Inge Thinks...

Howdy there, dear readers!

I am allowed to say howdy now, because I’m currently residing in Dallas, Texas. And I believe that Texas-people are cowboys, and cowboys say howdy. Some of you know that I left The Netherlands almost two weeks ago for a journey to the great land of the free, and now, here I am. After a week of running and driving around like crazy, I’ll now have to weeks of peace and happiness by the pool of my uncle’s house. I will, of course, tell you all about my life here and I will start at the very beginning. Photos will follow later, and with later I think I mean a whole lot later, but I’m not sure about that. Anyways – it all started on that Saturday morning, nearly to weeks ago when Joshua and I, still sleepy, got into the car on our way to Schiphol..

We first left Schiphol for London, which was a rather short, but also quite funny flight, because all of the stewards were male. Me and my very little flying experience thought this rather funny, especially when they came over and asked everybody for drinks in their cool English accents. My brother was sitting next to the window so he could see London, and I just pushed my camera over his face hoping I’d get the London Eye on there. (I did, actually!) We arrived at London, late, so we had to hurry into this bus which took us to another terminal. There was this strange lady who tore our boarding passes apart and gave us new ones for no reason, and after that we walked real fast to our flight to Chicago, which was already boarding. This flight would take eight hours, so armed with my Lord of the Rings-book I settled myself into a seat, wearing a thick vest and covered myself in the blankets that were on the seats. The good news was that there was this cool screen on which you could watch movies (I watched The Last Song, it was pretty), the bad news was that there was a lot of turbulence and that sucked. I think I got some sleep, but I was pretty tired and I was feeling a little weird when we finally arrived in Chicago.

Over there it was superhot and we had to wait forever in line for the stupid custom guys (who told me that when I would go and study art history, I’d probably end up serving fries at the McDonalds) and our suitcases. Then we were kind of lost, and were not, walked through half of the airport and finally arrived at Gate 20, only to find it had been changed to 3 and so we had to walk the entire way back. Yeah, we love airports. After the short flight in the teeny-tiny airplane we arrived, tired and feeling a little lost, in Memphis.

There, tons of family was waiting for us. There was my uncle (who’s Dutch) and my aunt (she’s American) and her two cuuuute kids (like supercute-cute), also my aunt’s sister, her husband an her son and also my aunt’s parents. We drove to the house of the parents, drank coke, spent some time talking and had a lot of fun laughing at my brother’s strange Scottish accent (he’s Dutch, so..?) but I was very happy when I could lay my head down on the soft four pillows that were on my bed.

The peace didn’t last long though, because the next morning at 8.30 we had to leave for an eight hour drive (or something) to Sevierville, Ohio. There, we would attend the awesome Answers in Genesis-apologetics-conference. We were pretty tired when we arrived at the hotel and after we settled down for a bit I was about to experience my first American fastfood restaurant. We went to Ruby Tuesday and I got myself a burger and some fries while I was wondering about the nice waiter who was all like: ‘Hey, how you doing?’, because our waiters don’t do that. When we got back to the hotel I only remember my gigantic bed and the four pillows I so longed for, after that, it’s all black (:

The next morning, after sleeping in for a bit (finally!), I was about to experience some more weirdness: the American breakfast. These crazy people somehow love everything hot and toasty while they’re eating it at 8 o’clock in the morning. I’m not kidding, Americans eat hamburgers for breakfast. I settled for some yoghurt, fruit and orange juice, feeling kind of a loner eating that food. Then we went into the town and I was just laughing out loud. Seriously. There’s like a gazilliontrillion billboards everywhere with big shiny neon things and a hundred of attractions at the side of the road that are trying to be bigger than the thousands of fastfood restaurants that look like a forest so dense. I was seriously scared, at first. It’s SO big and everything is just SO huge. Really, really scary. And funny, haha. So when we passed the wilderness of billboards we got close to the real wilderness: The Great Smokey Mountains.

And that’s where the adventure really began. We went hiking to some place called The Chimney Tops. So when you know me, you are probably like this: ‘Inge, you probably mean walking.. Not hiking!’ That, my dear friend, is a very logical thought. Inge + sports activity = not happening. Yet, it did. I actually hiked to The Chimney Tops, and honestly, it was terrible. The climb was sooo long and sooo heavy and I just felt terrible, so terrible. When we made it to the top, there was more horribleness, because before you could make it the real top, you’d have to climb this. Yup. Well, I got half way before totally freaking out. It was cool though, and the way down was a lot easier. We stopped at this mountain river and we just totally relaxed there for a long time. So gooood! We drove down, got some MacDonalds driveby food and then went to our first night at the conference..

