-
Learn young …
Learn young … Growing up in the 1950s in the catholic south of the Netherlands, my primary school was run by friars. For girls there was a convent school. Seeing these white-hooded, charmingly looking girls I get visions of hundreds of schools full of them, condemned by the Mullahs to become budding little nuns in…
-
Head scarf hassle
Head scarf hassle Nowhere have I seen more importance being given to bright red coloured lips than in Iran. Maybe it is to honour Iran’s still immensely popular 14th century poet Hafiz who never got tired of singing his odes in praise of the red colour of wine, roses and his lovers’ lips. But these…
-
Lipstick lips
Lipstick lips Iranian mannequins are made and used in bits and pieces. After the torsos for showing dresses and legs for leggings – see two earlier posts – it’s now the turn of heads for scarfs. Or is it lips for lipsticks? Photo of the week: Mannequin heads, Tehran, Iran 2017
-
Legging legs
Legging legs Underneath the body-covering veils and the hair-covering head scarfs of Iranian women a secret, colourful, swinging world can go hidden, unnoticed by the peeping eys of the morality police. Photo of the week: Legging legs, Tehran, Iran 2017
-
Window dressing
Window dressing “How beautiful … will I ever be allowed to wear a dress like this?” White dreams for ladies in black. Photo of the week: Window dressing, Tehran, Iran 2017
-
Mannequins
Mannequins With the advance of modern technology the two meanings of the word ‘mannequin’ – in French as in English – have grown towards one another. The lifeless dummies on the photo, showing clothes in a shop-window, can hardly be distinguished anymore from the living dolls doing the same at a fashion show. Perfect bodies,…
-
Marken
Marken A little further than the quiet villages of Waterland but still close to Amsterdam we find Marken. In the past a fishing village on a tiny island in the Zuyder Zee, now connected by road to the mainland. With its typical wooden houses around the harbour it has kept some of its looks of…
-
Holysloot
Holysloot A one-street, dead-end village in Waterland, at 2 km from Ransdorp. Now also protected and lying within the municipal limits of Amsterdam. With a history going back more than 700 years it already figures under the name of Hoolesloot on this historical map of Waterland from the year 1288. Photo of the week: Holysloot,…
-
Ransdorp
Ransdorp A thousand years ago there were already people living in this low lying Waterland near the Zuyder Zee. Because of regular flooding a long dike was made in the 13th century around the whole Waterland area to protect the fields and villages. Early 16th century the village of Ransdorp started the construction of its…
-
Waterland
Waterland I took these pictures in the summer of 2017, but 50 years ago I already cycled on nice summer days to Waterland, this low lying country of meadows, brooks and tiny villages just outside the centre of Amsterdam. Then and now, it cannot be much different from how it was hundred years ago when…
