A 'little' surprise... F*CK!

Today I had a business meeting in Roermond, the town I used to work for. Driving down the highway I suddenly saw this huge bilboard, the photo looked somewhat familiar:

On my way back I stopped the car and took a closer look. Damn, it was one of my photographs! And it was huge, gigantic, monstrous!

I'm wondering where some of my old photo's are gonna turn up next...

New photoblog

Since last week I'm experimenting with a daily photoblog on the international photoblog-community Aminus3. I'm gonna try if I succeed to upload a daily photo, either a new one or one from my archives... Here's the URL: http://arny.aminus3.com/

Queensday festival 2009

Again lotsa lotsa bands! Hard, loud R'n´R!!!! Here´s a little impression of the day...

Back home...

Our California cruising days are over... Two weeks are just a to short! But we've had it all, a cold wave in the desert, a heat wave in Santa Monica and flowers everywere!
And a big "f*ck you!" to the Dollar Rental Car compagny for giving us the wrong car, with flat tyres no 4WD (which we reserved for)... and guess what, instead of giving us the promised refund they even billed our credit cart for this piece of wreck three times!
We're now negotiating to get our money back...

Golden Gate sunset...

editor's choice of the week at zoom.nl

Zoom Magazine, the biggest photo magazine has chosen my "Santa Monica swing" photo as editor's choise of the week on their online gallery. So pay it a visit and give a nice comment: http://gallery.zoom.nl/foto/1107298/swingin--summer.html

Guinness holiday...

the good, the bad and the cute

Spring? Where is spring? It looks like autumn out there!

Completely redone my website...

I had planned it before, but the amount of work put me of... But last month I started the dreaded task and redesigned my website.
The old design was copied a bit to much, don't believe me? Just look for some Go-Live styles on tne net and you'll find it. You can even find some with my old Long Beach skyline photo in the header!

So why not create a new one with the cover of my book in the header?


I removed about 1.200 pictures! Most of them were to old, or not just good enough. Hey, the website is about 10 years old. It gathered dust... lots of dust aka 'not so good photos!'
There's lot's of room for new work and you can see some 100 new, never published before, photographs...
Not everything is finished yet, but give me time...

Another cute Bruce shot...

Bruce silly sleeping pose...

Bruce in the basket...

Meet Bruce!

Dreaming of warmer days...

Rock Chick!

Desert scene?

No not another Arizona desert shot, just one of our little cactus in our winter garden...

Fridge view I

Back to full frame!!!!

Yesterday was the big day. Back to full frame! Finally got my hands on a Sony Alpha 900. The legal heritage to the old Minolta dynax 9! And the wait was worth it! Although I regret the fact that I didn't bought it earlier. My wide lenses are really wide again and yes I finally get to use my fisheye to full effect!

Here's me singing the Alpha 900 theme song... "Fisheye, fisheye, just shoot me with a fisheeye!"
(for all you worried people, I forgot to push the REC-button on the recorder, so no fear. The song will never leave my living room... Or maybe I will try to record it tomorrow?)

Book review

Hans, an old travel compagnon, wrote a little book review for the online version of the biggest photomagazine in the Benelux. Just klick on the screenshot below to read it (sorry Dutch only), or to leave a comment (http://weblog.zoom.nl/2009/01/21/deserted/).



And ofcourse many thanx to Hans (the first two rounds are for me!)

Winter...

Although it looks that these merry fellows just took a nice hot bubble bath, they are frozen to the bone (do frogs have bones?)! Snow, ice, freezing cold, it seemed like something from my far distance childhood. If we had snow, the last couple of years, it was only a thin blanket that never lasted longer than a couple of hours. And now? We're completely covered in a white blanket and everything is frozen stiff... Cars don't work, people are getting ice crazy and hospitals are working overtime to fix all the broken bones...

I don't like winter... give me heat, give me desert... I don't like cold, and my frogs neither!

Ron Asheton 1948-2009

Guitargod/monster Ron Asheton died today. He was a truly inspiration for me and numerous others to pick up the guitar and play dirty r'n'r. Ron was one of the founding members of the proto-punk band The Stooges. After the stooges breakup he played in New Race (with members of MC5 and Radio Birdman), Destroy All Monsters and numerous other projects.
Punkrock wouldn't exist without them. Like Stooges-singer Iggy Pop wrote on his website, we are in deep shock...

I was lucky to see and shoot the Stooges first European reunion tour. I only shot a couple of photo's, then I gave the camera to my wife... the pit won...


Thanx Ron for some of the greatest guitar riffs of all time, Rest In Peace!

Happy New Year! (!?)

The new year started with a blast. Figurly speaking. It looks that someone was inspired on new years eve by my old car photo, like the one below....

Some idiot tried to blow up my windshield with a fire cracker! You can see the result below. We just had the windshield repaired a couple of months ago...


But we still want to wish you all the best (good health, luck and love) for the new year!

Desert[ed] book is ready!

A big box arrived today, containing the first pressing of Desert[ed]. And it looks great! Even better than the proof copy!

A quick preview (click on the image for a bigger view):

Get a personalized and signed copy (sorry no direct link, spam prevention!):

or order directly through blurb:

desert[ed]

photography by arn...

By arny raedts

Book Preview

Bettie Page 1923-2008

Today one of the most famous icons of contemporary photography died; Bettie Page. Bettie Page was an American model who became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modeling and pin-up photos. She was also one of the earliest Playmates of the Month for Playboy magazine.


"I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society" Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. While she faded into obscurity in the 1960s after converting to Christianity and serving as a Baptist missionary in Angola, (!) she experienced a resurgence of popularity in the 1980s and had a significant cult following. Her look, including her jet black hair and trademark bangs, has been iconic within the rockabilly subculture and has influenced many artists. As well as my modelphotography and artwork for concerts, bands and festival. The queen of burlesque is no more, god save the queen!

Computer crash...

These damn things seem to have a lesser life expectancy than ever! This was the second crash this year. Not much was lost this time, since I back up regularly. But having to reinstall everything all over is time wasted... Time I rather spend on finishing my book!

desert[ed] 2.0 is almost ready...

As always a project is never finished... until it is finished... and that is never... Que?
Well, when we came back from our USA 2008 trip, I didn't have time to go trough all of the photo's I took. But I new that there were some that I wanted to ad to 'desert[ed]' before I sent it to the printer for the final finish...


Today I got up really early (sunday morning!) and I've been photoshopping all day. I'll hope to get the book finished this week, so it'll be ready for the Holidays... X-masssssssssssssssssss......

Oops theres a rattlesnake somewhere under my desk...

Video summary

For the people that don't have time and don't read Dutch (travel blog url: http://arnyzona-usa-2008.blogspot.com/ ), here's a highlight of the video's from our Fall 2008 trip to the south-west of the USA:

Taking a photo of the Green River:



Walking 'the wave':



Having fun in Jerome, AZ:



Zion, Virgin river guitar improvisation:

Goodbye Mausie... rest in peace

When we came back from the USA, our cat was very ill. We hoped that he would recover when he was back home with us. He fought like a tiger, won some battles, but today he lost the war...

Mausie, 1991 - 2008
"thanks for being our little friend, rest in peace buddy!"

Back from the USA!

We just came back from over 4 weeks of cruising through the South West of the USA. Although we had some bad luck during the trip, it was an unbelievable journey! Especially the golden fall color in Colorado were beautiful.

Some of the planned hikes we had to cancel, due to bad weather, sickness or washes out trails. But we got so see enough amazing new landscapes that we want to visit again on or next trip... After 8 trips were still not satisfied with the deserts of the south west!

Back home I found out that the computer I use for uploading my websites had broken down. So i'm not gonna be able to update my regular websites. But in the mean time you can get see some highlights of our trip on our travellog: http://arnyzona-usa-2008.blogspot.com (sorry Dutch language only).

LOUD!

The first reactions and critics about my photobook 'desert[ed]' are beyond imagination. So I'm going on with my next book, since I've been photographing concerts in the underground scene for 20 years now.... Here's the first cover-concept:

Nationaal Park De Peel

Rolling Stone Magazine publishes my photo !!!!

Rolling Stone magazine is doing a feature on Australian indie rockers the Drones in their september issue. A couple of weeks ago they contacted me for a photo for the article... hmm... should I do it?

HEY, WAKE UP!

Ofcourse I said yes! ...it's the biggest and most famous rock magazine in the World! WOW!


F*cking Rolling Stone magazine wants my photo!!!!!

Can't wait to get my copy in the mail...

Square Project revisited

Working on the 'Desert[ed]' book I had to revisit some older projects that never were finished. One of them is the Square Project that I started a couple of years ago during a shoot in Istanbul. During several travels I picked up the idea again (social 'street' photography in a square frame) and kept adding new photo's. So it is still a work in progress, but also learn full to go back to earlier work some times...

Book preview...

Here's a little animation preview of a couple of pages from 'desert[ed]':

My new book: desert[ed]

Been busy the last couple of weeks! Finally got my new book ready, 'desert[ed]'. Actually I got the first test-copy through the mail today. And it looks superb (if I may say that myself). The print quality is above expectation!
The book can be ordered soon through Blurb.com. I'll keep you posted...

Yeah, we're on YouTube!

Caro's little Sony Cybershot has a video mode too... here's my first no budget, movie (production was about 20 minutes, including editing, titles)! More to follow!

cinemascope...

In the mean time in our backyard...

another boring landscape picture III

another boring landscape picture II ...

Damned!

Last week legendary punkpioneers The Damned played our town. Since it was a monday and a last minute booking, the place didn't sell out. But again thanx to the guys from Oude Garde for delivering such a great and legendary band on our front lawn!
More pix: http://www.arny.nl/damned.html

A little gem from the vaults....

I never really found time to browse the thousands of photo's I've shot during our last USA trip. I only scratched the surface and published a couple of raw versions on my website and blog.
Since we are planning a new big trip to the South West USA and I promised a copy of my book ('thirst-dorst') to some of our friends in the USA, I got the idea to update the book with the pics from last year.

Discovering shots like the above, I picked up the original idea to publish a new book. The first one only cost me money (although it sold out), but internet publishing has reached a new level, why not take another chance?
More soon!!!!

pussycat...

weird sunset...

another boring landscape picture....

Under a blood red sky...

jekyl & hide

Our old dog passed away a couple of weeks ago... that's my ex' dog and mine. A acquaintance of her had this 'little' young boxer that she couldn't house anymore. Since we used to have a boxer before it wasn't a hard decision...
'Baerke' (Bear cup) is wat she calls him (I liked Harry more), and he's really adorable. But since he's really young it can be scary when he rushes towards you, trying to catch a ball for playing...


A doggy version of Jekyl & Hide? No... he's to cute and sweet to be a monster!

Treelogy

Got a mail from someone who asked me what the photo on the right is... Well, here's the big version of it!


Took this one in Talahasee (Florida) in 2006 on a trip from Key West tot New Orleans

Let's Party!

This years edition of the Bevrijdingsfestival (every province in the netherlands celebrates Liberation Day with a big festival) was the best yet. The sun was shining, people were happy and the atmosphere was very relaxed...

Baywatch... the real thing!

Sometimes work can be real fun! I spend this weekend on the water with the lifeguard crew of Roermond for a photo reportage.
The weather was great and racing over the water was so much fun. Off course it had some serious moments, but luckily there were no real accidents.
A big thanx to all the girls and boys that spend every weekend on the water (as an unpaid volunteer!) to look over our safety when we spend the day hanging round on the beach or on a boat...

Qeensday Festival 2008... what a blast!!!!

Yesterday we had our yearly 12 hours of punkrock, garage and thrash at the Queensday Festival. And again Gijs, Jair and Jorrit topped last years version. The night ended with the perfect r'n'r duo Digger and the Pussycats, the souring soul'n'detroitrock of the Bellrays (imagine Aretha Franklin fronting the MC5!) and the bluegrassfolkpunk of the 357 Stringband.
Before that we saw a dozen other band, to many to mention... 'but one: The Dead Elvis & his One Man Grave, he stole our hearts and gave us the prove we needed Elvis is Dead, but the king is alive!

the Bellrays

Dead Elvis & his one man grave

The Voodoo Dollz getting nasty during the Bellrays show!

Who needs Tina Turner?

Back from Greece...

We just got back yesterday... and miss it allready. A week was really to short to capture all the vibes, friendship and beautiful scenes. We just got back yesterday... and miss it allready. A week was really to short to capture all the vibes, friendship and beautiful towns and landscapes.

