You can already take a peek at the new layout(which is still a work in progress) for the time being ;)

i’m including an old picture from the archives. mind you… the brightness and contrast of this picture may look completely fucked on your computer screen. i still don’t know how well my computer screen is calibrated.

new updates soon…

cheers.
bert

yesterday, it was exactly one year since Alexandra Boulat (war photographer and co-founder of the VII Photo Agency) passed away due to a brain aneurysm… i can actually remember hearing that sad news as if it happened yesterday. unbelievable how fast time flies by these last few years! :-o

you can check out some of her work on the following links:

VII: Women In Middle East
Time: Capturing Gaza’s Hell
Alexandra Boulat: A Tribute

anyways… today there’s been a general strike in Belgium, so i thought… why not update my blog with photos of the manifestations i’ve witnessed in the past year. i have to warn you.. it’s a pretty lengthy post, so hang in there! ;) i think many of the pictures included are total rubbish, but hey… it’s a blog so i can post more pictures here than i actually like and maybe some of you even like ‘em…

all pictures were taken with my bessa r3m(nokton 40/1.4) or my nikon fm2n(nikkor 50/1.8). film used: tri-x(in xtol 1:1). i had a lab scan my negs so don’t expect great image quality.

the first manifestation took place on september 11th 2007(yeah.. 9/11) in Brussels, where the right-wing Flemish nationalist party “Vlaams Belang” wanted to protest against the “Islamisation of Europe”. the mayor of Brussels had banned the protest, but Vlaams Belang still tried to protest, which led to 200 protesters being nearly immediately arrested. unfortunately… due to my train being late, i actually missed all the action so nothing interesting to see there…

… also because the place was way too crowded with journalists…

i did see Hugo Coveliers *ugghh* :-/

journalists, journalists and journalists!

the aftermath.

afterwards i got into a discussion with two women. we ended up in a pub and had a very, very, very long discussion about Belgian politics. One of the women had a Belgian nationality but was originally from Congo, so that made the discussion even more interesting. ’twas nice!

about a month later, i went to an anti-fascism demonstration in Brughes.

i’ll translate:

“stop fascistic violence
everything that separates us, weakens us
jobs, no racism”

many young “commies” in Brughes :-D

on the move…

trying to sell left-wing propaganda to people passing by.

absolutely one of my favourite pictures of this manifestation! she was yelling through that megaphone. i had just setup my camera. she looked back, looked at me for a spare second and *click*. luckily i was fast enough to have the focus (nearly) spot on(not so easy when walking and having to focus manually…).

i just love all these different expressions on their faces…

CHÉnge the world…

a few weeks later, i was walking through Brussels and (accidentally) ran into a protest against the PKK and against terror and violence in general. in the beginning, i didn’t really felt comfortable. i was quite impressed by those thousands of Turkish people singing and praying… and there i stood “white” guy with my camera’s :’ ) but as i started taking pictures i felt more comfortable and after a while people even started to ask me to have their picture taken(and their typical question afterwards: “for what newspaper are you working? when will this photo be in the newspapers?” :-D many people asked me that. apparently i have the photojournalist looks haha).

gotta love the eye contact!

enjoying a fag

he definitely wanted to be in the “newspapers” :-D

she was quite shy and she was already making her move to run away, so i had to be fast… too bad it’s waaaaay out of focus. in such cases autofocus could be handy. oh well…

he was definitely enjoying himself.

… and some more people who wanted to be in the “newspapers”.

later on, things got out of hand somehow and the police had to intervene. i’m still wondering why i haven’t taken more time to photograph these guys. i have exactly one frame of them -_-

he wasn’t too happy i guess…

next up is a manifestation for the equality of women in Iran/Afghanistan.

these lads asked me to have their picture taken and so i did…

he was quite shy i guess… i tried to photograph him several times and almost every time he was fast enough to hide his face behind that sign.

“look! that guy’s taking pictures. let’s put up our (out of focus) retarded faces”

he didn’t quite understand what was going on…

… and here, one was curious about what was going on and the other was curious about what i was doing :-p

believe it or not… a photo in color! i was testing out some slide film(Kodak Elitechrome) with my Bessa and a gigantic Metz CL-4 flash attached to it. the colors/sharpness aren’t very representable as i scanned the slide with a friend’s crappy scanner.

too bad there’s a guy with a gigantic camera in the background staring at me. i think he didn’t quite get it why i was using a “stupid toy camera” and attached a gigantic flash to it haha :” )

still one manifestation to go: the unity of Belgium. it was a protest against the failure of the Belgian politicians to form a new government. Meanwhile they still haven’t solved all problems. Tsjeven… -_-

even the war veterans were doing their fair share…

…as well as the (out of focus) white hairy unidentified species

wearing his Belgian afro wig. too bad this picture isn’t in color

op naar het Jubelpark!

guarding the flag.

one happy camper texting a message to the home front?!

singin’ the Brabançonne (the Belgian national anthem) together.

zelfs zwarte piet was van de partij…

still don’t know what these guys were trying to achieve.

