Return to The Hague

April 9, 2017

A knee jerk reaction to a water leak in my apartment in The Hague last weekend also provided an opportunity to catch up with friends, take coffee and shoot photographs in the glorious sun! The leak turned out to be a five day long saga that is way to boring to go into here, but it was eventually resolved by a drainage engineer from Glasgow (obviously).

The weather was great which was much to my surprise, sunny every day and a little cool which provided me with ample opportunities to take photographs in between appointments with plumbers/buying washing machines/drainage engineers/clients.

I was also reminded how much I miss The Hague and the atmosphere around the city. I am never surprised now by the crowds of tourists and the happy go lucky "niceness" of the Dutch. The owners of my favourite places still remember me and ask when I am coming back. My answer to that question raises some uneasy feelings from within. Especially when 'something' is leaking to your downstairs neighbours apartment.

As always, I have collected together a few shots from last week below. The bronze sculptures are from the Museum Beelden aan Zee (Museum at the Sea) and the outside exhibition of (by Tom Otterness). It's really worth looking around if you are ever there. Click the thumbnails for the large images :-)

Strathy Adventure

December 21, 2016

I title the post Strathy Adventure because that's exactly what it was, an Adventure. Finding a cottage in the middle of a small village may sound easy but unfortunately it was pitch black and if not for some friendly highlanders at the local town hall we might still be looking for 'Samhchair'. Strathy is a small village on the very north coast of Scotland, surrounded by sea and hills. It's the kind of place you don't want to leave, it has no cell reception (which is magnificent) and is eerily calm and peaceful. The pictures below don't come anywhere close to doing the location justice, but there isn't much I can do about the weather (that's my excuse and I am sticking to it).

I have had an invitation to visit Samhchair for several years and have never had the time or opportunity to visit. The area is one that I am familiar with as family vacations when I was very young toured the majority of the North of Scotland. It was a long drive from the central region of Scotland (5.5 hours + coffee stops).

Chiquita, wondering where the next coffee stop will be ;-)

October

October 31, 2016

As October has drawn to an end I have been trying to reflect on what I have achieved over the last month. Little has come to mind. It has been filled mostly with searching for a job, interviews for jobs, a little demonstrating and a trip to The Hague. I am left wondering how this leads to me to meeting my goals and it's at this point I realise that perhaps I have not set any goals which is causing the lack of direction I am currently feeling.

Knowing what you want to achieve has been something that I have discussed with many people (t.b.h. mostly MoneyPenny) over the past few years and I have usually been in the position of having some aim or goal in mind, whether it is writing a thesis or a completing a project at work.

I am pretty sure that watching all 8 seasons of Dexter in a month should not be something I am aiming for in life (although it may be achieved relatively soon).

Taking more photographs again has been a recent aim but has failed to materialize. I am also reminded that I am living in an amazing city for photography but travel through it each day blindly without my camera. A small step in the right direction would be carrying my camera, and a tripod... Small changes add up to large changes?

The dark nights of winter are almost here and that is great for night photographers. These are some of my favourite scenes to shoot and I have spent many nights in Europe encapsulating history this way. I learned a lot about the cold, about having a good tripod and how essential gloves and snacks can be! I have posted a few of my favourite photographs below. Lisa Bettany reminded me what is possible with a little patience and practice, without having to travel far and wide. She gives some great advice on night shots (with trailing lights) in her blog and they are from Edinburgh and St Andrews.

Inner Geologist

September 29, 2016

My inner geologist can't get enough of this: Brunton Axis Pocket Transit. Featuring a dual-axis, hollow hinge for intuitive, efficient, accurate measurements of planes, lines, bearing and vertical angles. Strike and dip, trend and plunge all measured with one configuration. It's the sexiest piece of geological equipment since the geological hammer!

All for the low, low price of $799.99 (plus tax where applicable).

Forgotten Images

January 29, 2016

I was recently nominated by someone on Facebook to post landscape photographs for five days. My immediate thought was to post some from my Project 365 that I completed in 2013, but I decided to go through older photographs that I hadn't looked at for while.

I was amazed at how many photographs were stored on my network drive that I hadn't even thought about for years. It took quite some time just to sift through them, even though they were fairly well organized, into years, months and location. It brought back some good memories of places that I had been and would like to revisit.

I was reminded of how much I like to travel and how it has been a while since I have been someplace that I could spend time just taking photographs and not needing to worry about anything else. Spending time doing fieldwork in Greenland was very much like that, everyday was similar but different. Four weeks at the margin of the ice sheet and all that I had to think about was glaciers, sample collection and what was going to be cooked for dinner that night. Good times. Images below are of the Leverett Glacier in Greenland. Not to be confused with the Leverett Glacier in Antarctica.