The last night was something special. This year Greek Easter was a week later than our Easter. Around 22hrs a big procession walked through the streets of Parga, carrying candles and reliquary's. Although we are not that religious it was a beautiful sight and the singing was very impressive.


And a big thanx to the owner and our waitress at the Sugar Bar. Our home base and internet connection of this week and the provider of several cocktails and coronas!!!!

Arta & Koronisia

Today we drove to the south, first to Arta. A little town with nice shops! Most travelguides tell you to stay away from this town, but don't believe it! We actually found a bar that had over 50 foreign beers and Guinness from the tab!

After that we drove to a little Island Koronisia. Yep, you can drive to it, since they build a little street over the lagune.
It is a really little jem where you can eat some delicious fish!

Dodoni

Ancient Greece... discovered and covered by 1000 of wild flowers....

Meteora at last!

We got up early to drive up the mountains to visit the big Meteoro Monastary. But not early enough, since the first busload of Japanese tourists was already at the gate. Like the big Johan Cruyff once said: “Every disadvantage has an advantage”. So we mingled in the Jap crowd and no monk noticed we were taking pictures inside the monastery which is forbidden.

Thank god for my Minolta’s anti-shake, so the photo’s came out quit good!
We spend about an hour in this monastery and after that we drove up to the recent opened mountain road to the Monastery of Stefanou. Not much to see there (said several travel guides) but the road to it gives you the best view of the Meteora area!!!!

But we had one stop on our way back to Parga; Dodoni, an ancient Greek site with an enormous amphite theatre. Like most Greek excavations it is small and contains mostly some boring rocks (!?!), but we enjoy sites like this. Not much tourist and you mostly have the place to yourself. And the wild flowers were …. Ehm…. All over the place!!!! So not much rock to see!!!!

Up to Meteora!

Monday 21th april I spent most of the day in bed. Felt sick and weak… Don’t know if it was something I ate or from an insect bite on my knee. My knee is swollen and itches like hell…

This morning we laid back a little and about 2 hours later as planned we drove off to Meteora where we’re gonna spent the night. The drive was beautiful over some mountain passes. Sometimes we could use some portions of a new highway they are building through the mountains, but mostly we drove over some hazardous mountain roads with deep ravines on either side for.

The whole trip took us 4 hours! The Meteora area is famous for it’s rock pinnacles some are a couple of hundred meters high with a monastery on top.


We only could visit one of the 23 monasteries since it is really early in the season and most of them are closed to the public. The biggest will be open tomorrow, so we’re gonna pay it a visit tomorrow morning, before we head back to Parga.

SHARK!

Beachlife

We spend the day wandering around the village of Parga. A nice little gem on the Ionian sea. The hordes of tourist are not here yet, so we have the place almost to ourselves. In the afternoon we sat on the little beach across the street from our apartment and we spent the rest of the day reading and drinking beer… Yep, life sucks!

Full moon over Parga, Greece

It can't always be a Ferrari....

Venloop

The tide is high...

Claw Boys Claw!

Ah... Claw Boys Claw... ooh... that where the noises I made when I woke up after a gig (I saw at least 20 of them). Black and blue, pogoing in the pit. Now, some 20 years later, they are playing in my local recordstore! An acoustic set... and it rocked liked the old days!

pussycat & a sun beam....

Something about the new job...

Ok, here's an example why I'm so stoked about my new job. This is a little project that has been completed last year. The canalization of an old creek has been undone and the creek is meandering like it use to for ages.
Now a couple of months later, nature has taken over and created a little biosphere between a highway and a suburb.

Field day...

One of the benefits of my new job... photo shoots on location!

Lunchbreak

Goodbye sweet Betsie...

In memory of Bommie
1919 - 2008

Water...

My first day at my new job.... Working for the watermanagement & envirement office in my region (have to look up the actual translations) as a webmaster and public relations attendant.

A short trip to Italy... Amalfi Coast

no words....

A short trip to Italy... Amalfi Coast

A short trip to Italy… Positano, day 2

Ah… Italian food! But in Positano you can enjoy it without feeling guilty. All the calories you eat, you burn on the way up the hill to the hotel! The little village is one big staircase! And it is steep! Steep!
So we stumble from one little trattoria to the next little bakery… Picking up a bottle of beer or wine on the way down to the beach. A nice way to spend a day in Positano. The weather was great for February, almost to warm!

Since we are here in the low season most shops and restaurants are closed, but it also means we got the place almost to ourselves!
And it is 10 times as photogenic as I thought. A great place to play around with my Lensbaby! And ideal to master this little difficult piece of hardware…

Oh and Caro? She found some chocolate! She’s happy!

A short trip to Italy… Positano

With tickets that are cheaper than a trainride to Amsterdam, why not fly to Italy for a few days? So we did… Rented a car in Napoli and drove down to Positano on the Amalfi coast. One of the most beautifull coasts in Europe. Since it is low season, it is really cheap. Although most of the hotels and restaurants are closed.

Life is good, sipping on a beer on our terrazzo watching the sun going down...

the past revisited...

Been down with the flu the last couple of days and the last day recovering I finally got behind my comp. Since my head wasn't up to it, I stopped after 10 minutes...
So I was shocked to find this photo-shopped version (using Nik-Color filter plug-in) of one of my carwreckage series on my harddrive...


Normally I don't like color versions of my B/W pics, but this one seems to add something to the original photo....

Or am I still a bit delirious from the fever?

another one...

Just got another one! Loosing count...

Getting rusty...

The weather has been bad, time limited, camera is gathering dust... not a good thing!

Happy New Year!!!

Wish you and your loved ones all the best for the new year.

Although the last week of the old year didn't end that well (was in bed for almost 5 days with a severe headache from a bad infection), the new year seems promising already... More about that at a later date!


I had planned to redo my website completely, but wasn't able to do that since my head felt like exploding. I even didn't get to sort out the photo's from our last USA trip. Bummer...

Hope I find some time for that the next couple of weeks!

The photo above is for a posterdesign called 'drowning Las Vegas'. A better version I did during our trip, experimenting with photoshop.

Lensbaby, part II

As simple as it is, a Lensbaby needs practice. It is easy to use, but to get some nice results you have to experiment!