More about that in the next blogpost! Bye for now <3

This time I was interviewed by the sweet Maria from the site Photographic Project, which is, again, Spanish. Though the interview was originally in English, they translated it for their Spanish readers. But I don’t speak Spanish and I guess you guys don’t either, so here’s the original text in English:

1 – How did you begin in Photography?
How I started in photography.. Well, I guess that was about two years ago. My dad bought a Nikon D50 around that time and I figured I’d give it a try. I really liked it, joined Flickr and tons of people started telling me that I really had a talent, so, I continued until it really became my most favourite thing to do! : )

2 – How do you define your work?
Wow, that’s a difficult one! My goal in photography is always to picture the things that people usually don’t see. That little flower by the side of the road that you would’ve walked past without noticing if you hadn’t seen my photo. I want to take pictures of things and make them beautiful, make people amazed by God’s amazing creation! So the goal of my photos is showing beauty and I do that by mostly using vivid colours and a whole ton of bokeh, haha. So the definition of my photography would be, using Coldplay’s words, life in technicolour!

3 – Which picture would you like to take you haven’t yet?
Ohh I soooo badly want to take a picture of a beautiful girl with a ton of freckles in a yellow field when the sun is setting. That is my biggest photography dream right now, haha. Sadly enough, we don’t have golden fields here in Holland :/

4 – What’s the best photographic advice that you have received? What would be your best advice to us?
Ehm, advice. I really can’t remember that, actually. My advice would be, don’t try to find extraordinary subjects but try to make something simple extraordinary. You don’t need gigantic churches, golden fields or journeys to a far away country for good photos, a good photographer can make an amazing photo of the grass in his backyard, for example.

5 – Which photographers inspire you?
So many of ‘em! My greatest inspiration is and has been Katrina though. The light in her pictures always challenges me to look for that golden sunflare everywhere. And also Siebe Warmoeskerken and Natalie Franke are really awesome.

You can see the entire interview, with pictures, here at Photographic Project.

I can feel it. It’s in the air, it’s everywhere. When I wake up in the morning the sun is already up high in the sky (and that’s not because I wake up late!) and I hear birds everywhere. When I go outside I’m greeted by a flow of warm air that swirls around me, wraps me up in sweet scents and leaves me speechless. Summer is really here. The ice creams (yay!), long afternoons at the park with my boyfriend, the tanning in the backyard, the big glasses of icy cold water and the smell of sunscreen, hmm.

But I knew for sure that summer was here when I grabbed my camera, an hour or two ago, jumped on my bike and cycled for five minutes, arriving at the small forest just outside my hometown. The sun trickled through the fresh green leaves of the trees and the ground was covered with amazing amounts of tiny little flowers, plants and weeds. I sank to my knees in amazement and an hour later I found myself lying on the ground, covered in insect bites and scratches, with over 400 photos on my camera.

When I biked home I felt so full of God’s amazing creation and His glorious works that I couldn’t help but singing, with strange looks of a few people as a result. That feeling, that feeling of joy, of happiness and of wonder, that is summer. I’m in awe of God’s amazing skills and creativity, how He manages to let the sun fall on leaves and so many different weeds and flowers and make everything look so gorgeous. I’m absolutely in wonder of God’s fabulous creation, of His shining, divine, gorgeous, ravishing and glorious summer. I am in awe. It is summer.

Hello there! All this spare time, I love it! Time to go to awesome concerts of friends and take pictures and edit them that same night, hihi. I went to a small, outdoor, concert by J-Force. J-Force is a band consisting of five young and really awesome boys. When their lead-singer Maikel asked me whether I’d like to take pictures at their concert I of course said yes! The gig was really awesome. The guys wrote their own (awesome and christian) songs and their performance was awesome, except for the rain, haha. So, here’s a sneek-peek!

Ik ben ongelofelijk teleurgesteld in jou. Heb je dan nooit opgelet in de geschiedenisles? Niets geleerd van de Franse Revolutie? Ja, het zijn zware tijden en ja, de economische crisis is ook hier te zien en te voelen. Maar denk je nou echt dat je dat op kunt lossen met stemmen op de partijen die het hardste schreeuwen? Partijen met de meest rechtse maatregelen, de meest harde maatregelen, denk je nou écht dat daar de oplossing ligt voor al deze problemen?

