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April 25, 2005
We've been invited to a wedding! Steve and Fintan are getting married in the Hague in three weeks. As if this wasn't exciting enough, they have asked me to be their photographer! This is pretty brave of them and I just hope they know what they're doing.
As for me, I'm so excited I can hardly breathe. I'm trying to do some preparation. I've come up with an enormous list of questions for them so that I'll have a good idea of what to expect on the day, I'm trying to visit all the locations involved before the day itself so I'm prepared with respect to lighting, arrangement of people in the space and any ideas stemming from the architectural details or space itself and I'm busying myself looking at wedding photos on the internet in a similar style to what I'm thinking of doing.
Oh, yeah. And I'm planning on taking all shots in colour with the Canon EOS300D although the idea is that the final results will be in black and white. This way I figure I'll have the maximum information to play with in the shots themselves.
Any brilliant tips and ideas would be greatly appreciated as well as nice sites and shots.
Posted by Faith at 08:24 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Double trouble
A few months ago Jacob became an Australian citizen. This meant he could no longer enter Australia using his Dutch passport. Should we ever get around to it.
So here it is. His Australian passport arrived last week and he is now, at 1 year old, the proud owner of two-expensive but-highly-necessary-for-reasons-of-national-security passports. Double the bureaucracy, double the fun!
PS.Of course those photos are REALLY useful!
Posted by Faith at 03:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 22, 2005
Photo Friday:Soft
Posted by Faith at 09:47 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 20, 2005
Gratuitous Jacob
Posted by Faith at 09:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 18, 2005
Fast Learners
Several months ago we gave Ron's parents our old PC so they could learn how to use Windows, email and the internet. With their 56k modem timed telephone connection Ron's parents were stepping out slowly and gingerley into the digital age. They eventually bought a printer, a digital camera, talked us out of an old laptop we had and we gladly fielded the usual phonecalls about DOS error messages because someone left a floppy in, forgotten hotmail addresses, desktop icons, solitaire, etc.
Which is why we were a little suprised last night when the phone call for help drifted into unknow territory. What message were they getting? Host names? IP addresses? Service Providers? Routers? What were they trying to do we asked?
Why of course, set up a router so that they could access their neighbours broadband connection (with the neighbour's permmission!)Duh! Why didn't we think of that?
Posted by Faith at 09:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 17, 2005
Colour (spelt right)
Last week proved a very colourful one with yet another toenail-painting session in Den Haag AND the Picture Perfect Color Management Seminar in Mijdrecht. Who says I don't get around?
Having to travel to Den Haag to apply for Jacob's Australian passport (Just how many passports does an 18 month old need?) was the perfect excuse to link up with BBC-star-Kathy-Clugston and splash out at Aveda. I don't know what they put in the foot bath you receive there while perched on your throne-of-decadence but I've never made it through the shop below without buying some pricey cosmetic, the likes of which I would normally scoff at! Makes the outrageous price of the pedicure seem almost reasonable.
Thursday I then used 7 strips and 2 buses and a tram to travel to Mijdrecht for the Picture Perfect Color Management Seminar. The seminar was exactly what I was looking for, putting all the bits and pices you've heard/read about setting up your camera, monitor and printer into a nice digestible story where it all came together and made sense...... even in Dutch. The journey there was a bit more adventurous than I was anticipating considering that the Seminar registration gave it's location as Amsterdam. From what I saw Mijdrecht is actually a lot closer to Utrecht! But hey, you can never stumble across too many cows.
Posted by Faith at 10:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 15, 2005
Our Gwen
Jacob's impeccable taste in music has recently been corrupted by the likes of Bert and Ernie with such hits as "Geen ruzie in de auto", Annie M.G. Schmidt and "De Kat van Ome Willem" and "the Grand old Duke of York". Still, when most of the adult population were recently listening to "Schnappi, Das kleine krokodil" I suppose it could be worse.
The only thing saving him from total embarassment is a sound appreciation of Gwen and Eve's "Rich Girl". He even knows the words and sings along, "na, na,na, na, ". In fact the entire album "Love, Angel, Music, Baby" is proving a favourite and can be relied on to prompt some spirited mad toddler-dancing. Ahhhhh toddler-dancing. Who needs a gym?
Posted by Faith at 11:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 11, 2005
Kidskitsj
A friend of mine, Jeanette, is busy filling in all those empty hours that working-mothers-of-young-children have renovating old-fashioned children's furniture (with her tongue in her cheek!) and coming up with other creative ideas for children's rooms. She and her co-'opknappers' are together called Kidskitsj and they will be having an Open Huis next weekend, April 17 and 17 at Middenhavenstraat 27 in IJmuiden.
Besides children's furniture there will also be brightly coloured nostalgic toys, clompers, bracelets, and baby bedding as well as koffie and gebak!
Posted by Faith at 08:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 10, 2005
The gorgeous skinny lady sings!
The last year has been, I think, completely opera-free. Sadly, despite having tickets to hear Cecilia Bartoli and at least one other memorable-event-that-escapes-me-at-the-moment (!), our babysitting situation meant that not only did we get out of the habit of going to evening events but also out of the way of even considering it. Happily, BBC-star-Kathy-Clugston has jettisoned me back into the-groove with a sudden ticket to De Nederlandse Opera's production of "Die tote Stadt" by Korngold.
It couldn't have been a better choice as I've always had a preference for early 20C opera, I'm a complete sucker for any form of expressionism and the Germans have never rubbed me up the wrong way. Weird I know, a bit teenagerish and I've never grown out of it! Not that I know a lot about opera mind you but I know what I like! Anyway, the Nederlandse Opera production was fantastic, Nadja Michael in the role of Marietta was superb and the whole production orchestra, choreagraphy and cast was amazing to watch. A brilliant and inspiring re-introduction. Poor Ron! Now we have a babysitter his evenings in peace-at-home are numbered!
Posted by Faith at 11:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 08, 2005
Oh Knitty Knitty Knitty!
More and more its the really simple things in life that make you astoundingly happy! The way Jacob repeats a new word back at you almost every hour these days. A hint-of-spring-in-the-breeze and that one stolen glass of rose on a terrace. Or a new issue of Knitty! Coinciding magnificently with my latest infection of itchy-fingers I receive an email alert that the Spring Issue of Knitty is out! Can it get any better? Can my bliss be more complete?
I was busy preparing to dive into Clapotis but have now found Petals, the perect balance, for those brain-dead moments. Plus lots more nice projects. All I needed when I already had a long list of dinosaurs and knuffels to do!
Posted by Faith at 10:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 07, 2005
Spinning silver!
I've been slack about blogging lately. That old conumdrum, too-much-too-blog-about (trivia) vs too-little-too-blog-about (Deep-and-meaningful, ok, so that was never a problem....)
But here comes something really deserving! Tonight we won a SPIN Award! A Silver Spin 2004 award for a project I did last year while working at Proximity Amsterdam. My amazing project managment skills aside, the credit must really go to my colleagues Jaap van Oort (Interaction Designer extraordinaire) and Peter van Driel (Art Director fantastic). Karijn van den Bosch managed the MSN components. Together we won a Silver Spin Award for the Best Online Campaign!!
Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Faith at 10:17 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack