Cityscape – Page 2 – Peter Apers Photoblog

Architectural photography

My enthusiasm for sharing pictures started when I submitted my pictures of Maastricht, a city along the Meuse river, to Dreamstime. They were the first two. Both still have a top ranking as far as sales is concerned.

Maastricht at night — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Maastricht along the river — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Whenever I visit a city I always want to take pictures of both the old and the new buildings. I enjoy the tension between them. Architectural photography has become my thing. For that reason I love to go to Barcelona (see this blog) and Valencia (see this blog) and take pictures. In Valencia they did something spectacular. In a dry river they built some manificent, artistic buildings (Hemesferic and Agora, see below).

Hemesferic and Agora, Valencia — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Also Rotterdam is famous for its new architecture. For me Rotterdam Central Station and the Food Market Hall are the winners. Buyers particularly like the train station. It has already been sold nine times.

Central Station Rotterdam — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

The Dom Tower in Utrecht is popular at Werk aan de Muur.

Roombeek in Enschede is the rebuilt quarter after the fireworks explosion of May 2000. Here are my two favorite pictures.

Museum and restaurant in rebuilt Roombeek — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Symbol of fireworks explosion Roombeek — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Enjoy the architectural pictures of the various cities I visited and if possible visit the places yourself!

Street photography in Barranco

During my trip to Peru we stayed some time in Lima, to be more precise in Miraflores. However, Barranco, a neighboring district, is my favorite. It is famous for its romantic and Bohemian character. A lot of artists live in this district. Both during the day and in the evening it is nice to stroll around. We mainly walked around in the area between the two churches (Iglesia La Santísima Cruz and Iglesia La Ermita) and the Pacific Ocean.
Here you can see my pictures that were taken during daytime. All of them were taken in Aperture priority mode. There was more than sufficient light to choose the Aperture I wanted and still have a fast Shutter speed. As you can see the dominate colors are red and yellow ochre. You can also see that enjoying live has a high priority.
In the evening, as you can see here, the place is even more crowded, and on every square you will find live street music. All pictures were taken in Manual mode. I choose the Aperture and Shutter speed I needed and the rest was handled by the automatic increase of the ISO. Although all of them ended up at ISO 6400 the pictures still look very good. During post-processing it is important to keep the dark areas dark. For daytime pictures it is nice to open up the shadows to show more detail. You should avoid doing that for night pictures. Keep the dark areas close to black by increasing the Blacks.

Walking through the streets of Zwolle

Several boats in city canal in Zwolle — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

My interest in taking pictures of cities is growing. Architecture of various cities, of various buildings is fascinating. Zwolle has medieval roots and some of the buildings go back a long time. The centre is surrounded by a kind of city canal and the larger Zwolle area is surrounded by four rivers. So, this gives a nice setting with old buildings, water, and boats. Some of the characteristic buildings like the Sassenpoort (one of the old city gates) and the church tower Pepperbox (Peperbus) are charateristic for the skyline of Zwolle.
For this occassion I took my general-purpose lens, 28-300mm, which is very convenient for architectural shots. Only for the Pepperbox I needed my wide-angle zoon lens. To make sure I would see everything, I downloaded a city tour which took me along all the old buildings.
Although Zwolle may not be on the list of most tourists it is really worthwhile a visit. Even more if you enjoy excellent food. De Librije, a restaurant with 3 Michelin stars, is definitely worthwhile a visit. During my tour I took a picture of the former location of this famous restaurant (Broerenkerk). Keep in mind that you have to make reservations far ahead.
Here you will find some of my pictures of Zwolle. I submitted almost all of them to Dreamstime, one has already been accepted (editorials have priority), the others are still pending.

Maastricht by night with a monopod

Some years ago I visited Maastricht with my family. It is the most southern city of the Netherlands. It is a wonderful city along the river the Maas (Meuse), which goes back all the way to the period that the Romans occupied the southern part of the Netherlands. In the basement of quite a few buildings you can see the remains of Roman buildings.
The houses along the river are very nicely lit when it is dark. The picture above was taken with a Shutter Speed of 5sec, Aperture of 9, and an ISO of 200. So, this is way too long for a handheld shot.
Although I am not a great fan of carrying a tripod with me, for this occasion I had put my monopod in my car. It is a Manfrotto Self Standing Monopod. It is small, however, not leight, and you have to keep in mind that it is not very stable if it is windy. Keeping this in mind it does a good job.
That evening I took of course several pictures, experimenting with the Aperture and the Shutter Speed. When the Shutter Speed is getting long you have to take moving objects into account. Although persons are far away on the other side of the river, I had to take into account boats passing by. Despite, it was late in the evening quite a few boats were passing by.
Here you will find my Dreamstime pictures of Maastricht. These are my first four pictures of Dreamstime, of which for the first two licenses have been sold.

A wide-angle view of Paris

Cathedral Notre-Dame in Paris — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

This week I was in Paris with my family. We went to the obvious places. It was nice to see them after so many years. It is also good to see that France is maintaining its cultural heritage quite well. Some of the buildings looked much better than before.
The places we visited were: L’église de la Madeleine (near our hotel), Place de la Concorde with the Obélisque de Louxor, Av des Champs-Élysées, Jardin des Tuileries, area around the Louvre Museum, Cathédrale Notre-Dame, Panthéon, Jardin de Luxembourg, Tour Eiffel, Montmartre with the Sacré Cœur, and of course Château de Versailles and its gardens.
I decided to limit myself to my 16-35mm zoom lens. It has the “advantage” that everything fits which is nice with all these large buildings. At the same that it is quite a challenge to keep the pictures interesting. Wide-angle lenses tend to put everything far away to make it fit, so:

try to get closer,
try to get an interesting object close-by,
try to include clouds (they get more dramatic with a wide-angle lens),
try to include a bit of the surroundings to get a storytelling picture, etc.

Please experiment a bit with it.
Here are some of my pictures of Paris, and here the ones that are accepted by Dreamstime.

Roombeek: rebuilt after fireworks explosion

On Saturday May 13, 2000 we saw from our garden very dark smoke coming from the direction of Enschede. Later it turned out to be caused by an enormous fireworks explosion, turning the Roombeek district of Enschede in total chaos and ruins.
Recently my research group had a guided tour through Roombeek. It is now completely rebuilt. Many new houses mixed with some of the old buildings. Quite a variety of architectural designs giving a dynamic and modern character to the district. At the same time the map of the streets remained the same, giving the district the same structure, and a feeling of familiarity.
Roombeek is now the lively home of the creative industry with several museums and many smaller exposition spaces for architects and artists. It is a pleasure to be there. Below you see the restaurant bij Rozendaal and the museum TwentseWelle.

Here are some more pictures I took of Roombeek.

Rotterdam: harbor and architecture

Although I have been to Rotterdam on several occaisons I never had the time to stroll around the center. There is a two-hour tour “Rondje Rotterdam” that takes you along many new buildings with exotic architecture and parts of the old harbor.
Rotterdam is of course famous for its large harbor. You can still find reminiscences of the old port in the center. However, Rotterdam is also famous for its architecture and art. During World War II Rotterdam was bombed heavily leaving many open spaces. This gave the city the opportunity to experiment with the architecture of new buildings.

The Central Station is an example of that. The hall is very spaceous and gives a feeling of freedom which connects very well with being a traveller. Also, the Market Hall, a place for international food, combines shops and restaurants in a tunnel-shaped appartement building with colorful decorations on the inside of the tunnel.

Food Market Hall Rotterdam — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

At the same time there are many old houses and buildings which nicely contrast the modern high-rise executive offices. Quite a few like to neglect gravity by shifting the upper part of the building, thereby getting rid of the static nature of regular buildings.
Rotterdam has many bridges, the most famous one is of course the Erasmus Bridge with its one-leg construction. A beauty to take pictures of.

Erasmus Bridge Rotterdam — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Here you will find a selection of the pictures I took during my stroll. I used my 16-35mm lens to create some drama.

Valencia: old and new together

Valencia is one of the bigger cities of Spain. We stayed in Las Arenas Balneario Resort, a hotel along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. A really nice hotel with a beautiful view of the beach and the sea.
The old city (founded 138 BC) is nice to stroll through and to enjoy the food and the view. The cultural influences of the various occupiers on the architecture and the food is visible everywhere. We walked from Porta de Serrans to Estacio del Nord. We really enjoyed Plaça de l’Ajuntament, there are a lot of nice places to eat.

Typical streets of Valencia — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Another interesting part is the dried-up river Turia. Part of it is turned into a public garden with play grounds and cultural centers. Going through it by bike really gives a special sensation, seeing the high walls of the old river going more then ten meters up, and knowing that there used to run a lot of water between these walls.
Near the end of this old river it turns into an Art and Science park with many extraordinary buildings: Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Hemisfèric, Museum of Sciences, and Agora. The contrast with the old center is enormous.

Hemesferic and Palace of the Arts, Valencia — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Valencia is of course also famous for its fallas. Visiting them is high on my photography list. Here are my Valencia pictures on Dreamstime and here are some others.

Barcelona, a nice place to be

Last summer we spent a couple of weeks in Barcelona. It is a truly internationally oriented, mediterranean city, where sun, sea, and food play a central role. Everywhere there are nice restaurants.

We had rented an apartment close to the Diagonal in a very luxurious area of Barcelona. Shops of all major brands were present, all of them having a doorman. Given our budget we just had a look from the outside 🙂
Barcelona is of course also the city of Gaudi: La Sagrada Família, Park Güell, Casa Milà, Parc de la Ciutadella, and many more places worth a visit.
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Here you will find my Barcelona pictures approved by Dreamstime, including many nice pictures of the interior of La Sagrada Família,
and here some pictures of the many nice districts of Barcelona, each having their own character. Enjoy!
Normally, I take my Nikkor 28-300 mm while visiting a city. It is a very convenient lens. However, this time I took my 16-35 mm and 70-200 mm. For example, the pictures of details in La Sagrada Família required a small depth-of-filed (f/2.8), so I used the 70-200 mm lens.

La Sagrada Familia: Jesus Christ — © Peter Apers | Dreamstime Stock Photos