A visit to San Francisco
Oh yes, also of probably the most photographed bridge in the world
Antibes in the French Riviera
I took my pocket camera's along for some trips where I knew I would have some spare time to go out and shoot. I've put together some images from Antibes and Cannes to give you an idea of the place and atmosphere.
Weekend trip to Germany
Our first stop was the Zeche Hugo, an abandoned mine which attracted me because it has a special Locker room system where the mine workers hoisted their clothes and shoes up to the ceiling inside small metal cages. Until now I had not had the opportunity to photograph such contraptions so off we went. Because of the timing constraints we just shot the locker and went off to the next location. From what I could gather from the rest of the building, there was not much interesting stuff anyway that I hadn't already seen in other mines and factories.
Next we went to Panacolor studio's, which is the name it is known by in the Urbex community. However right after entrance we were greeted by another 'party-of-5' of Dutch photographers. The studio is not that huge with small corridors and little editing rooms. So it was immediately way too crowded for my taste, sometimes having to wait in ones footsteps not to ruin the other guys shot. The 'abandoned' aspect was also a little lost, something I like in order to shoot in a different way. So to cut it short, it was a bit of a bummer but some nice keepers emerged anyway. We went back out pretty quickly because we needed to go to the next stop while the light was still good.
Arrival at Villa Victoria-Stift. Don't ask me where the name comes from, I have no clue. Tried to find some back ground on the place via my pall google, but didn't find much. I did manage to digg up an image from the time when it was used as a Sanatorium for children. Took mostly some HDR images which turned out pretty nice I think. Upon exit we were welcomed by a short and heavy rain-storm, good test for the camera bags. Not for us, we were all dressed in t-shirt :-p
After that straight to the hotel, already in the neighborhood for the next stop: a fun family day-out in Volklinger Hutte, a former [huge] steel factory, now converted to publicly accessible industrial museum. Not much "find the entrance" stuff here but I care about the picures and Volklingen Hutte certainly has much to offer here. It was a bright and sunny day, turned quite hot as well. So I left most of the heavy equipment like the Manfrotto tripod in the car and caried only my new belt bag without the top part. If you take your time to look carefully around for nice shots you might spend a whole day and more at this place, it is that huge. It is even safe to bring the kids along, give them a taste of what other places I go out shooting but which are way too dangerous for them to join!
All updates can be found in the Urbex > germany section...
So all in all we had a fun trip, good food and drinks along the way! Also check out the snapsshots in "urbex in action".
Trip to Paris
Blankenberge
Here you see an image of the Pier, it’s renovated some years ago. The original construction dates back from 1894 and the idea of came over the canal from GB. In Brittain the art of building piers for fun and leasure had become a real expertise. Before that piers were mainly build to aid in unloading ships that were too big to approach the docks.
The Germans burned it down during the WWOI. In 1933 it was rebuild and all was well until “rot” was discovered in the concrete and the needed renovation started in 1999. The hit from the purple rain prince, hence my choice of colour layering... No not really 
Go to the gallery