Arrived in Amsterdam exhausted, hungry, solo and with lots of work to do which made for a strange first experience of the city I had heard so much about, an experience that changed once I met up with my host Gerhard and had the chance to explore the city via bike! By far the best best way to experience that place! Got three shots in Amsterdam. Gerhard was on it. He had made arrangements at this crazy cool restaurant called 11, which was at the top of the old post office building, soon to be torn down. We entered through a construction site and then through a series of psychedelic (surprising) seriously good looking graffitied hallways to the elevator and ended up in this trendy open spaced restaurant/club with huge video screens above the windows with perfect wide sweeping views of all of Amsterdam. Anna, the manager was really nice and let us up onto the roof terrace where I could setup and leave my camera while we ate. Took shot one out over a few canals onto some funky looking blue lights coming from some kind of club. Not sure but expect it will come out in an unusual way. Shot one!
The next day after a slow start I checked out the museum of photography, Foam (that is definitely a place I would love to show) and met up with Gerhard again for round 2. Went to Osaka, a 20 story 5 star hotel with a bar at the top. They also very generously had no problem with my using their teeny tiny balcony next to the bar. They let me out onto another great view of Amsterdam and I set up with the half moon rising in orange in the shot and let the exposure run while we had drinks next to a distinguished white haired man who turned out to be the x-prime minister of the Netherlands. Heeeey!
On to shot 3 at Movenpick, a swank new swiss hotel in a newly developed area along the river. They were a little less sure what to do with me and my need to borrow a room for a few hours to shoot but the manager was very nice and I gave her my website etc and she offered a room on the 12th floor overlooking old Amsterdam and the train station (the Dutch really are very nice) the one view I really wanted to get! We had the best luck because once I had set up the camera a major thunderstorm hit and the most incredible lighting display began and persisted through most of the hour exposure. Absolutely beautiful overlooking the river and Amsterdam and so lucky not to be on our bikes anymore! The only potential problem was the rain building up on the window and all the light reflecting off of it. We shall see when I get the negs back... Amsterdam rocked! Too little time and a great city!
No comments:
Post a Comment