Author: jansenphoto

A Fresh Perspective Photography is more than just a vehicle for capturing the world around me; it provides me with a palette and a set of brushes, with which I paint not only what I see, but also look to express the emotions that are evoked by the scene in front of me in that moment. Growing up in the Netherlands exposed me to a wide cross-section of visual arts that laid the foundation of my photographic view of all that surrounds me. Early influences were the Dutch Masters of the 17th century, to whom I was introduced by my grandfather during museum explorations; favorites among them are the scenes of quotidian life depicted by Jan Steen and Frans Hals and the vivid landscapes of Jacob van Ruisdael. My classical high school education was supplemented by the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum, where I spent many a lunch hour exploring its great collection. Here I was introduced to surrealism with a particular love for the approach taken by Salvador Dali; Dali also rekindled my appreciation for the work of Hieronymus Bosch, who often showed the folly of us mortals. Universal Connections My approach to any photographic subject is to look for understanding first; in this I look to establish either a connection between the viewer and the subject or capture the connection of the subject with its surroundings. The captured image then aims to portray this connection from a perspective that is part of my personal interpretation. This interpretation is often a form of externalized introspection, which may alternately display the connection of isolated beings and items with their environment or highlight the whimsy of the profound world, in which we find ourselves. The universe is full of connections, many of which are waiting to be discovered; part of my journey as a photographer is to document these connections. Any assignment, be it an event, a product shoot or a portrait session is always approached through communication with the client; this is where the first connection is established. Ideas are exchanged and a collaborative plan of action forms, ultimately resulting in a set of images that aim to exceed the expectations of each client. And, lest we forget, it is important to have fun while practicing the serious business of photography!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Hope

Embrace hope!

Welcome to week 206 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge!

As we continue to connect around the globe, and Spring has started in the Northern hemisphere, I thought it might be time for a fresh outlook. That’s why I thought it might be good to set this week’s them to that of Hope! With the new season and lengthening daylight, each of us can feel a bit more hopeful about what lies ahead. Your challenge is to capture Hope in a manner that speaks to you in your posts and to spread as much hope as possible across this globe of ours!

Please have fun with this theme and, above all, be safe and healthy!

This is a moment of Spring’s promise from 8 years ago..

The Promise

This lovely blossom is a harbinger of better weather and fruits to be grown during the upcoming seasons.

The full rules of this challenge are in TPC Guidelines, but here’s the tl;dr:

  • Write a post with an image for this week’s topic
  • Please tag your post with fpj-photo-challenge (if you’re not sure about how tags work, please check out this WordPress article about tagging posts)
  • Create a pingback link to this post, so that I can create a post showing all of the submissions over the week (note: pingbacks may not appear immediately, as my site is set up to require approval for linking to it; helps against previous bad experiences with spamming)
  • Have fun creating something new (or sharing something old)!!

Please be safe, communicate with one another and bring hope to all!

Three Line Tales – Lonely

Am I alone?

Many thanks to Sonya for Week Two Hundred and Seventeen of Three Line Tales, part of her awesome blog Only 100 Words!


three line tales, week 217: an astronaut in spacephoto by NASA via Unsplash

Dark stillness surrounds,
Earth’s pull, possibly lacking…
Lonely out in space.

****

Thank you to Sonya of Only 100 Words for coming up with Three Line Tales.

You’ll find full guidelines on her TLT page, but here’s the tl;dr:

  • Write three lines inspired by the photo prompt (& give them a title if possible).
  • Link back to this post.
  • Tag your post with 3LineTales (so everyone can find you in the Reader).
  • Read and comment on other TLT participants’ lines.
  • NEW: If you want your post to be included in the round-up, you have until Sunday evening to publish it.
  • Have fun.

Happy three-lining and Halloween!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Round Up 204

Popping up toward the sky!

Welcome to the 204th round up of the Tuesday Photo Challenge!

I very much hope that all of you and your families are doing well during these trying times; please stay safe and healthy!

The posts that you created for the theme of Spread were definitely a wonderful spread! Not only did you share some gorgeous photos in your posts, but your thoughtful approaches created some surprises for me in your interpretation. Well done!

It was a joy to read all of your posts, and take in the wonderful photography; thank you for the effort that you put into them!

Spring brings us new hope…

Crocuses spreading their petals

These crocuses broke through a tapestry of autumn leaves, reaching out to the nourishing power of the Sun. It’s lovely to see the petals spreading and inviting the occasional passing hungry bee to touch down and pick up some pollen. I found some of these clutches of flowers, as I was wandering around while my wife and our youngest Cardigan were taking a herding lesson.