Here are two that I like very much...

ice cold...

Sometimes you have to suffer to get the photo you want...
This morning I shot a little reportage about the Retail Park in Roermond. A new shopping center the're building next to the new highway. It was freezin'cold with a cutting wind...

Lensbaby

My first experiment with my new little toy: an original lensbaby. A lensbaby is a lens mounted on a flexible tube. There's no autofocus, no automatic exposure. Everything is done manual.
But that makes it a lot of fun to work with.


If you want some more info on the lensbabie and it's family, check out: lensbabies.com

loads and loads of gigabytes....

Wow, just beginning to stumble through all the gigabytes of photo's i've shot on our last USA trip. Since it is the first time I shot almost everything in the RAW format, it's a hell of a job!
Luckaly we've picked up some tutorial books during the trip. The best one is Martin Evening's Photoshop Lightroom Book. A program that has been on my pc since it first came out as 'Raw Shooter Essential', which was freeware then. But the folks of adobe bought the little company turned it into Lightroom. Which is one of the best RAW develop programs and a great archiving tool too!
Since my camera and laptop monitor where a little bit 'off', I can rescue some of the pics that I thought where lost! The pic in this entry isn't manipulated, just corrected the exposure and used the shadow/highlight recovery...
Amazing isn't it!

IgoUgo editor Pick of the week

Still waiting for the results of the outcome for the IgoUgo Awards, but this week's newsletter had a nice little feature as one of the editors picks of the week:

only a week ago?

Hard to believe that only a week ago we where still in the desert... Time really flies!
The votes for the IgoUgo Awards are cast and we'll have to wait who won. Thanks to everyone who voted for me!
Also a big thanx to Tine Giesberts, who chose one of my photo to be her pic of the week on her Logspot. She has a great taste in picking those photo's every week, so I'm honored to be one of them!
Finally found some time to work on some of the photo's from our trip. Started on the Death Valley Sessions and redone my Death Valley page. Actually split it in a color and black & white section, with a selection of the best pics of the last six years.
And a new page for a new project: car doors.
Hope you like it!

Nominee IgoUgo travel photographer 2007

For the third year in a row, I'm one of the finalist for the IgoUgo Travel Photographer of the year. IgoUgo is one of the biggest online travel communities on the web!
So please vote for me here: http://www.igougo.com/hallOfFame/vote.aspx

Back home...

28 Days just flew away... And now we're back home again. We went from Vegas to South Utah, Through Arizona, Palm Springs, Death Valley and back to Vegas. I'll be uploading loads of new pics on my website the next couple of weeks. But first I have to clean up the old website. I'm on my max quotum...
I'll keep you up to date... But for now you can check out our webdiary of our trip. Sorry Dutch only. But there are lot's of photo's from the trip on it. The link is on the right...

on the road...

a little photo cube...

Another fair, another concept. This time a big photo cube to promote the touristic aspects of Roermond and its surroundings. Actually a simple but effective concept that really worked in the hall and it was a great eye catcher! And a little promotion for me, since almost all the photo's came from my archive.

Wow, what a party!

Last friday the '5 years Oude Garde' exhibition opened with a blast! Several bands (incl. The Apers) played at the concert hall and The Pedro Delgado's headlined at the cafe in front of my photo exhibition...

Couldn't imagine a better band to do that, these guys rocked the place and it was a rock'n'folk mayhem with standing bass, banjo, guitars and accordeon!
Again thanx to Gijs, Jahir, Jorrit & the rest for asking me to exhibit!

on the set...

A little trip down memory lane... It's been about 15 years since I was on a movie set. Last week, a big production company shot some scenes for a a TV show in Roermond. The photos look a bit gorie and bloody, but it is for a big family show (!)...


The story they shot is about a massmurder on some Karthuizer Monks in the medievals in Roermond. The city is a bit friendlier now ;-)

Photo expo at the Perron 55...

Next friday it is the 5th anniversary of the punk/rock'n'roll collective 'Oude Garde'. And to celebrate it, they organize a exhibition in the Perron 55. And a little part of it is a photo expo of shots I made at the concerts these guys organized the last couple of years.

So if you have nothing to do next friday, check in... Oh and some bands like The Apers... THE F*CKING APERS!!!!!

a lucky day...

Sometimes you have a day that everything works out just fine... A couple of weeks ago I had a day like that... A little photo shoot turned out to be a great day of fun!

First there was the band, a Raï band called Rai Rif, nothing special... But some of these guys I knew from other bands, rock bands! And the rest of them were really charming people from Marocco. I can't describe the vibe these guys had, but they couldn't stop playing during the shoot and it was a party that lasted all day!

Second there was the location, the bible museum... ehm, the last place of earth I want to visit voluntary! But it fit the music (middle eastern) and I had a chance to make fun of a lot of dull christians, who really were into the music the guys played. I think they actually got a gig out of it!

6th aniversary... the good & the bad

6 years ago the world was in terror, 9-11. A tragedy for most of the world and another kind of terror for Caro and me. We got married the day after. And our honeymoon was our first visit to the USA. Scary, especially since I have a big fear of flying. The last couple of weeks we were planning our 7th trip to the American continent and we've glad to visit our mutual love again, that has grown on us the last 6 years; the deserts of the South West! Big Sky Country, here we come again... soon....

We never got to see the skyline of New York as it was the day before we got married... But it has a special place in our hearts...

Der Peter presents his new book... BUY IT!!!!

Next sunday, the 2nd of september Der Peter is presenting his new book in the filmtheatre 'De nieuwe Scene'. It starts at 16.00 hrs and a documentary about Peter will be shown on big screen. Also Peter will read from his book.

The book is released in a limited edition of 200 and is written in English. I don't like stereotyping, but most of my blog visitors will not know Der Peter. So here's a little bio he won't like:
Peter was the leadsinger/bassplayer of one of the fierce, fasted and best hardcorepunk bands in the early eighties, Pandemonium. At the time they where around 16 years old, but where a true legend at the time and still are, since their records are still reissued!
It would be easy to drop a name like Henry Rollins a US icon from the same generation that started writing books, but Peter left the music scene completely and became a writer and painter. But if you like Henri's writer please check out 'Indigo Blue and Red Impact' because it has a more in your face European style. Topics go from Louis Seveke (Dutch green activist that was brutally murdered) to buying real estate in Cuba! Sometimes funny, but mostly written with the sharp pen of a observant that somehow sees the normal things in life through a lens that opens the eye of the reader!

