This here’s a bit of an abstract image of a hill in the south of the province of Limburg in the Netherlands and was taken some 20 km from where I was born. Since I’ve moved a grand total of 21 times, including to exotic places like Lagos, Nigeria and Paris, France, only to find myself within an hour’s drive of my home country. So much for being a world citizen…

Even though I used to abhor Valentine’s day, I forever turned it into a highlight of happiness when, Valentine’s day 2003, I asked my lovely Lise to marry me. Of course you already knew that but I had to find a reason to post today so I’ll gladly repeat myself. Happy Valentine’s to everyone!

Winter’s back with a vengeance: it could have easily been the title of a movie and walking outside in the evil cold I do indeed feel like hero John McClane at the end of Die Hard 58. I only vaguely remember feeling the joy of spring. When was that? Ah, right… less than a week ago. On the plus side: being stuck indoors, I’ve finally found the time to add some images to the wedding portfolio gallery.

Last year I was smart enough to prepare a blog entry a week before new year’s eve. This year I wasn’t. As I’m only now starting to recover I didn’t get around to posting the obligatory empty bottle of champagne any sooner. Anyway, here’s that belated Happy 2010 to all the people in France and other countries where you can wish everyone a Happy New Year during the whole month of January. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to hibernating; please wake me when temperatures seriously start rising, ok?

Slowly but surely the thick layer of snow that has covered Brussels the past week is yielding to warmer temperatures, so I’m afraid we’ll have to stick to dreamin’ this year. The image shown above is from last Saturday and as usual I couldn’t choose so here’s another one, and here, here and here too. While I love the heat of the tropics, there is a certain magic in the frosty brilliance of a snow-covered forest in bleak wintry sunlight. Anyway, merry Christmas to all of you!

After shooting all those politicians in Paris, forgive me for thinking there wouldn’t be any left for the rest of the world; hence the surprise. These here would be trust-busting European Commissioner and, according to Forbes, one of the most influential women in the World: Neelie Kroes, and Dutch state secretary for Health, Welfare and Sport: Jet Bussemaker. They met with me today in Brussels so I could upgrade my handshaking network and now I’m up to date again.

The first snow of the season arrived today around noon and it arrived in vast quantities. Especially the forest, where the falling flakes drown out all sound except the occasional happy twittering of a bird that hasn’t yet discovered it’s bad news for her, becomes a place of magic. One almost feels as if one’s the first to ever walk underneath its lofty canopy, trodding through centimeters of a snowy white blanket where no tracks yet exist, while mere minutes later the evidence of one’s own existence has vanished under a fresh layer. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…

Last weekend we spent a few hours at the southernmost stretch of coast of the Netherlands. Arriving back at our car the first splats of rain started dropping and mere minutes later visibility was down to 10 meters. The torrential rain and accompanying storm that has flooded big parts of the UK had finally arrived on the mainland.

“With hair dark as night / her eyes were like that / of a cat in the dark / they hypnotize me with love / She was a gypsy woman”, Santana sings and he might have been describing the woman in the image, some 20 years ago, for all I know. Although this particular shot was already used in my farewell to Paris, I now have a pdf of the resulting article for download (in Dutch). It was published in the July issue of Wordt Vervolgd, the monthly of the Dutch branch of Amnesty International, an organization I heartily support even if they don’t know how to spell my name…

One of the good things about having a dog is that you’re out in the woods several times a week. One of the bad things about having a dog is that you’re out in the woods even when it rains (and I hate rain). It didn’t rain last Friday however so I got to shoot a less moody autumn variety of my best-selling “on the origin of barcode”. Now, six days later, it seems autumn has already left the building and winter has arrived.