Saturday the 26th was the kickoff for the new Dance4Life season (which is two-yearly). An almost blue sky and the Rotterdam Willemsbrug were the setting for the start. Goal was to make a live and dancing Dance4Life logo on the bridge. Just enough kids showed up despite the May holiday being a little bit of bad-timing. But hey, it was a nice sunny day which was closed in style by DJ Don Diablo.
View full album here (120 photo’s).
The Dance4Life 2008 kickoff took place at the Willemsbrug, Rotterdam. More about that event later this week but till now enjoy this still taken from the top of the brigde with a panoramic view over Rotterdam.
One of my favorite places in the USA has got to be the State of Oregon: from hundreds of miles of unspoiled beaches with their impressive dunes to snowcapped Mountains and old volcanoes: hardly any state in the US has so much to offer in terms of the great outdoors. Rivers, deserts, endless forests and large numbers of picture perfect lakes await the interested visitor. But the true gem is found underground, near the little town of Bend nature left behind lava-tunnels from volcanic eruptions that happened tens to hundred thousands years ago.
Lava, as most people quickly realize is somewhat on the hot side of the temperature scale. One can bake an egg on the hood of the car in a hot desert but one can bake both (egg and car) on a fresh stream of lava!
Something else is interesting about those (mostly undergournd) lava-streams: the outside cools quicker than the inside (something similar happens with you bowl of soup, although I wouldn’t recommend eating hot lava though). So while the outside quickly cools down to rock again, the inside slowly releases its temperature and when it does: it shrinks. After a while you have a partly filled in tube of lava, the bottom of which is flat and makes for a nice walk if you happen to find a tunnel like that. This website expains it quite nicely by the way.
In the state of Oregon, a few of those tunnels have been so well preserved one can still walk through them. That is, with a professional guide and a helmet of course!
So, how to capture these on film or memory card? It’s pitch-black inside and the helmet lamps are just sufficient to see where you put your feet (after all these years the floor is not as flat as it used to be). A tripod and the combined helmet lights were more than plentiful for some good pictures. Thirty second exposures and having my “models” stand still for that period of time did the job and they got some time to soak in the surroundings. Everybody happy!
So, when in the neighborhood make sure to get in contact with the guys from Wanderlust Tours as they are the only licensed guides for these tunnel complexes.
Oh, and do bring some Mint Lifesavers. You’ll see them spark in the absolute darkness when you bite them hard!
With many thanks:
Wanderlust Tours
Travel Oregon
Seventh Mountain Resort
Lufthansa
And this is what the sky looked like when we got out again, also available as an hi-res wallpaper.
Now that’s nice for a change: as resident photographer for the AIDS/HIV awareness organization Dance4Life I was asked to photograph their show during the half-time of the season’s last soccer game in the Amsterdam Arena between Ajax and Heracles.
Not being a great soccer fan (22 spoiled athletes running after a ball is not really my cup of tea) it was nice being in the largest and fully packed stadium in the Netherlands. Great to see the action from so close-up.
The Dance4Life event was nice but sadly missed getting the public’s attention even though they had the Partysquad performing with them. Anyway, I thought it was a nice show and any awareness and attention they can raise is good. ABNAMRO, Ajax’s sponsor even gave their shirt logo’s away for them, cool gesture!
[Update: the audience negative reaction was due to the fact that the Partysquad accidentally played the song that is used by rival PSV when they score... oops!!!]
Funny thing, while shooting on the field during the performance it was a shock to see how really bad the grass is in this place. It has been talked about a lot but now I understand why they want to change to Astroturf! They’ve managed to spend €4.000.000 on it since using in ten years ago. Ouch!
Oh well, while in Rome:
Full series:
It is starting out to be a bit of a Port Ghalib fest on this website as (see here and here), again, there is another publication on this brand new resorttown. This time a massive 8-page checkout in the Dutch diving magazine Duikmagazine. The article is about the resort as well as the fantastic diving with the guys from Emperor Divers who run a very nice operation over there. Surely one of the best spots in Egypt that easily accesible as Port Ghalib is about ten minutes away from the Marsa Alam airport. Resort quality? Let’s just say that it’s the only place in Egypt where I’ve found it to be safe to eat the salads and fruits in the hotels.
Again, a full PDF is downloadable here.
Many thanks go out to:
www.discoverportghalib.com
www.suninternational.com
www.emperordivers.com
www.isropa.nl
www.tourismafrica.nl
What is an article on scuba-diving doing in a Ski Magazine? Well, that’s gotta be the summer-edition full of climbing, biking and this time some diving too. It’s in Dutch, sorry for those who can’t read it. The openingspread was taken at the Port Ghalib Resort near Marsa Alam. See this post for more under water images from this area.
Get the dualscreen wallpaper here.
Get the dualscreen wallpaper here.
Nothing better than starting out the brand new year in London. While enjoying a few days of relaxation early January in this great city across the Channel I had some time to capture a few panorama’s of the impressive skyline. But, with a clear blue sky like this things really can’t go wrong anyway. The First two were taken from the top of the St.Paul’s Cathedral dome which is a very nice steep walk up to the top. Plenty of stairs to exercise the leg muscles and some incredible views halfway inside the church as well (which, sadly, you’re not allowed to photograph). Definitely worth the steep entry fee of £10 as, beside the impressive cathedral, the view over the City is worth the climb.
Get the dualscreen wallpaper here.
The last panorama was taken outside the city at the wide open fields of Greenwich Village Park. This place must be amazing during summer weekends but this nice Sunday afternoon was certainly no disappointment either. Greenwich is the oldest enclosed Royal Park and home to a small herd of fallow and red deer. Situated on top of a hill, visitors enjoy sweeping views across the River Thames to St Paul’s Cathedral and beyond. The park is part of the Greenwich World Heritage Site, host to the Prime Meridian Line and the old Royal Observatory, as well as having the National Maritime Museum as a neighbour.
For a change, these images were not captured with my Canon EOS 1DmkIII but with brand-new Canon G9, a camera which has plenty of features and some great controls but whose imagery is a bit disappointing considering this is Canon’s top model compact camera. Too much noise for my liking at the higher ISO range and horrible flash controls. Happily I didn’t have that problem here as these were captured at 80-100 ISO, no flash please!
Now this is the way I like it: action & party in one big event, that must be the Belgium Ski and Snowboard Open 2008. Why have a contest only when you can go big with live performances by Triggerfinger, Milkshakerz, Luc de Vos, Turntable Dubbers and the amazing guy in the green mask: Dr Lektroluv. All of this in the European Alps version of Vegas: the French partytown Les Deux Alpes.
It’s Sunday now and I have just one day to recuperate from a crazy week of snowboarding that is used as an excuse by about 850 belgiums to party bigtime! The Belgium Champs were never bigger than this, that’s for sure so it’s going to be interesting how they are going to top this one next year.
Enjoy the full series at the Snowjam website or get more info at the VSSF site. Tomorrow I’m off the the last wintershoot of this season in Swedens Åre. Pics soon!
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