You can find Peter's weblog here: http://blog.myspace.com/derpeter

More info about Peter and two of his Cuban friends: www.obras-del-alma.com

Dinosaur JR

A little flashback to the 80's! Dinosaur Jr is touring again in their original line up with ofcourse J. Mascis on guit and vox and Lou Barlow (Sebadoh) on bass and vox and Murph on drums. These guys ripped through a nice selection of classics in the Effenaar in Eindhoven.

The old magic was back again, although I was missing a bit of the old guitar improvisations they used to drive each other mad... More pics of this great show can be found here!
The conditions for shooting photo's in a big place like this is not my cup of tea, so don't expect the usual in your face wide angle shots!

Another pic in Zoom Magazine...

Lost count, but the latest issue of Zoom Magazine has again published a photo. Actually a couple of times... Small insert on the cover and the main shot in a article about wide angle photography. Zoom is the biggest photo magazine in print and online photo community in the Netherlands. So no complains from me!

SVFN pic of the month

Almost forgot it in these hectic times, but I've made the pic of the month on the SVFN (stichting vakfotografen nederland). The SVFN is one of the largest organisations for Dutch pro photographers, I joined them half a year ago, so this is a real honour for me!

this town... is like a ghostown

Funny co incidents, part XXII: Going through my old film archive for a client I found these... And the radio played this old Special's song called 'Ghost Town'!
Sometimes it all makes sense...

Viberider

Finally found some time to go through the pics I shot the last weeks. Here's one of Viberider a local band that played at the Parkfeest festival two weeks ago. These guys really gave a great show!

snails...

Kurtz: "We train young men to drop bombs on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes, because it's obscene!... I watched a snail crawl along a straight razor... that's my dream, my nightmare... crawling, slithering... along the edge of that straight razor... and surviving!"
Just a little quote from my favorite movie of all time Apocalypse Now... it went through my mind processing this photo of Snails on the Cattentoren in Roermond....
"I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"

Woven Hand

Woven Hand (Eugene Edwards' from 16 Horse Power) was the headliner of the biggest festival of the year in my hometown. The festival lasted 4 days, but we only attended the last day, to meet up with some old friends (hi D & D!) and see Mr. Edwards preach his gospels of American folkblues. A true sermon to end a perfect sunday!
More pics can be seen at: http://www.arny.nl/wovenhand.html
Gonna upload some photo's frome the Viberider gig sometime this week.
Oh, and again a little story of photo theft...

Missing some great R'n'R...

Damn, my shoulder and wrists are killing me. Also the reason for the little pause in my blog entries. Tonight Tokyo Sex Destruction are playing at a big local festival. And I'm gonna miss it. Here's a shot of them from last year...
Go and see them if they are playing at a stage near you! Really have to give my body a good rest and hoping to shoot Woven Hand (ex 16 HP) this sunday at the same festival. So keep your fingers crossed for me!

Try to pic up one of the latest issues of Monumenten, the biggest cultural and historical magazine in the Netherlands. This month has an free booklet about the monuments in the town of Roermond. About 90% of the photo's are mine! And the book had some great reviews!

Summer nights...

Finally the weather is getting better and we spend the whole night in the garden! Reading, eating, drinking and resting in our hammock... And that's about it... what I can do at this moment. My arthritis has gotten worse and my left ankle and right wrist is all swollen, so no long photoshop sessions for me the next week...

Lazy rainy sunday afternoon

What to do on a lazy rainy sunday afternoon? Well how about experimenting with photoshop. Something I hardly ever find time to do. There are always other things on my priority list. But yesterday I made some time to test my skills. Here's one of the results...


I'm not completely satisfied with it, but maybe that is because I don't like these fantasies themes. Maybe next time a little bit of Saw like horror....

BANZAI!!!!!

Regular visitors of this Blog will know that I'm a dedicated Minolta user. But the brand Minolta doesn't exist anymore for the photographer, since the Minolta photo department was sold to Sony. I try to postpone 'My first Sony' moment. And been lucky doing that! My latest and maybe last Minolta buy was last friday, a genuine Minolta flash! Brand new, out of the box!!!! Exactly the same flash is made by Sony, but you can't find one anymore with the Minolta logo on it. And I did, at my local photostore!

Actually, I hate flash photography!! But with one exeption; i've been experimenting with flash the last couple of years during concerts and my old one wasn't up to par anymore.
Friday night I got a chance to try out my new flash at a Kamikaze Trio gig. This Australian punktrio gave a blistering bar concert in the cafe of the old Perron 55. Nice and cosy and the sound was excellent! Got a limited single for changing to strings of the singers guitar. It featured a Gun Club cover (my favorite band of all time!) on the A-side... Destiny?

Punkrock matinee

Yesterday afternoon had a little surprise for us. A real punkrock matinee!!!!
Mr. Jay Reatard played the club around the corner. Been a fan since the first Reatards record.

Jay is now solo after a short affair with a band called the Lost Sounds. And it is still high octane rocknroll!! His latest album blood vision even was a critics favorite and ended high in last years polls. Mr. Reatard and his bunch of mercanaries played most songs of that record twice as fast, so the show was over in just over half an hour. Leaving me and the audience stunned... What a great way to spend a sunday afternoon...

Fair trade?

Had to photograph the biggest real estate fair in the Netherlands yesterday. Not my kind of fun! First I don't have anything with this business and but my employer had a big exhibit and wanted some photographs of the display and the competition. Second, I don't like fairs. I hated the Popkomm (Biggest European Music Meeting and the Photokina (biggest European photo fair).


These fairs used to be a sort of meet and greet, networking kind of thing. Nowadays it seems everybody is busy talking in their cellphones or mailing with their laptops of PDA's. I actually noticed two people having a conversation over their cellphones, not noticing they were only a couple of meters away from each other...

experiments

I'm looking for a quick and save way to get some pics online during our upcoming trip.
My new Adobe Lightroom should have made it an easy task, but its ftp feature doesn't seem to work on my laptop.
But one thing Lightroom made easy is to build a nice webgallery that is even quicker than the old Photoshop feature.