Ik ben zo teleurgesteld, want jij, Nederland, bent een land van heel veel kleuren. Een land met rijke mensen, maar ook met arme mensen. Een land met een cultuurrijke geschiedenis en ook veel economische rijkdom. Een land van minderheden. En toch kies jij ervoor om jouw rijke cultuur weg te gooien? Want denk je nou echt dat er onder dit beleid nog iets komt van subsidie voor kunst, ondersteuning voor theaters of het stimuleren van creativiteit? En denk je nou echt dat er onder dit beleid nog enige sympathie of liefde is voor de minder bedeelden, of de mensen uit andere landen? Vaarwel sociaal Nederland, hallo keihard Nederland, gemaakt van beton.

Teleurgesteld in jou, Nederland. Omdat ik altijd hoopte dat er meer mensen waren die dit inzagen. Dat er meer mensen waren die om cultuur en kunst gaven, en om hun medemens. Maar blijkbaar is dit allemaal verdwenen door de angst voor die ‘economische crisis’, waarbij je misschien maar één TV zult hebben in plaats van twee. Jouw enorme angst om je rijkdom te verliezen heeft je geduwd in de armen van de harde schreeuwers die eigenlijk niks te zeggen hebben, die enkel het grote publiek kunnen aanspreken.

Ik ben teleurgesteld. Maar gelukkig is er ook hoop. Want hoewel Nederland op dit moment een rotzooi is waarvan ik me afvraag hoe we er ooit uit kunnen komen, en ik mijn vertrouwen in Nederland totaal verloren ben, is er hoop. Want Rutte is de baas niet, en ook Cohen niet en zelfs Wilders is niks. God is de baas. Hij is de koning over iedereen, Hij heeft alles in Zijn handen. En hoewel ik mijn hoop en vertrouwen kwijt ben, is een leven met God vol met hoop op en vertrouwen in een betere toekomst. Hoe groot de bergen van Wilders’ anti-islam geroep ook zijn, hoe diep de zeeën van Rutte’s rechtse beleid, hoe hoog de muren van teleurgesteldheid:

‘U bent de Redder van het vertrapte volk,
wie zich hoog wanen, brengt U ten val.
U bent het die mijn lamp doet schijnen,
U, HEER, mijn God, verlicht mijn duisternis,
met U storm ik af op een legerbende,
met mijn God beklim ik de hoogste muur.’

Dus, Nederland, wat je ook doet, onthou maar gewoon één ding: God is control.

Veel liefs,

Inge

We can dance if we want to – we can leave your friends behind,
because your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance
well, they’re no friends of mine.

I say, we can go where we want to – a place where they will never find
and we can act like we come from out of this world,
leave the real one far behind.

We can dance!

…

…

…

.. and sometimes, you just need to take a break (:

Alexander is thirtheen, turning fourteen this summer. He loves his guinea pig, computers, watching TV and playing videogames. Most of the time he’s a little crazy and oh – he never has to do any homework. Alexander is my little brother (:

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^ that one is a lot more awesome like this

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an outtake, haha:

So if you girls want to date my brother.. let me know!

Anyone who looks at my pictures every now and then, might notice something. My colours are always slightly off. This is due to the fact that I change the colour balance quite a lot (more red, I think that’s pretty) but it’s also because of my use of cross processing. This technique, which I use through the Photoshop plugin Nikkon Efex Pro, is really awesome and gives your photos a really different look.

I will show you this through several edits of one photo. I have used three different types of cross processing, and I also edited the colour balance afterwards. Results!

The original

One

One with colour balance

Two

Two with colour balance

Three

Three with colour balance

And even black and white..

.. is fun with cross processing

So, if you feel inspired, you could get yourself a free Picnik account, which also offers cross processing! Go, and.. be creative!

Holland’s pride: De Keukenhof. Enjoy!

.. and of course, me and me sweet mumsy <3 (Who bought me a veeery big ice cream!)

1. Find time. (This might take a while, time always hides somewhere. Try looking under your bed!)
2. Install Photoshop on your computer, and don’t forget to get the Nikkon Effex Pro Plugin, which is real cool.
3. Then, go take some pictures.
4. Upload them to your computer and open them in Photoshop.
5. Have fun!

My results, all edits from one picture, this one:

First, the basics. Nothing tops a good bunch of cross processing:

1

2

and 3

.. but then, the scary stuff came out. Watch me turn into a real cool, freckly, old women.

Much freckles, too much?

and I don’t like the colours either. Some colourbalance adjustments will do wonders!

Oke, so maybe a little less of the freckles..

And then, of course, there’s black and white!

1

2

3

And.. what’s up with these?

And now, of course, I’d like to know what you think, hihi!