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Wednesday, June 30

This city's silver in the moon, and mountains heaped with sugar spoons...

For an interesting change of pace, it appears that Maggie isn't actually writing this blog post. I've heard rumors that you all wanted to see pictures from my (yes, that would make me Niklaas) trip to Europe. She was only going to upload them, but I asked her if I could write a bit about all of these, since every picture always has a story behind it. 
But first...A little background on where I went. For the first week, I traveled up to Northern Sweden, Umeå to be exact, and for the second week, Northern Spain. 
With that out of the way...here are the pictures: 
Alright, so this first one was taken of...you guessed it...a brick building. To be honest, I'm completely unsure as to the significance of this building, but anyways, I'm always trying to keep it fresh, especially when it comes down to something as "static" as a building. More on that in a few.

And number two.
These two pictures were my first venture into posed still life pictures, and I ended up being pretty happy with the result overall. In order to soften the light, and get the effect I wanted out of these, I ended up bumping up the ISO to 1600, and putting a white t-shirt over my ghetto strobe flash. I think the graininess, added to the really soft focus and even softer light, makes these infinitely more interesting.
Oh my goodness. This is absolutely my favorite picture from the trip. This one was taken in the Stockholm airport while we were waiting for a long, long time, for our flight to Barcelona. The sheer number of patterns in this picture, and the fact that they don't really detract from one another makes this picture.
So after airporting it up, we finally ended up in Barcelona. I'm still pretty much in awe of the city. Although we didn't have much time to spend in the city, since the real reason for the trip was work, what I managed to see, effectively blew my mind.

Side note: Like Castanets by Bishop Allen completely sums up how I feel about Barcelona


This restaurant was amazing. I always feel so weird taking pictures inside restaurants, but for this one, it absolutely had to happen. Although you can't see much of the decor, the whole thing was decorated in a kind of euro-american chic way. The picture would've been better, I suppose, if I had used a flash, since the whole place was insanely dim, so the shutter speed on this is huge...1/8s, and I didn't have a tripod, so I had to make do with the table top. Anyways--best part of the restaurant? Regina Spektor. Walking into a restaurant and hearing Fidelity playing is one of the greatest things ever (Well, and the food, of course).

So this was the view out of my hotel.


the click and clatter of my feet on the lonely crooked cobbled streets...like castanets. 

The building on the left is an apartment complex, same with the one that I'm in, but I have no idea what that one in the background is. Oh well.


This is another one of my very favorite pictures from the trip...
This one was taken on the train ride from Barcelona to Valencia, and I'm a huge fan. The ways that the lines on the table take one's eyes up to the soft focus reflection in the window are amazing. And, in my opinion, completely expresses the feeling of traveling by train at night.





















Alright, this is the last one! This one was taken out the window of the house we stayed at in Valencia. In all of these pictures, I tried to focus on the patterns (especially in architecture) and usually, I suppose, I mostly succeeded.

The end.

Niklaas

P.S. I'm (maggie) going to be reading these comments, but I'm going to show them to Niklaas too ;)!!
P.P.S. And yes! This means he is home, so I'm a happy camper! I'll blog later this week. We had a photoshoot:)
P.P.P.S. I just made a twitter! Add me :) maggeygrace

16 comments:

Catherine said...

I love this "guest post"... I desperately want to go to Europe, and these photos are fantastic.

Alex said...

I loved this post! :) I don't know who is supposed to read this comment, BUT I loved that your dear decided to upload his photos and describe them! This is so lovely :) His photos are very inspiring! I never thought of taking these kind of photos when I went haha, damn. I am such a klutz! He surely has good eye :D

Cheyne said...

Oh dear I love Europe. I'm going to Finland next summer, and probably dipping around in Germany at some point.

Cheyne.

Ali Hval said...

Beautiful pictures! I love your blog, so cute. <3

Chloë, Wardrobe Quarry said...

These photos are great. I may have missed it, but what camera did you use to take these?

Elizabeth, Delightfully Tacky said...

Looks like good times!

And to answer your question, no I have never had my hair blonde. I think I would look really strange with blonde hair....

Kelly said...

To Niklaas -

As a (would be) photographer myself, I appreciate the care you took with the framing of your photos... I think you achieved a pretty interesting perspective in many of them! Good work. And also, I hope you had a generally delightful trip :)

indigotangerine said...

He visited BOTH Sweden and Barcelona?! Those are the two places that top my list right now.
-indigo

Taylor said...

your dear took beautiful and great pictures! and i love that he described all of them. this was a really great guest post!

Anonymous said...

Hi Niklaas and Maggie :)

These pictures are amazing!
I definitely want to tour Europe as well!

Happy Thursday!

:D

http://vivalabreee.blogspot.com/

maryse said...

i love how technical niklaas got into his photos, reminds me tons of my highschool photography class. all that repetition, composition, leading lines talk, etc. anyways, it's nice to see europe from his point of view. although does he always shoot in black and white? maybe some colored photos of europe in the future?

Flashes of Style said...

Great photos! Looks like a lovely trip :)

Sara said...

These pictures are incredible. Great post!

Ebony Arwen said...

Gorgeous photos!
I love that your guy loves Regina Spektor! What a keeper Mags ;)
xxox

becca said...

oh fun! a guest post!
and this is...the guy? right, or no?
if it is, HI we've heard a ton about you and it's nice to meet you!
if not...well I totally embarassed myself but at least it was to be nice :)
anyway, neat pictures! it's cool that you enjoy photography and have any eye for that kind of stuff!

Erin Kim said...

Wow. The photos are amazing but ore than that, I really appreciate the commentary! Niklaas is really keen with the details! That's suh-weet! Great pics, and if he has more, feel free to share, even if they're not all perfect! I've never been to Barcelona, so it'd be cool to see life there. :)

Thanks so much for the pics bro!
Erin :)