Here's one I made in 5 minutes after a lazy afternoon in our hammock (just click on the link):

Lazy afternoon

Need some R'n'R!!!!

Double pic of the week @ IgoUgo.com!

OK it's not the first time they chose one of my photo's of the pics of the week, but that I have both of them in one week is a first!

For those of you who don't know what IgoUgo.com is; it is one of the largest travel communities on the web. IgoUgo is part of Travelocity and powers the Rough Guides Community. Rough Guides are the biggest competitor of the Lonely Planets Guides and travel forum.

Too much work... again!

Last couple of weeks been quite hectic. There was all the preparations for the Bevrijdingsfestival and of course the aftermath; browsing through 6 gig of photo from the festival. Here are a couple I shot during the headliner Krezip. Not my kind of music but they did a good show...

You can see a selection of the photo's here: http://www.bevrijdingsfestivallimburg.nl/arny_2007/index.html


Also been busy working on a project about monuments in Roermond. It will be published as a special in the Dutch magazine Monumenten, this summer. I did most of the photography for the special. I saw some nice locations that are normaly not open to the public.


Next to that I've been working on some assignments, but two of them where cancelled at the last minute. So all the work and no money! I hate it when that happens.
The weather has been bad last week and some location shoots have been postponed. Finally I have some time for myself and can finish the rest of my Mexico photo's!

Soon more...

The Drones at the Queensday festival

The guys of the Oude Garde did it again, last years Queensday Festival was hard to top, but they did it. They booked our favorite band, The Drones! And what a show it was! I think the photos speak for themselves....


More on my website: http://www.arny.nl/Drones.html

Mexico rules!

Wow, we had a great trip....

Check the weblog "Mexico trip 2007" in the right menu of my blog.

Sorry only in Dutch, but bablefish and other online translation seem to do a good job. At least you get a good laugh every sentence!

gotta get out of frogtown...

Nostalgia

Only a couple of days and then.... Here are two pics that are part of a series of 140 photographs that I shot for a editorial about historical buildings in Roermond. It will be published somewhere in June.


If you want to see more, you can see some of the photos here (click on the link).

A nice Old School night...

The guys from Oude Garde organised a great punk rock feast last friday. Some old school punk rock from USA's Time Again and the garage blues of British Sludgefeast were the highlights of the evening. They are also planning a new edition of the yearly Queensday festival, wich wil feature my The Drones, my favorite band from last year. Looking forward to that!

Windows update...

No I'm not switching to Vista. Shot this pic during a visit to a big renovation project in Roermond. These kind of buildings always are great to shoot!
Here's another one I photographed a couple of days later in an old power plant:

and now for something completely different....

And sometimes you get lucky... Well I was, I had the pleasure to photograph a location that isn't open to the public.


OK, I got to photograph some historical buildings the last week. Can't say wich ones it are, because they are mostly closed to the public. Next week I've got some nice locations planned too... Like I said, life can be sweet!

work, work, work!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last couple of weeks where too much, looking forward to our holiday! My day job keeps getting stressed every week and the photography business is picking up as well. Well at least I can't complain about the latter.


I keep getting more and more gigs for doing some promoshot for up and coming artists. Most of them are really a bore, but AD Ryan was a really nice guy! We just had a blast the whole day, I even forgot it was a photo shoot...

need to slow down!

Just keep on running... have to stop to catch my breath!

spam, spam, spam.... again

My new way to prevent spam.... I got an old fashioned mailbox in the middle of the desert!

Damn spam!

Unbelievable, just spend a week to get rid of a f*cking computer virus! I hope I have killed it but it allready installed itself three times in a row. My mailbox is exploding with spam! And some of them contain a very agressive Trojan Horse.
Since most of the spam I receive, comes through my website, I decided to delete my contactform. Spambots keep attacking it, the last couple of days I received about 20 spam mails per minute!

Over 1000 pics on ArnyZona.com!!!!

I was shocked to find out that this website allready contains over 1000 unique photos! I never counted them before, but when my hosting company contacted me if I needed more bandwith I was curious...

So for new visitors of my website, friends, fans and clients I've made a little introduction to my work; a portfolio in 5 chapters, each containing 5 photos with a short explanation of the theme of the chapter. Here it is: portfolio

the 5 themes are:

• landscapes
• civilization
• erotica
• concert pics
• square project

Winter?

While in our favorite place on earth, the south-west USA deserts, winter is harsh, in our home town it is unbelievable warm. Normally it is freezing outside this time of year, now we don't even need winter clothes!
And the wind blows like a storm in the autumn... Actually it still feels like autumn, since most trees still have their folio and the temperatures are extremely high for winter.
It seems winter is arriving later every year...

It was a busy time the last couple of months, buying and rebuilding our new house and I hardly had time to take photos. I was hoping for some nice winter landscapes, but no luck! So here's a pool shot...


OK not shot last week! But it could be! Hope to upload some real tropical underwatershots real soon!!!!!

Happy New Year!

Dead Moon split up....

Dead Moon, one of my favorite bands, called it quits. After 20 years! They were one of the best live bands ever, and I think it was the band that I saw live at least 20 times. Even did some supportshows for them...

Here's the official goodbye from Fred:

After 20 yrs, Dead Moon is retiring. It has been a journey we will always treasure and feel that a worldwide family has emerged in its place. Dead Moon became much bigger than the band itself, it became a DIY underground hopeful for a lot of people. The candle is still burning!

--Fred Cole

Fred started his recording career in the early sixties as Deep Soul Cole. In the mid 60's he had an USA hit with his garage punk combo the Lollipop Shoppe and a song called "You must be a Witch". This song was also one of the highlights of every Dead Moon show. After that he played in bands as The Rats, The Weeds and became one of the founders of the stoner sound with Zipper.

In the early 80's he formed Dead Moon with his wife and longtime compagnion Toody together with drummer Andrew. Since then they have been touring and recording non stop. They record all of their albums and singles in mono, in their bedroom, using the old recording device that was used on the orignal of "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen!

Although it is the band that I saw play live more than any other, I only have photographed them once. Most of the time I was to busy in the pit...

Fred, Toody & Andrew I'll will miss you forever! Let the candle burn!

For more info: http://www.deadmoonusa.com/

Peter Pan Speedrock DVD cover!