Please enjoy the following blog posts:

  1. What a great way to kick off this week’s responses in the post in Don’t Hold Your Breath! There’s more than one spread in here, as the wonderful spread of food helps with the spread of our human body. Well done!!
  2. Sarah starts her post in By Sarah with some great wings and then has us looking up to see Nature spreading in front of us! Great post!
  3. Brian certainly made ma laugh with the first photo in his post in Bushboy’s World; that is quite the character. Also, a great looking sky!
  4. Xenia brings us a stunning set of views in her post in whippetwisdom, where she is spreading the light that will help guide us through these times. Beautifully done!
  5. That is quite the spread that has been laid out in theOnlyD800intheHameau; a chance invitation to a wedding can result in a lovely feast!
  6. Maria shares a truly stunning photo in her post in Kamerapromenader, as she captured the eagle-owl at just the right moment with its wings spread!
  7. ackie takes an approach to the theme that had not come to my mind in JunkBoat Travels; although, it stands to reason that you want to spread the nuts to introduce them into fudge! Wonderful post!
  8. Nandini spreads the love in her post in queennandini; I particularly like the thought of a smile spreading from one’s mouth to their eyes! Great imagery!
  9. I agree with Diane’s opinion about Marmite in her post in pensivity101; those blankets are much better than spreading marmite on anything!
  10. Tatiana finds a gorgeous spot to go for a walk in her post in TravelWays, getting some fresh air is definitely a great thing to do during these isolating times.
  11. Woolly is going for a bit of controversy in his post in WoollyMuses, as Vegemite is definitely not to everyone’s liking 🙂 Time to compare Vegemite and Marmite?
  12. Ann-Christine really captured the majesty of the young eagle-owl that is being released in her post in To see a world in a grain of sand…! The spread of those wings is truly impressive!
  13. Pat captured the spread of a tree beautifully in her post in Thoughts and Entanglements; it always amazes me how trees can overcome just about any obstacle that we put in their way!
  14. Deb’s photo of the orangutan doing what it does so magnificently in her post in Twenty Four is stunning! It’s truly amazing how much reach these primates have!
  15. David delivers another set of stunning photos in his post in David M’s Photoblog! Those pelicans in flight are simply spectacular!
  16. As the past spreads out behind her in the mirror of life, Sandy’s words in Out of my Write Mind generate a sense of optimism on how to live life fully!
  17. Nicole captures the spread of the river Ouse beautifully in her post in Une Photo, Un Poéme. Gorgeous photo!
  18. The progress of the dandelions that we get to enjoy in Geriatri’X’ Fotogallery is not welcomed by everyone, as they may mar the perfection of one’s lawn. Their spread is a thing of beauty, though!
  19. TiongHan is trying to give us a sense of odors he experienced in a wonderful post in TiongHan’s Blog; I can imagine that the scent of an open-air tannery would be rather pungent to behold!
  20. Robert shows his eye for capturing the right moment, as the wings spread for take-off in his post in Photo Roberts Blog; magnificent photos!
  21. In a lovely post in One letter up ~ diary 2.0, we get to enjoy that blanket of clouds that holds the light at dusk for us to cherish before the onset of dark.
  22. Debbie captures the spreading of the word in Travel with Intent with a great set of photos that tell the story of interesting travels!
  23. Klara shares a nothing short of stunning photo in her blog Sliku svoju ljubim II, which was taken at a location that is on my bucket list! The arches are just gorgeous!
  24. If the Sunday brunch spread in Musin’ with Susan is any indication of her taste in food, I’m ready to partake! Clearly, Susan knows how to enjoy brunch! Also, go check out Susan’s week in review in Musin’ with Susan, as there are more great photos there! Love the shot of the yellow tie, as it’s striking!
  25. Irene is clearly blessed with a wonderful area to visit in the Indiana Dunes National Park; the sunlight spreading across the vast landscape in Heaven’s Sunshine is spectacular!
  26. Teressa shares something rather special with us in Another Lqqk, as Grandma’s quilt is not only beautiful, but also precious through the memories that it invokes!

Please let all these wonderful authors know how much you enjoy their blog posts!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Connect

A trip into darkness…

Welcome to week 205 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge!

What the world needs now… No, I’m not breaking out into a Hal David and Burt Bacharach pop tune! During this time of social distance, it is more important than ever that we connect with one another. I thought the theme of Connect might make a lot of sense. So, your challenge is to capture anything that either connects or with which you feel connected.

The only requirement to your interpretation of the theme is that you have fun with it (and be safe). So let’s connect through our images!

