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!

Friday Mystery Slide – 2019 #05

It looks warm here!

Here comes a fifth mystery slide post of this year….

This week’s entry comes from the boxes of slides that I received from my father-in-law. For full disclosure…I’m not 100% sure where the mystery location is, but I think that I know it… Based on the slide, I think the image was captured in the early 1960s.

There’s a nice view with a bay not too far away…

Box E – Image 124…where are we?

It appears to me that there are some old fortifications in this image. Where do you think this might be?

Three Line Tales – My Valentine

Many thanks to Sonya for Week One Hundred and Fifty-Nine of Three Line Tales, part of her awesome blog Only 100 Words!

three line tales, week 159: a little fellow dangling from a graffiti heart
photo by Nick Fewings via Unsplash

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Lifted high, afloat,
Brimming with expectations…
Be my Valentine!

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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!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Crawl

All that crawls…

Welcome to week 147 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge.

After a wonderful week of enjoying all of your interpretations of Growth, it’s time for another theme. While mulling over an apt theme, I was going through some of my old photo shoots and came across one of a 5K road race; this was a JP Morgan Corporate Challenge race with about 19,000 runners. I remembered this shoot vividly, because of the reaction that I had when I started processing the photos. Unbeknownst to me, I had captured a number of runners going down in the mass start, while rounding the first corner! I thought that one of these photos would be a bit too stark for a theme image, which led me to the idea that we should Crawl before we walk or run…

Crawling is something that many of us have done as tiny humans, and that we adore seeing babies do; we may even have crawled at less conspicuous times: I remember crawling up an ice-covered bridge, so that I could get to the hand railing, when I was in elementary school. Of course, the crawl could also be a swim stroke, or lots of other things! Have fun, crawl before you run out to make this week’s photo!

Here’s a little one crawling around…

Snaking Around

I caught sight of this lovely snake almost 10 years ago, as I was looking for something to photograph that day. I felt pretty lucky, but found out that getting a decent photo of a wild snake takes a bit of slow movement, so as not to startle it…

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)!!

Have a wonderful week and I hope that you don’t have to crawl up an icy bridge!

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Round Up 146

Beware of proffered fruit…

Welcome to the 146th round up of the Tuesday Photo Challenge!

First you rose to the occasion and then you went for more growth! What an amazing array of posts! Not only were you creative in your photos, but you also provided wonderful prose and poetry with them! There was also a bit of humor, which I always appreciate 🙂 Thank you for making this another week of fun reading and rounding up!

I hope that you also enjoy all these great posts!

Here’s a delectable growth…

Orange and the Lady

This shot comes from one of my many visits to Tower Hill Botanic Garden, which presents nearly unlimited material for any photographer. Its displays are filled with color, form, structure and combine Nature and human creations in stunning fashions!

The following were this week’s participants in the challenge with links to their posts:

  1. In Don’t Hold Your Breath‘s wonderful post, we take a trip around the lovely town of Shillong!
  2. Nicole brings us up close to the new growth in her post in Une Photo, un Poéme; the brambles look brilliant!
  3. This week, pensivity101 helps us follow some fantastic growth: those ducklings look very cute!
  4. Shelley’s post in Quaint Revival lays out her plans for ensuring that the diet will be successful; it all starts with a pantry!
  5. In an excellent post in A Midnight Rider, we learn about the salt marshes of Cape Cod, which support the growth of much wildlife.
  6. Ron’s post in Progressing into Solitude brings us fresh growth on the coconuts; can’t wait to see the tree!
  7. Yinglan brings us a lot of wild plants in her post in This is Another Story; luckily they are not in her yard!
  8. In theonlyD800inthehameau‘s post, we get to enjoy a stunning photo, all the way from the Botanical Garden in Sydney!
  9. Na’ama’s poem in Na’ama Yehuda provides keen insight into the suddenness, with which life’s growth can catch us by surprise.
  10. Xenia brings us to the snowy dunes post in WhippetWisdom, which is a wonderful experience. In a second post in Tranature, Xenia takes us to the giving tree…
  11. With another gorgeous photo in Chateaux des Fleurs, we see the wonder of growth that carries promise.
  12. In Junk Boat Travels, Jackie brings us a to a favorite place of tequila lovers: a blue agave growth!
  13. Maria’s post in her blog KameraPromenader brings together the elements that create growth…
  14. Sarah’s photo in her post in By Sarah is stunning! Those pumpkins appear to grow everywhere!
  15. Ann-Christine’s post in To See a World in a Grain of Sand brings us a set of amazing photos capturing growth.
  16. With a really interesting photo in Geriatri’X’ Fotogallery, we see that there can be growth in beer…
  17. Robert’s images are simply gorgeous in his post in Photo Roberts Blog; they give an enticing view of growth!
  18. The growth captured in the images in firehorseworld portray most interesting examples of growth!
  19. In a tremendous post in the 59Club, we get to see a tree’s second life in its role as provider…
  20. Jase’s post in Proscenium gives us a fish out of water, which limits the growth of the fish, but contributes to our growth!
  21. In a truly awesome post in Heart to Heart, there’s plenty of importance shown for growth!
  22. Irene’s photo in her post in Heaven’s Sunshine shows how the tiny paperwhite narcissus is growing!
  23. In another lovely post in Anita’s Images, there’s plenty of growth to be seen with great photos!
  24. Debbie contributions this week are twice the fun, as in Travel with Intent, she captures the shrinking feeling. In a second post in Travel with Intent, Debbie brings what grew on us…
  25. In Pictures without Film, Ken shares the potential of growth that is locked within the pine cones.
  26. In an amazing post in Touring with Kids, we get to learn about growing greens in the middle of Iceland!
  27. In a lovely post in Reflections, we learn about aging gracefully. There’s some good advice there!
  28. Sandy focuses on growing slowly, but steady in her post in Out of my Write Mind, which is good for tethered souls!
  29. Penny’s lovely post in Penny Wilson Writes tells us of the importance of nurturing to allow for growth!
  30. Cee’s focuses on the mosses in her post in Cee’s Photography with a stunning set of photos!
  31. Mike captured the tenderest of growths in his post in PhotographyOCD! Imagine that becoming a tall sunflower!
  32. In a great post in Apple Pie and Napalm, we get to see some paperwhites growing up fast!
  33. Deb’s awesome post in Twenty Four has a fantastic capture of growth in all its beauty!
  34. In a cool post in Lillie-Put, Joseph shares some some growing things, which are lovely!
  35. Woolly’s post in Woolly Muses is a lovely scented reminder of the Tao of Poo! It’s amazing what grows on it!
  36. Kammie reminds us of something important in Nut House Central; Nature’s growth will take over!
  37. Ramya’s post in And Miles to go before I sleep… features a truly powerful growth: holy basil (tulsi), which is potent!
  38. Amy shares some of the joy in personal growth in Photography Journal Blog; there are some useful techniques here!
  39. In a lovely post in her blog ForgivingConnects, Debbie shares her journey and the importance of forgiveness and peace.
  40. In another great post in Banactee, we get introduced to a very grown-up trunk! (it’s not what you might think)
  41. Olga takes us on a walk through Nature in her post in Stuff, and what if…, where growth is stunning as always!
  42. In a cool post in Land of Images, we a reminded that growth can be of a very cold variety!
  43. In an amusing post in willowsoul, we learn the valuable lesson that growth is loving yourself!
  44. This week’s post in One letter UP – diary 2.0 not only has us looking up toward some beautiful growth!
  45. Another awesome post from sgeoil has one of my favorite areas of growth…go check it out!
  46. Khürt takes us into the woods in search of growth in his blog Island in the Net; he produced some amazing photos there!
  47. Liz’s contributes two posts this week; the first one in One Million Photographs has potential for something rather delicious in a short time! The second in One Million Photographs has a gorgeous mushroom!

Please let all of these great bloggers know your thoughts about their posts!

Friday Mystery Slide – 2019 #04

Beautiful and unusual…

Here comes a fourth mystery slide post of this year….

This week is another one from my travels, which narrows the location options a bit. The location features some unusual geology, which, to my knowledge, is available only at a couple of places on earth.

Here’s a view across this magnificent geology….

Unique Shapes…

Those stones are unusual and appear to rise from the depths of the earth.

Where is this location, and what else can you tell me about it?

Now that the location has been uncovered… Felix Mendelssohn wrote a lovely overture inspired by his visit to Fingal’s Cave on Staffa: The Hebrides.

Three Line Tales – Exclusion

Promise kept on the outside…

Many thanks to Sonya for Week One Hundred and Fifty-Eight of Three Line Tales, part of her awesome blog Only 100 Words!three line tales, week 158: a border with a barbed wire fencephoto by Robert Hickerson via Unsplash

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Razor blades protrude,
A promise kept under siege.
Land of exclusion.

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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!

Living in a Square World

Breaking free!

In my explorations in photography, I have been known to get into a rut, where I just don’t feel that I’m very creative or inspired. If you’ve ever encountered this feeling, I expect that you can relate. If it’s just a couple of days, it’s no big deal, but if this drags on for weeks, it bothers me, as I like generating interesting photos.

When I feel uninspired, I will often come up with something a little different in my approach to try and break out of the block. One of these is to put a constraint on my photography; this helps provide focus in what I look to photograph, rather than allowing the entire world to be my proverbial oyster.

Rusty Bucket

For an entire series, I restricted my images to only be square. While this doesn’t sound like much of a constraint, it did help me look at everything a little differently to get compositions that might work in a square format.

Down on the Farm

And, as you can see, rust is never a bad thing either!

To Air No More

I’ve restricted subjects, as well, or do a series of photos of the ground… And, yes, I’ve even forced myself to do different things with my camera, such as zoom blur, which led to an entire series of abstract images.

What kind of things do you do to break your inspiration free of its bonds?