Kees' photos

It’s no fun being harassed by a photographer, but what can a poor dog do?

I’m reluctant to add paint to the "Best before..." date stamp of an egg, but I gladly wish my friends a Blessed Easter! (and one of them something more)

It must be pretty uncomfortable, lying on the stairs like this, but it happened to be the best place for sun-bathing, so what would a Spanish dog do?

Chencho lying in an easy chair at our home base in the Netherlands, waiting for things to happen. So did I, as a matter of fact, though it may not have comforted him. At ISO 8000, you cannot seriously expect to take high-quality pictures, but sometimes you’re glad being able to take pictures at all.

Of course, it’s actually only half a Heron, but one tries to make the best of what one’s got (I also have whole Herons in my portfolio, but I like the dynamics of this specimen, shot just before it could get away). In my youth, Herons could be found, but they seem to have been much rarer than today. They’re majestic birds, admirable to anyone who’s not a frog.

Our base in Holland, Oostknollendam, is built along a levee, which means you can, from your front door, go to the right or to the left, and will have to return the same way you came. This time we had gone to the left. The lack of possibilities may explain why Chencho isn’t excited about our walks. And it shows.

Being bored is an invitation to experimenting. So while I was sitting in my easy chair, and looking at the candle on the table before me, I decided to take a shot at it. The result I found to be rather interesting. Barely recognizable, but interesting.

Traveling is stressful for Chencho. And moments of rest are disturbed by some one taking pictures. Thankfully, it happened from a distance, and no flash was fired.

OK, suddenly you get the S.M.A.R.T. message that your harddisk is out of order and beyond repair: you should have it replaced. Well, Time Machine has been working for you, so what could go wrong? It seemed to be a good idea to substitute a 500Gb SSD for the 1Tb HD. I checked out some YouTube videos to see how the iMac could be opened (the only screws detectable are for the RAM compartment, and they’re good for nothing). I bought a Samsung 2.5" SSD of the newest generation and an adapter in order to fit it into the iMac’s 3.5" slot. After disassembling the computer I discovered three plugs: for data, for power, and for temperature. That was a surprise, as the adapter only had two connections and lacked the one for temperature. I tried it anyway (and naively glued the temperature plug to the adapter’s surface). That didn’t work. After some desperate attempts to get the computer started I bought a 2Tb Seagate Barracuda, which offered the (apparently) necessary connectivity. Sadly, copying the original HD to the new one didn’t yield the desired result: the iMac remained dead. The data must have been corrupted in some way; after all, the original HD was broken (even if still functioning...). Eventually, I copied the contents of our MacBook to the new HD, and that did the trick. My iMac now thinks he’s a MacBook, and it was –and is– a lot of pain to update the system from 10.6.8 to 10.10.3 and to restore my “valuable data” from the Time Machine disk. Most things, however, seem to be in order now... When I’ve fully recovered, I might put the SSD in the MacBook and replace the iMac’s long defective SuperDrive. I know now how it is done.

When we have guests, we often make a trip to Hohenpeißenberg, a small mountain with a church, several restaurants, and a glorious view of the surroundings. The much bigger mountains, on the horizon, we never saw clearer.

I was really excited about today’s eclipse, but just when I tried to photograph it, the moon slid before the sun, so I couldn’t see anything. [ Those who doubt an amateur like me could take a picture like this should consider the possibility that I converted a screenshot of the Hannover lifestream on YouTube to JPEG, and enlarged it with PhotoZoom to a size compatible with a good digital camera. ]

My wife showed interest to use my former camera, so I charged the batteries and tried to explain how to operate it (eventually, we decided to use ‘auto’). I was surprised to find some old pictures on it. Most files appeared to be corrupted in some way and couldn’t be uploaded to iPhoto, but another program accepted them, and I was glad it did: I’m sure, the past few years, I took more rainbow photos than people would care to see, but I thought the light was quite extraordinary on this series.

Apart from the double rainbow (which is always nice to have), I particularly liked the light on the top of the tree.

One of the gripes I have with both of my cameras is that they won’t record rainbows in their entirety: a wide angle of 24mm eq. simply isn’t enough. Well, one tries to make the best of what one’s got...

“No one is miserable but in comparison to others” (nemo est miser nisi comparatus) – Seneca, The Trojan Women. This is so true. It’s no fun having to free a car from a load of snow, but that fate is shared by countless other people, so why should one complain? On Boxing Day it started to snow badly, and it didn’t stop until the snow was 16" thick. As a consequence, I had to work several hours a day to clear a path to the outside world (after all, one has to eat). Last item on the list: our trusty Prius which, for lack of room in the garage, was parked beside the house. Fortunately, I could take my time, and fortunately, thaw, sun, and the subsequent rain greatly assisted my efforts.

Given the distance dividing us, it was never easy to visit our daughter, but recently it has become even harder: She now shares her home with a cat called Nelly. Naturally, Chencho wanted to make friends, but because of the risks involved we wouldn’t let him, so they both remained excited observers.

It was quite a surprise, when my wife entered our bedroom. Were we angry? No. Just a little disappointed... After all, there should be less destructive ways of telling “Chencho was here”.

A Roman Catholic church in my home town, neo-Gothic, pretty big. In its design too grand, in fact, to enable completing the bell tower. Most failed Dutch church towers have managed to rise a bit higher. I have once imagined I was a billionaire offering to finish this one after the original plans. I think it would have caused civil commotion: for one thing, bells ringing wouldn’t have allowed the neighbors to sleep late.