This bridge makes a connection between two shores…

Surreal Connection

Yes, you guessed it: there was a bit of editing involved. In a case, such as this, I look to portray the mood or concept that I want to express in an image. I originally shot this well-graffitied bridge as a series of varying exposures to have all the data I needed for HDR processing. After processing the basics in Aurora HDR, I jumped into Photoshop. With the help of the Luminar 4 plugin, I changed the look of the bridge, and added a different sky. A bit more magic in Photoshop to skew the metal of this bridge in a slightly altered shape completed the mood to create this Surreal Connection. For the purists, I agree with you that this is no longer a photo, but that was not what I was after…

The full rules of this challenge are in TPC Guidelines, but here’s the tl;dr:

  • Write a post with an image for this week’s topic
  • Please tag your post with fpj-photo-challenge (if you’re not sure about how tags work, please check out this WordPress article about tagging posts)
  • Create a pingback link to this post, so that I can create a post showing all of the submissions over the week (note: pingbacks may not appear immediately, as my site is set up to require approval for linking to it; helps against previous bad experiences with spamming)
  • Have fun creating something new (or sharing something old)!!

May you and yours be safe and healthy, and connect across the globe through the blogosphere!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Round Up 203

Feel free to scale these stairs…

Welcome to the 203rd round up of the Tuesday Photo Challenge!

Thank you all for your patience in my getting this post up; it’s been a tough week, as the current corona virus situation has both increased uncertainty among people and the need to bolster up any contingency plans. A bit of extra work, which left me rather drained during most of the week.

Your contributions have been stunning, and you did them on a grand Scale! I was particularly pleased to see every possible interpretation of the theme used in your very creative posts, ranging from practicing scales to baby scale and seeing things on a rather grand scale! Awesome set of posts, which were great to read and review.

Thank you for your effort in putting these posts together! Please enjoy reading all of them!

Here’s a locale that may leave you tired, if you scale it…

The Wonderful Barn

The Wonderful Barn is a rather interesting building in Leixlip, County Kildare, Ireland. There are many theories about this building, but the likely true purpose was that of granary. As it had to be filled from the top, you can imagine what it was like to scale the external stairs with a heavy bag of grain on your shoulders… Tough labor!

Please enjoy the following blog posts:

  1. Diane is out of the blocks with a musical angle on our theme in a wonderful post in pensivity101; practicing those scales makes one a better player!
  2. Jez goes digital in his post in Photos by Jez, as those accurate measurements make for precise postage and recipes!
  3. In another awesome post in Don’t Hold Your Breath, we have moths scaling the walls! Those moths are wonderful to behold!
  4. Bren created a truly interesting photo for this theme, as you can see in her post in Brashley Photography; I just love the composition and lighting on the peony and beads!
  5. You’ll be blown away by the photo in theOnlyD800intheHameau, which gives us a view of a site that is on my bucket list: Petra. Stunning photo and locale!
  6. Viveka kicks the scale up to an entirely new level in an absolutely wonderful post in myguiltypleasures; I can imagine how stunning that had to be to experience!
  7. Nandini hits all the scales in her haikus in a lovely post in queennandini; love both the writing and images!
  8. Ken shares some of his sense of humor in another great post in Pictures without Film, and I agree that the gnome might be the bully of the scene!
  9. TiongHan’s post in TiongHan’s Blog takes me back in time with that magnificent scale model; my high school was close to the previous location of the Maritime Museum in Rotterdam, which gave me plenty of opportunity to visit and admire their collection.
  10. Maria shows us the grand scale of Iceland with some terrific photos in her post in Kamerapromenader; makes me want to go back to that wonderful country!
  11. Ann-Christine’s post in To see a world in a grain of sand… not only brings tremendous scale, but also has stunning color all over!
  12. There are plenty of great shots in the post in The Jesh Studio, among which there are several that give us a real sense of scale!
  13. Jackie takes us to a place, where the scale is the main attraction, in her post in JunkBoat Travels; Madurodam is a great place to visit in the Hague!
  14. Todd had a little fun taking that photo in Go Outside Today! It certainly made me smile and is a wonderful forced perspective execution!
  15. Na’ama goes for the amazingly big scale in her post in Na’ama Yehuda, which might be a watershed moment!
  16. Tatiana really gives us an amazing sense of the scale of cruise ships in her post in TravelWays; they really dwarf everything around them!
  17. Deb’s post in her blog, Twenty Four has the most incredible rock wave that dwarfs Deb and looks to be difficult to scale!
  18. Sarah captures the most amazing wall art in her post in By Sarah; and yes, the scale is also nothing to sneeze at!
  19. David does a great job taking the scale up a notch in each of consecutive photo in his post in David M’s Photoblog; I challenge any of you to provide an accurate count of the gulls in the 3rd shot!
  20. Xenia, through Eivor and Pearl, gives us some scale reference in her awesome post in whippetwisdom! Her second contribution, in her great blog tranature, provides wonderful scaling of the ice breaking up!
  21. A great photo in Thoughts and Entanglements gives a couple of very different scales making the cars look rather small against the gorgeous sky!
  22. Jeanne gives a rather interesting perspective that scales up nicely in her post in borderline crossing! Great photos!
  23. Sandy’s photo in her post in Out of my Write Mind gives a great sense of scale, which ties in beautifully in her lovely poem!
  24. The photo that we get to see in Geriatri’X’ Fotogallery is not only gorgeous, but it truly gives a stunning sense of scale!
  25. Hammad gives us a wonderful sense of perspective in his post in the Blog of Hammad Rais; we’re a small part of this small planet…
  26. Woolly brings out a scale that takes most of back to our very early years in his post in WoollyMuses; that certainly is a classic!
  27. Chris gives a view of the tracks near the Hague’s Centraal Station in his post in What’s (in) the Picture? It really gives a sense of looking at a scale railroad! Great shot!
  28. Michelle takes us on a walk in Take a Walk and Discover…, where we get to discover a young mango fruit! Wonderful post!
  29. The photo of something rather foxy in Land of Images gives us a sense of scale; the foxglove looks great, but has a deadly secret…
  30. There are some really cool elements in the awesome post in Kanlaon, as the scales are very different in the photos…

