An Afternoon at the Antwerp Zoo

In my photography, there are themes that recur, images that I don't realise I'm chasing ...

Reflections would fall into that category.

Today was a sunny autumn day here in Antwerp.  Miss 9 and I wandered off to the zoo.  School holidays.   And I had to smile as we worked on a miniature photography workshop while exploring the zoo together. 

Her joy, as she worked out shutter speed and focus, was lovely.  She really got it. 

Anyway, she was given a zoo map when she paid for her ticket.  Oh my, there were some conversations where I suggested her map-reading skills were dodgy.  She laughed and, of course, we ended up at that funky slide over in the playground ... 

Not so dodgy it seems, perhaps we were simply on different missions.

Eventually I was able to arrive at the giraffe enclosure.  It's one of my favourite places there in the zoo but what I had forgotten was that there is a water course that runs round the edge of their space.  I don't know what it is about the water but it reflects exquisitely.

The image that follows ... Antwerp's blue sky reflected with the stripes and paint on the giraffe house.  Miss 9 and I could have stayed there all afternoon but for the fact we were cold and getting hungry.

Dank u wel for a lovely day, little Miss 9.

In Liguria ...

These days in Genova have been filled with adventures of an unimagined kind ...

Anna, from Beautiful Liguria, has teamed up with me and we're working on a project (or two) together.  These last few days we have wandered in Liguria, interviewing and photographing some very special artisans.  People using techniques that sometimes go back as far as medieval times because 'they still work'.  People keeping the personal touch alive in their creations and creating so much beauty in the process.

It has been both a pleasure and a privilege to visit these worlds I knew nothing of and in a region so beautiful that the journey has been as much a part of the destination.

I feel like I have fallen through the looking glass, from one beautiful adventure and into another.  And still it continues. 

As always, in Italy, it's about the people, and I am meeting truly excellent people.  They are kind to this foreigner, that one with so many questions and a desire to photograph all.

Here is a taste of the beauty I saw today.  Can you guess what it might be?

Light and Colour, Genova

I can never predict what I might find out in the streets of Genova, Italy.

Never.  It seems that all is possible.  Today the light was strong and it was hot.  Really unbelievably hot but I am adjusting to it.  Loving it even ... after the long Belgian winter that was.

I couldn't resist attempting to capture something of the artworks found in the narrow caruggi (alleyways) here in the ancient heart of Genova.

Beach Huts ...

The beach huts, they intrigue, horrify, and amuse me ...

For me, a child of New Zealand, the beach is about Nature, with a capital N.  It's not about about shelter and masses of 'stuff'.  It's not about windbreaks, umbrellas, or cafes. 

But there I was, down on the beach in Holland today, delighted by the light and the colour, horrified by the 'civilised' nature of the beach ... but. at the same time, enjoying a glass of red wine or two at those cafes located every few hundred metres along the sand.

There was live music too ...