A couple of month ago I got an email from the management of Peter Pan Speedrock, they wanted to use some photo's I've shot of their band for a DVD. Now the DVD is in the store and that's my photo on the cover!
The boys played a small gig last friday to promote the DVD in our local record store called Sounds. And I got to copies from the band. The cover really looks nice, so does the DVD menus, for which they used my photo's. Peter Pan Speedrock is one of the hardest working bands in the Netherlands and I was lucky to play with them a couple of times as a support act in the past. The DVD contains some hilarious footages of their USA-tours and some great live stuff recorded at the Pink Pop and Lowlands Festivals to name a few.

Skarabeez

Last sunday we had a lot of fun during a photoshoot with local skaband the Skarabeez. Mostly it is a pain in the ass shooting more than three people, but with these guys (and two girls) it was an easy job!
Lead singer and organ player Robert was in the last version of Los Cheatos, the surf band I played in the 90's. Although we never did a live gig with Robert, it was one always fun to play with him, since he's an excellent musician. Soon after the split up of the band, he started the Skarabeez.

They play old skool ska, like the Skatalites and Lauren Aitken. They do a lot of opening gigs for Mark Foggo & the Skasters. Wich makes the circle round again, since one of the first gigs I did as a little punk in the 80's was as a supportgig for Mr. Foggo. It's a small world after all!!!!!

Sisters...

Last weekend I did a little photoshoot with my wife and her little sister. Little sister wanted some photo's for her myspace page. The shoot went pretty well... or don't you agree?


The pic above got some real cool ratings at my Zoom-gallery-community. Talking about ratings, getting a bit nervous, next week the winners of the IgoUgo awards are being announced. Wondering if I get the Photographer Of The Year Award this time... Keep your fingers crossed!

Jack Oblivian is god!

Last friday I had a little reunion with my old time hero Jack Oblivian. The man is getting older, fat, looking like a bum and seems to have had to much sex, drugs & r'n'r in his live. But when he's in the mood he can set me on fire with just one chord. And last friday he did that several times. Not with high octane rockers like the old Oblivians stuff (although he played some of the old goodies) but with the more mellow Memphis soul style...

He played bassguitar in his own support act Harlan T Bobo, wich proves mr. Jack just wants to play music or produce bands he likes.


Last on the bill were garage r'n'r sensation Tokyo Sex Destruction. Wich left me and some 50 others with the question why the place didn't sell out... Actually the concerthall didn't invest in some sort of PR, not even mentioned the event on their own website! Shame on them!
And all hail to the guys from Oude Garde that keep getting bands like the above to our town!!!!!!

Just another old fashioned landscape...

After breathing in so much dust during the works on our new house it was nice to get out on a late summerday like this one. Almost unbelievable that next week november starts, but the temperature is insane high for the time of year, 22 C!

Dreamstealers session

Yesterday I did a photoshoot with the Dreamstealers. A bandname that most people won't know, but they are the backingband for Dutch singer-songwriter sensation from last year; Stevie Ann!


The band is currently working on their own album, good old Americana... Not really my cup of tea, allthough the guys have a nice sound. But I just am more into Calexico and my CD-player seems to play only Jr. Kimbrough songs lately! And a bad egg in our pancake made us real sick!

The Black Keys...

Last saturday, we drove to Nijmegen, to see the Black Keys play. It's a blues/garage duo that makes the White Stripes sound like Japanese Karaoke!
Since we mist the Radio Birdman show a couple of weeks, we were really excited to get some good old rock'n'roll.


Althought we were very tired and so was the band, it was an adrenaline rush, just what the doctor ordered.
During the encore I managed to loose the edge of the stage and stumble backwards down the stairs. Bruises and a really sore back, wich was still recovering from moving some of our stuff from the old place to our new home.



I also managed to break a tooth so I keep upright by swallowing painkiller after painkiller....
It seems my body really needs a break, but it won't get any the next couple of weeks. We still have to do a lot of work on our new house before the winter comes! But I'm really gonna take some time off and slow things down. This paste is killing me!

Wow nominated again!

Just got word that I'm one of the three finalists for the "Photographer of the Year Award" on IgoUgo, the biggest online travelcommunity and partner of my favorite travelbook publishing company Rough Guide. Last year I allready won the "Photo of Distinction" award. So if you are a member, please vote! And if you are not a member, just sign up, you'll like it. It's full of great info about travel destinations and if you contribute you can also earn rewards like free stuff from amazon.com or barnes&nobles!

pano....

All the work seems to pay of finally! Here's my first attempt to make a panorama-photo, actually it took 102 photo's of our new livingroom to compile this one...


Klick on the pic for a bigger version....

Tuning down...

The hard work of the last weeks is taking it's toll. Had a little physical collaps last sunday. Couldn't hold in any food or liquids. High fever and cold shivers. Something like a stomach-flew in combination with all the stress of the last weeks.
So I dropped everything and try to regain some strenghts. Playing guitar always seems to help to keep my mind in peace!
Although I really have to pace down, loosing weight again. Hope to be back on my feet in a couple of days. So no hard work on the house...


We are planning to fly the South West USA early next year for some desert hiking and canyoneering. Somehow it always is the best medicine against stressfull times like these...

Oh, and the guitarplaying gave me some serious blisters. The last time i've picked up a guitar has to be more than a half year ago!

Some old work reprocessed... part 2

Error is gone, so more pics... taken in New York City, may 2006...

Error...

Can't seem to upload anything to this blog at this moment... So I can't upload the photo below ;-)

Some old work reprocessed... part 1

Reprocessed some old pics I took during our USA 2005 trip... more to come!!!!

wh@tdafvck?

I really feel beaten in this censorshit thing... so here's a pic that expresses how I feel ;-(

It's from a new page on my website in the erotica folder, called "fetish photography". The name by itself should get it blocked by most companies subjectfilters... So I should be in the clear with this one... Plus none of the models can be recognised!


And another one...



Both pictures where published already in "normal" media, wich means websites/magazines that are not part of the erotica/porn industry. So, by most people they are considered as an "artform".
And anyone that think this is filthy porn... Hey, it's all between your ears, and what's the saying? "a dirty mind is a joy forever!"

Stories about censorship, rippoffs and other delights...

