the BTCS (http://www.btcseries.be).  So if anyone out there wants to join me, whether it's for the racing or just the photographic opportunities, just send me an email.

For me next week is the real kick-off of what I hope is going to be a race filled summer.  My personal calendar includes the following events (in April and May). (More events later on in the season will be posted soon) 

BTCS and DSC    - 11-12 April  - Spa-Francorchamps
Belgian GT         - 25-26 April  - Zolder
Le Mans Series   - 08-09 May   - Spa-Francorchamps
BTCS                 - 16-17 May   - Zolder

So check back soon for more racing information and of course a lot of racing photographs.

As you might have deduced from my previous post, last weekend we went on a little trip to Paris.  We spent three days there and besides visiting the Grand Palais (Warhol exhibition) and Musée d’Orsay, we walked around and generally just relaxed. 

The photos of the trip are on the website under the personal section.  The gallery is password protected mainly to prevent the photos from being tagged in search engines.  The readers of this blog get the password completely free of charge ;-)

Try this: andywarhol

I hope you enjoy the photos and please feel free to comment on any of the photos.

Paris March 2009

 

A brief bit of culture unrelated to photography.  Actually not entirely unrelated but more on that later.  I just wanted to make you aware of a brilliant exhibition that is going on in Paris.  In the Grand Palais in Paris, you can visit “Le grand monde d’Andy Warhol” which features a truly amazing collection of Warhols “portraits”.  You know the colorprinted or colored-in prints of famous people. 

Amazing about this particular show is not only the fact that so many of these works are brought together (from musea and personal collections) in groups of four or more, but also that it includes the polaroids they were based on and some of Warhol’s other photographic and cinematic works.  It’s just an unique collection on display in a setting that makes you feel just one thing: “This is how these works should be on display”. 

Now I know that Paris is not on most people’s doorstep.  But if you are going to Paris between now and the 13th of July, make sure you have seen it.  Also, if you are a big Warhol fan, drive to Paris for one day, visit the Grand Palais and come back, it will be worth it!  

A word to the wise concerning photography.  It’s not allowed inside! Although no clear signs are posted that you can’t shoot photos inside, I got to talk to a very angry guard demanding that I put away my camera or leave.  (I still got of one shot, that I will post later on the website).

Information:
Exhibition “Le Grand Monde d’Andy Warhol” by Andy warhol 
March 18th, 2009 until July 13th, 2009 
Price: 11€
Grand Palais, Champs Elysées, Paris, France 
more information here.

March started very well on the photography front for me.  As mentioned in my previous post, after two months of virtually shooting nothing, I found some nice shots on a Sunday afternoon on the first day of the month.  Last friday night, I actually revisited the same area to shoot some night shots. 

As you might have learned from earlier work, see project “Antwerp by Night”, I really like shooting night shots.  Not only is it much quieter in the streets at night, most of the time the results just come out a little nicer than in daylight.

The results were quite satisfactory and you can see them in the same gallery as the earlier photos, namely the Antwerp in March gallery.  So check them out and let me know what you think.  One or more of them might just end up in the Antwerp by Night project.  I’ll keep you informed of this when I have made the final decission.  Comments might of course guide my decission ;-)  Enjoy!

 
Antwerp in March ... Revisited