Please let all these wonderful authors know how much you enjoy their blog posts!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Spread

Mountains, clouds and water…

Welcome to week 204 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge!

First of all, my hopes that you and your families are safe and merely inconvenienced by the Novel Coronavirus pandemic. And, my apologies for this late posting. As you might imagine, there’s been a bit of additional work due to the current circumstances. I’m working on the round up of last week’s Scale theme, and will likely post that late on Wednesday.

Given the current pandemic, I thought it might be of interest to take a different approach to the theme of Spread… While the spread of a virus is not welcome, a nice dinner spread or bread spread or even bed spread might be appreciated! Yes, this is another theme, with which you can go into numerous directions and I encourage you to have some fun with this one!

Therefore, spread your wings of creativity and share some of your favorite thoughts with your fellow participants!

Here the clouds and mountains spread in front of the camera…

Northern Coastal Road

After visiting the Herring Era Museum in Siglufjörður, I followed the coastal road along the northern route, which provides spectacular views along the way. At this point, the fog/clouds (depends on your point of view), were hanging above the fjord with the mountains across the water being framed by clouds above and below them. I processed this image to a much-desaturated level to simplify the overall colors and feeling of the view; taking the strong blue out of the sky gives me a bit of a sense of going back in time…

The full rules of this challenge are in TPC Guidelines, but here’s the tl;dr:

  • Write a post with an image for this week’s topic
  • Please tag your post with fpj-photo-challenge (if you’re not sure about how tags work, please check out this WordPress article about tagging posts)
  • Create a pingback link to this post, so that I can create a post showing all of the submissions over the week (note: pingbacks may not appear immediately, as my site is set up to require approval for linking to it; helps against previous bad experiences with spamming)
  • Have fun creating something new (or sharing something old)!!

I’m looking forward to your photography spreads for this week! Please, stay healthy and safe.

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Scale

Welcome to week 203 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge!

I figured that after all that rather fine Junk of the past week, it might be time to get on the Scale (for me, at least). Thank you to Robert for inspiring this theme, as the junk scale left a guiding trace within my mind… Of course, we can do more than weigh with this theme, as we might use it to indicate the scale of things, or maybe some HO or N scale for model train fans… Even an occasional fish scale! It’s your choice and your imagination that will guide you along a path of fun and exciting imagery!

So, don’t scale back and go big to have a lot of fun with this one! I’m very much looking forward to what you might generate this week!

Here’s a bit of an indication of scale…

True Colors

This image of the Old Stone Church in West Boylston goes back to 2004 and my first Canon digital camera, the EOS 10D; digital camera technology has come a long way since then, but it was a lot of fun to re-edit this image using Luminar 4 and finishing touches in Photoshop. As I did this quick edit on my laptop, I want to take a closer look on my desktop system and will likely redo it… it’s just not 100% what I want yet…

The full rules of this challenge are in TPC Guidelines, but here’s the tl;dr:

  • Write a post with an image for this week’s topic
  • Please tag your post with fpj-photo-challenge (if you’re not sure about how tags work, please check out this WordPress article about tagging posts)
  • Create a pingback link to this post, so that I can create a post showing all of the submissions over the week (note: pingbacks may not appear immediately, as my site is set up to require approval for linking to it; helps against previous bad experiences with spamming)
  • Have fun creating something new (or sharing something old)!!

May the scales of fortune tip in your favor this week and inspire you to create something extraordinary!