Netherlands

I Amsterdam || Waiting For The Magic

While I was in Amsterdam, I really wanted to make a cool shot of The Rijksmuseum during Blue Hour. The thing was, I had no idea how the building would light up, or even if it would light up at all. I find that this happens to me often in European Cities. I’ll get set up and wait for the magic to happen but then… no magic. It baffles me that people go through all of this trouble to design these magnificent structures with no thought to exterior lighting. I know that some of these buildings predate conventional lighting but still, come on Europe. One yellow flood light just doesn’t cut it. ;p

Since I’ve been burned this way so many times, I always make sure to get to my locations extra early. That way I can capture a Golden Hour / Sunset shot in addition to a Blue Hour / Night Shot. Then later on I can decide which version better represents the feeling of the location. Sometimes as a bonus, I end up with two beautiful versions to use.

For this shot I arrived a good 2 hours before what you see here. Once I picked a nice composition and tweaked all my camera settings, I kicked back, opened a bottle of wine, and waited for the magic to happen. I was confident that the dramatic weather would produce some awesome sky drama. All I had to do was be patient and vigilant.
An ominous cloud descends over The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

An ominous cloud descends over The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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Amsterdam Colors || A (not so) Sobering Experience

During my short stay, I found Amsterdam to be a wonderful, colorful, vibrant, interesting, friendly, and extremely stimulating City. And just to clarify, that was while I was completely sober.

Of course Amsterdam is well known for its coffee shops where you can buy weed or hash by the gram as well as the Red Light District where you can buy, well, other forms of entertainment… However, it’s also a cultural melting pot of activity. I’ve visited many international cities and it’s rare to find a place that holds so many people from every nationality and social standing, all out together enjoying the city. When it’s warm and sunny outside, the canals are filled with groups of people barbecuing on party boats while thousands of bicycles traverse the beautiful bridges.

It’s also worth noting that with all this extra “fun” going on, it’s much more important to watch out for speeding bicycles than cars. Amsterdam is known as one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world. With nearly 1,000,000 bicycles in the city, 38% of journeys in the city are made by bicycle, 100,000 of them are stolen, and 25,000 end up in the canals. Yes lol, in the canals. I cropped a small portion of this photo so you can see that statistic in action.
Amsterdam is truly a water city with its beautiful canals and bridges.