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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…
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Camera in love
Camera in love That was the title given to the exhibition of the work of Ed van der Elsken at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 2017. The woman with the cigarette on the photo is Vali Myers, a bohemian artist who was Van de Elsken’s muse during his stay in Paris in the early…
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Japan unbound
Japan unbound Between 1959 and 1988, photographer Ed van der Elsken visited Japan many times. He once calculated that, taken together, he must have walked the streets of Tokyo and other places with his camera every day for more than two years. And, to his own surprise, during those 750 days of roaming around the…
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Twins of an era
Twins of an era Ed van der Elsken (1925-1990) was a street photographer. Wherever he was, in Amsterdam, Paris or Tokyo, he roamed the streets with his camera for days on end and took pictures of … people. Looking at his pictures at an exhibition of his work in 2017, the atmosphere of the 50s,…
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Gyantse Kumbum
Gyantse Kumbum The biggest and best preserved pyramidal multi-chapel monument of the kind in Tibet. It has more than 70 – dark – chapels inside, almost all decorated with murals and statues. We can look at the kumbum as a three-dimensional mandala: when you project the whole building on its ground-plan, it represents a visual…
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Gyantse Dzong
Gyantse Dzong The castle (dzong) of Gyantse of which the oldest parts date back to the 14th century, is towering above the city on the high clifs of the mountain. At the time Newari artists came from Nepal for carrying out the decoration of the buildings inside the fortress with murals that would influence later…
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The Tibetan plateau
The Tibetan plateau Lying north of the Himalayas, the Tibetan plateau has an average altitude of 4000 m. It is mostly dry and bare. Hardly any of the monsoon rains from India and Nepal manage to cross the barrier of the high Himalayan mountain ranges. So the average yearly rainfall in Tibet is only about…
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Pilgrims’ attraction
Pilgrims’ attraction During the three-day festival in July, when the giant thangka is displayed at Tashilhunpo Monastery, pilgrims come from far and wide. They climb the steps to the foot of the thangka wall, walk past it and descend again on the other side. To get a good view of the images on the thangka,…
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Tashilhunpo Thanka
Tashilhunpo Thanka Tashilhunpo in Shigatse is the largest monastery in Tibet and the seat of the Panchen Lamas. The complex comprises various monuments with golden roofs and a large number of chapels filled with statues and adorned with murals, thangkas and other treasures. For 362 days a year, this monastic town does not look exactly…
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Shekar Monastery
Shekar Monastery It may be in the middle of nowhere, but like most of the erstwhile 1000 monasteries in Tibet, this one too could not escape the destructive fury of the Cultural Revolution. Partly rebuilt, it has again become a centre of study and worship, nourished by the “White Crystal” (Shekar) inside. Photo of the…
καιρός remembered
… the right moment, position chosen, shoot …