…and the summary of it all:
“three languages, one soul, one Belgium”

there… this post has come to an end. i hope you’ve enjoyed it! ;)

cheers,
bert

because i still don’t have a film scanner(voel u maar schuldig Caroline! :-p), i can’t really show you new stuff at the moment… so i’m just going to upload some older stuff for now…

starting off with a portrait series i made about people living in Schaarbeek. Schaarbeek is located in Brussels and is home to a large immigrant community. so many different nationalities live together in Schaarbeek; Turkish, Moroccan, African, Bulgarian, Armenian,… needless to say, it’s quite an interesting place to take pictures!

the first photo is a portrait of Rafi. he’s an Armenian guy living in Schaarbeek since 1999. he didn’t speak a word of Dutch, French, English or German(that’s about it for my languages.. my Armenian isn’t all that good :-p). luckily, some of his friends accompanying him spoke a little bit of French, so they translated for me. well they tried.. communication wasn’t all that easy, but we had a good laugh in the end…

eventually, i was allowed to take a few pictures. because we couldn’t understand each other, i just turned his head the way i wanted, had him put the cigarette in his mouth et voila! :-D i printed the original photo on 30×40 fibre-based paper(warmtone), which looks absolutely stunning! too bad i can’t scan large print, so you guys will have to do it with a crappy neg scan… my bad!

the next photo is a portrait of a Turkish lady. i still don’t know her name because we couldn’t understand each other. *yay for language barriers* -_-

while exploring Schaarbeek, i saw her sitting on her doorsteps. i just liked the way she was sitting there, enjoying the good weather, so i wanted to ask if i could take her picture, but she didn’t really understand what my intentions were. it took me a while to explain, but in the end i was allowed to take some pictures. *yay for body language!*

next up is the portrait of Mpungi. he’s such a great guy. i already met him a few times before i made this photo. the first time i met him, i was taking pictures at night in Brussels, he tapped on my shoulder and spoke the magical words: “Jesus loves you!” :’-D i was quite surprised by that one sentence and had quite a conversation with him about why Jesus loved me. some time later, i saw him again in the Brussels North train station. he saw me, walked up to me and said that same sentence again. apparently he didn’t know me anymore… :-p

a few months later, i was making these portraits in Schaarbeek and he just came out of a grocery store. i walked up to him(of course he said that same sentence again.. some kind of trademark i guess) and i asked if i could take his picture. he seemed very honoured that i had asked him. i made him pose against the wall, took some pictures and afterwards he gave me a hug(no shit!) while saying: “peace on earth”. oh great moments that were! :-D

the last photo is a portrait of Attila and his son. he’s a truck driver living in Schaarbeek since 1970. he was just coming home from work(hence why he’s wearing a jacket in his kitchen :-D) and i ran to his car to ask whether i could take some pictures of him inside of his house. luckily he spoke French(not that my French is all that good, but it’s definitely better than my Turkish :-p) and wanted to cooperate immediately. he was a very friendly man, really.

once inside, his son immediately grabbed a camera out of a cabinet and started to show off his little digital camera. ’twas quite funny actually :-D

too bad this print scan is quite fucked though. the dark areas have become big black stains during the scanning process :-( the print looks way better, believe me!

there… the first blog post on my new blog is a fact! i hoped you enjoyed it(even though most of you have probably seen these photos before…).

cheers!

bert

as i promised in my previous post, i’m going to post some pictures of the gentse feesten. it was actually the first time that i went to the gentse feesten at daytime. i did have a great time though.

all pictures taken with bessa r3m, nokton 40/1.4, tri-x (for those that care…)

at a flea market…

dogs will take over the entire universe someday. don’t tell me i didn’t warn you…
this dog was already able to drive a car!

funny how the guy on the left tried to cover his face with his hand. he wasn’t very pleased with me taking pictures. that’s for sure :-D

beggin’ for some food.

on the neg, the lady’s arm isn’t cut off though.. apparently the stupid lab that scanned my negs can’t even manage to scan negs properly :-/

how i’ve stalked this dog… :)
poor thing had to wear his woolen jacket while it was quite hot.

soeur sourire revival? :]

overexposed *joy* :-/

it’s beginning to look like a hobby of mine to cut people’s feet off *blush*

fish-creature-things wandering through the streets of Ghent.

a fish-creature-thing pooing a human. great!

dSLR’s.. everyone has one nowadays.

do notice the little fella with the white shirt on the right. he was sort of mesmerized but also gave an impression that he was quite bored :)

they were having a great time playing accordion and drinking booze.

apparently some people still had to work while others were enjoying themselves at the gentse feesten.

very… euhm… rock’n'roll?! *cough* :]
she was sitting there all day long, watching concerts and enjoying her cigarettes. man, you should’ve seen the pile of cigarette ends lying next to her…

he wasn’t very interested in the concert.

these guys were great!

balloons!

an italian guide holding her umbrella in the air to make sure she didn’t lose her ‘audience’ in the crowd.

karate kid givin’ a demonstration at the gentse feesten :’ )

the wall must fall! they had quite a discussion about this.

