On Saturday the 27th of June 2015 we went to Zomer Folk a music festival organised by the band Rapalje. One of the band members is an old friend of my wife and we thought it would be fun to go and see the gig and at the same time enjoy the festival for a day (it’s a two day festival). Our daughter of seven also joined us and we had a great day. It was her first festival and she had so much fun, so I see a future with lot of festival in out agenda. Once I came home I imported the photos and immediately I knew I had to process them in Black and White (using my own specific technique). And I am pretty pleased with the outcome. The guys really fit well with the hard and crunchy way of processing that I use. So below a few shots I made that day, all shot with my Canon 5D mkII and Canon 70-200mm f/2.8. Rapalje is a Celtic Folkband, Irish, Scottish (and Dutch) folkmusic with a difference. You can find a bit more about them on their own website.

A whole day on the streets of Amsterdam, a bit forced due to the fact there was a lot of time between two appointments but nevertheless a wonderful day. And yes I did bring my DSLR and had plenty of time to walk passed the canals and old streets. At the end of the day, back home, I looked at the images and came to the conclusion that the only option I had was to follow the example of my colleague Vincent van Kooten, to go for black and white. Vincent makes beautiful street photography, mainly in his home town of Rotterdam and most of the time he converts his photos to black and white. So here are my 20 cents. Hope you can appreciate them. More in this gallery

While shooting for Project 50mm, I made this picture, which I have not used for the project. But personally I think it is absolutely worth it to show it here on my site. As many of you know my mother is going through a difficult time due to cancer and chemotherapy. The latter is hopefully a cure for this terrible disease. This shot was taken a few days after the last chemotherapy session and this means that she will feel at her worst. So all we can do is hope for a speedy recovery and that we are seeing some improvement in her health. So I converted it to black and white with Niksoft SilverEfex 2 and did my usual adjustments which I normally do for project 50mm. But more on that later. the other project shots can be found in this gallery