Photographing architecture is not my greatest strength, to put it mildly.
Funny story: I was 27 years old when I went on my first flight abroad. After many trips to the airport to see most of my family members take off to the far East – and not come back for a long while – and many years of wishing, I finally had the opportunity to travel to Hongkong. My parents had bought me my tickets so that I could finally come to visit them and my siblings. It was an unforgettable vacation.
One of the important things I took away from that vacation is that I am absolutely miserable at taking photos of high rise buildings, huge squares and big cities. My photos were terrible and disappointing (except for some very nice close-ups of people ;). Nothing of what I felt and experienced when I saw the high rise buildings could be retrieved through the pictures. The main reason for that is that I loved my 300mm zoom lens. What did I know about wide-angle lenses, I never needed one since I was mainly interested in taking photos of people.
Moving two years forward. My now-husband took the same trip as I did, together with his brother and my sister. We were just friends at that time. When he returned, he showed me his slides of Hongkong, which I was very keen to see for he had stayed in my parent’s house. After watching his slides… Well, I was so impressed, my breath was taken away. His pictures were so great! So beautiful! The emotion, the feeling of that huge city so well documented. And… that’s how it all started. Suddenly then and there my eyes were opened and I fell in love. We got married within a year. That’s a long time ago now.
I have learned a lot from Gert-Jan since then. I now know what a good wide-angle lens is for. Here is a gallery with a selection of photos of architecture by Gert-Jan, a queer selection with some less usual points of view.
“Talent is good.
Practice is better.
Passion is best.”
Frank Lloyd Webber