this guy was soooo cool. i was taking some pictures of him when he suddenly noticed me and said that i had a nice camera…

he: that’s a nice cam you have there mate. is that a leica?
me: i wish it was, but no.. it’s a voigtländer.
he: ah it does look like a leica though. i have a leica myself.

the conversation went on and on and on while he was doing all those fancy tricks with balloons. the people surrounding him gave us some strange looks. i think they didn’t really had a clue what we were talking about :]

these little fellas were quite fascinated by the guy with his balloons.

i made a few attempts to take a picture of the guy in the middle, but every time the girl(or her balloon) blocked my sight. at the moment, i was so convinced that she wouldn’t be in the way. wrong guess it seems…

de nieuwe bellenman! (no i’m not even going to try to translate this :D)

she was impressed by the police who were escorting some wasted guy, but then she saw that i was taking pictures of her and she gave me one of those ‘burn in hell’ looks.

i’d rather not have a pole poking in my ass! :-p

guess what… the wasted guy from a few pictures ago ended up next to me. the police put him on the bench(next to me). do notice the Rolling Stones tattoos on his arm :]

white sport shoes with white hitched up socks are sooo wrong!
(i was having a beer and i just noticed… not that i’m always checking out people’s shoes and socks :-D)

i wanted to finish off my roll, so i started taking pictures of this lady…

left girl: look that guy’s taking everybody’s picture, expect ours.
right girl: sir, don’t you want to take a picture of us? (yeah people call me sir.. still don’t know why. i don’t look like a ‘sir’. dude would do…)
me: whatever.
right girl: you’re not going to put this picture on the internet or anything like that, huh?
me: euhm… no (okay big lie, but it’s not like they’re flashing their boobs… so big deal) .

this guy was so funny.. but especially wasted.

on my way home…

that’s about it… pretty lengthy post, huh?! it’s more quantity than quality, but who cares.. i had a great time.

anyways.. i’m off.

cheers!

bert

it’s been a while since i’ve posted something new up here… for now i’m going to post some older pictures. the reason why i haven’t posted them before is because i was not too happy with the development and the prints. i had some rolls developed and printed in another shop than i’m used to and they fucked up the development quite bad. the prints… yeah well… the prints came out quite greenish. not much of a surprise, if you know that they print analogue b/w pics on digital photo paper(Fujicolor crystal archive paper) -_- i think they should chop off people’s hands for doing such things.. really!

i was quite gutted about it and it only strengthened the idea of having a darkroom of my own. even though i haven’t developed film before.. i can only try, right? that way there’ll be no one else to blame but myself when the negs/prints look like crap…

ah well.. enough ranting for one day :-D i’ll start posting pictures now…

all pictures were taken with my bessa r3m, nokton 40/1.4, tri-x

a day in Ghent..

things like this might happen when you’re fiddling too much with settings and are too late to capture the scene.. caught in the act! :-D

dogs like ice cream too ^^

i just had to photograph this to make sure that i wasn’t having any hallucinations of giant michelin puppets walking through Ghent.

having a conversation with a pigeon…

cool stuff!

reflections ftw!

some train pics on my way to Sint-Lukas/Brussels for my entrance exam…

quite blurry this one due to train movement and slow shutter speed…

on my way home…

some Antwerp shots…

asians with a strange definition of sightseeing…

meh.. wrong focus :-(

freeze motherfucker! FBI!

enjoying belgian fries

looking at one of the attractions on the Sinksenfoor… as though she’d seen the light :-D

well that’s it for now… i hope you enjoyed it.

expect a new update later this week with pictures of the gentse feesten.

bye,

bert

last week, i finished off my first roll with my new Bessa R3M. i still have to get used to the rangefinder focusing mechanism(never used a rangefinder before..), but i can say that i’m lovin’ it already!

anyways.. some pictures(don’t expect masterpieces for now though…)
the scan quality is crap.. so, sorry about that.

bessa r3m, nokton 40/1.4, tri-x

my name is Bond.. James Bond! watching Bond movies for free is typically something for old people…

after a half hour, i had enough of wandering through the Fnac. so i went back to the ground floor.. and guess what.. the guy was still watching Bond. Bond was just having it off with some of them hawt blond chicks.

there’s not much “nordic” about “nordic walking” through the city on a sunny day(?!). she must’ve thought Ghent was situated somewhere in the Alps…

to give money.. or not to give money…

BOOZE!

this ‘building’ reminded me of Spencer Platt’s world press photo somehow. my photo is not world press photo material though… : )

the guy on the right had enough of being a statue.. so he just took off his mask, put it on his chair and ‘installed’ himself on the side of the street.

sad to see how antisocial people with mobiles are. maybe they were calling each other. who knows… :-p
i hate mobiles *bleh*

nice painting job!

the 2 last shots were taken with my spotmatic II, 35/2.8 and T-Max 100

*imitates a pigeon’s cooing*

better have two ice creams in the hand… than having no ice cream at all!

there.. my first blog entry is a fact! i hope you liked it…