Tag: Cities
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AESCON
When I walked into the compound of the ISKCON temple at Chowpatty in Mumbai, I must confess I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I don’t think much of ISKCON’s aescon but this temple is worth looking at. Beautiful materials, good craftsmanship, no trouble or expense spared. It activated my own aesthetic consciousness which…
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Two or three
Sometimes I can be perfectly happy with two, at other times it has to be three. So it seems. If it had been two I would not have annoyed you with this picture, would not have taken it in the first place. Three makes all the difference here. See how beautifully they occupy the space!…
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Venice upside down
It is always a nice sight, the clotheslines with clean laundry tightened between opposite houses across narrow streets in the old towns of southern Europe. But may we ask you to be a bit more thoughtful next time, dear washerwoman (or man), when hanging your beautiful towels to dry in the attractive contre jour light…
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Ensemble of limbs
Looking at the legs in unison in last week’s post I remembered this photo that I took once in a shopping mall in Sydney. Then too it had been the configuration of limbs that had incited me to take out my camera. The people spread out in the circle, on the chairs and sofas at the floor…
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Kerala revisited
When I think of Kerala, images of the early years of my life as filmmaker-anthropologist come to my mind. In the 70s and early 80s of last century my relationship with India was concentrated on Kerala. Spread over frequent visits I must have stayed there at least one year if not more. And although I have…
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Grassphalt
Living is adapting. Nature is good at it. Humans can manage quite well too, but at what price! In their ambition to rule the world they often don’t know where to draw the line. Photo of the week: Lyon, France 2008
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Gimcracks and knickknacks
or: a girl’s paradise An entire shop full of trinkets against a background of pink wall cloth and a tiger-like stripe pattern on the floor: a truly mouth-watering temptation! In Dutch we have the nice word ‘snuisterijen’ for this kind of trinkets, containing the two vowel sounds ‘ui’ and ‘ij’ that non-native speakers always find hard…
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Under the Sony roof
Why this photo pleases me: The proportion and partition of light and dark parts within the frame of the picture create a strong, graphic image. The straight lines and their angles versus the curved shape of the roof create a pleasant tension. The fact that the dark part on the lower right seems to be a true multistory…
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Canal towns
Amsterdam, the Venice of the North as it is sometimes called, isn’t the only city in Holland that can boast of its beautiful canals. Canals in historical cities like Alkmaar, Haarlem, Leiden, Delft and Utrecht definitely have got class as well. The canals in Utrecht are very special indeed, because they are different. They are…
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Leonardo between the Sunday painters
Krakow is the proud owner of a real oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci: Lady with an Ermine. So maybe it shouldn’t surprise us to find a copy or reproduction of it in this open air stall in Krakow. It’s hanging there in the middle – even in duplicate -, unpretentiously hidden between work of…
καιρός remembered 