Caro got the job with the municipality I work for too. So we can travel to work together wich is very nice. One thing that wasn't so nice is that I had to remove all my erotic photo's of her from my website. So the erotica-pages are painfully empty.
But it was a choise between her future career (the new job is nice and pays well) or removing a couple of pictures from my website.
It still feels a bit like censorshit...

This one is still on the website (my fav pic of her):

And this one isn't:

Well that's life!
Back to business... and that's another bad story. A couple of months ago I was asked for a photo of John Cale, wich I shot in New York a couple of years ago at an instore-concert.
The photo was to be used for the front cover of a DVD about Mr. Cale. Ofcourse I felt very honoured and made sure my price was not to high. John Cale is one of my all time heroes (Velvet Underground!).
I sent them the photo after several mails forth and back, but no money! And it was not a small recordfirm that wanted to release the DVD!
I even saw the layout for the DVD wich looked very nice!
I'll keep you informed about this one...

Update on our new house

Despite a little drawback due to my health (my kidney infection keeps coming back) the work in our new house is going OK. Here's a pic of the street, the "little house" on the left is our new livingspace. It looks tiny from the outside, but in fact it is huge from the inside...


Here's Caro painting the wall in the main bedroom. It gives you an idea of the roomy space we have in our new house. Plus we have a garden too, wich we hadn't before!


Hi Caro, lookout, the Hulk is standing behind you!


The work on the new house is slurping up all of my spare time. So not that much new pics to show.
Allthough, I got asked to contribute some photo's for two DVD's. One about John Cale and one about my old time favorites Dead Moon. The John Cale pic is gonna be used for the covershot! More about that soon!

work & more work...

The work in our new house is progressing slowly but steady. I tore out the ceiling in the bedroom and had four new windows installed. The room is completely lightened up!

Meanwile Caro is painting the walls in the living room. Still no message from the contracter that will install the new garden door in the livingroom... It hate it when you are depending on others to get something done!

I got accepted as a member of the SVFN!
SVFN (Samenwerkende Vakfotografen Nederland) stands for the Society of Co-operating Professional Photographers in the Netherlands. It is an organization for professional photographers. The purpose of the organization is to promote and encourage the exchange of knowledge and expertise. They also help to protect the copyright of photographers that are a member of the SVFN.
So hopefully I don't have to worry about someone steeling my photo's and use them without permission like recently happened again!

Crooked...

Our new house is as crooked as the one from the witch in the Hansel and Gretel tale. The house below in the pic that I took two years ago in the Bodie Ghostown is almost a straight masterpiece to our new home...


Well, you can't win'm all, and crooced walls have their charm!!!!!!

The Queers & a new house!

Thursday night was a blast, we saw the Queers! The only thing that wasn't that great, was the audience turning up. Only about 25 people showed up...
But every single one enjoyed a great show!!!!!!

Friday afternoon, we signed the new contract for our new house, so it's ours now!!!!! Well, actually it is the bank's since theres a morgage....

Old wine can taste real sweet...

A new home also asks for some new pictures to be framed! So yesterday and today I went through some folders on my external harddrive to look for photo's I missed it the past. Although it is almost a year ago, the pics of our 2005 south-west still have some surprises in them. It was the first year that I visited the west with a digital camera and I shot thousands of photo's during that trip.
The quantity was so enormous that I never had time to go through all the folders proberly.


The photo above was taken in Escalante, right in front of our motel, were we stayed for 5 days and develloped a wonderfull friendship with two oldtimers, called Ted and Bob. The stories and discussions will always be in our hearts. On the last day a thunderstorm sabotaged our plans to drive the Devils Backbone 4wd trail. Instead I wandered through the little, almost ghosttown like, Escalante. And when the skies cleared the light was truly amazing.
The trailer and the old 50's car were right in front of our porch. And I allready took some pics of it, but that turned out to be nothing. But when I shot the pic above, the light was suddenly magical. I've forgotten about this photo, untill I found it this morning on my little harddrive...


This one is from my recent trip to Jordan. It got some raving credits on the Zoom.nl-gallery, so that is why I put in on this entry. I didn't like the picture untill I converted it to black&white and now it somehow seems to tell a story...
Funny how black&white can enhance a photo...

Hot, hotter, hottest...

The temperatures are rising and everybody is complaining. Well, not me! This little warm front isn't anything is you compare it to the heatwave we had in Miami Beach and Key West, or even the may desert heat of Jordan...


Actually what gets my temperature up at his moment, is all the stuff about our new house. Next friday we get the key, but we can't get a contractor to work for us, because of the vacationseason!
So for most of the work we have to wait untale late august, early september. That's two month from now!!!!!
I think I'm gonna need Friedrich....

Can travelling be addictive?

Travelling can be really addictive. In the last two months I traveled through Jordan in the Middle East, the South-East of the USA and spent a week in New Orleans and another in New York.
And now only three weeks later I get shivers for staying in one place too long!

Feels like cold turkey... like the withdrawl I went through a couple of years ago when I quit smoking!


I just have this terrible urge to pack my bags, get my photogear together and drive to the airport!
And that's really something, since I hate flying! But between negotiating to buy a new house, restorating the old one and getting the new one ready to live in it, there will be not much time and money left to do some extensive travelling.
Although we hope to fly to Utah in november this year. It seems that the desert can be really beautifull in the winter...

Weekends are to short!

Another weekend almost over... why can't they last for three or four days?

The bandwith of my website went to the max last week, due to the Zoom-magazine article. Lot's of great reactions, even sold a couple of pics. But no assigments, wich I hoped. Well you can't win'm all...

I went through the Jordan files again, since I didn't have time to do that properly before...

... and came up with the above pic! I don't like the composition, a bit of cropping can enhance it, but overal the pic looks nice...

I just finished postprocessing the pics for the Black Halos and Pitch Blonde, and it is just about 12 o'clock on a sunday! How productive a sundaymorning can be... Well just trying to get the latest Wacom mouse-pen to work properly, but most important, trying to learn to work with it.
Since my shoulder is killing me and the first signs of RSI are obviously...

6 Page interview in Zoom Magazine!

If you are living in the Netherlands, try to get a copy of the latest issue of Zoom.nl Magazine. Zoom.nl is the biggest Dutch photomagazine and this month issue has the (photo)reportage that I and two other lucky photographers made in Jordan.

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