Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/05/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]The queen's birthday (April 30th) is a public holiday in the Netherlands. This year the celebration was particularly good because the weather was gorgeous in much of the country and because it coincides with the 25th anniversary of the accession to the throne of Queen Beatrix. April 30th was actually the birthday of her mother; but since people had got used to the date and the weather is usually nice in late April, the date remained. The Dutch are a practical people. The day is normally celebrated with street parties in most Dutch towns. The colour de rigeur is orange (the royal family is the House of Orange). We chose to spend it in Hilversum, a smallish town where my children go to school, noted mainly for housing the HQ of Dutch television and of Nike Europe. We were lucky to get an excellent outdoor table with a bunch of our English friends at the Guardian, our usual pub, and proceeded to spend the next several hours drinking beer and watching the human traffic go by. Occasionally I would take a little walk to hunt with my camera. I will be putting up a proper gallery, but for my PAW I have chosen a few quirky images, mainly focusing on various body parts. First, a portrait of (part of) one of our friends: http://www.nathanfoto.com/paw/2005/2005_17.jpg There are legs and there are legs... http://www.nathanfoto.com/paw/2005/2005_17alt1.jpg On one of the many stages was this singer with a big, ahem, voice: http://www.nathanfoto.com/paw/2005/2005_17alt2.jpg A tough-looking but friendly guy at the neighbouring table: http://www.nathanfoto.com/paw/2005/2005_17alt3.jpg And finally, one of the greatest inventions of recent times...any time you have a lot of people drinking a lot of beer, you have to tackle the problem of disposal. In some countries, you are expected to just find the nearest tree, but the Netherlands has a more elegant solution: http://www.nathanfoto.com/paw/2005/2005_17alt4.jpg The complete PAW index is at: http://www.nathanfoto.com/indexpaw2005.html and comments & critique are always welcome and appreciated. Nathan -- Nathan Wajsman Almere, The Netherlands General photography: http://www.nathanfoto.com Seville photography: http://www.fotosevilla.com Stock photography: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=507 Prints for sale: http://www.photodeluge.com