For everything, there is a first time. This post is one of those: The first ever one from yours truly in this community. Heard about this corner quite a while ago, and even took the time in the past so many months (years?) to browse through the channel once so often. I always liked this corner, though acted totally passive. Just consuming photographs, walks and information.
From the community profile, I read no real rules apply, just some suggestions. Suggestions over Rules are something I really like! Anyways, rules are there to be broken 😉
Uhm, a short walk from basically any place. Tick in the box, from my home. One that doesn't have to be on Wednesday. Tick in the box, this walk was last Sunday.
Sunday I was supposed to go adventure mode and visit someplace I have never been before. Instead, for all sorts of reasons, I sought 'adventure' in a little area I do know; My own neighbourhood.
I wasn't planning on making any photographs, but when I saw a few big signs just outside a classic building, I had to start making some. And one led to another and suddenly I had enough shots to get a story done in images (and text) to join you, the Wednesday 'walkers' 🙃
Intermezzo
For years, from time to time, I executed some super simple image manipulations with this piece of software called 'GIMP'. A kinda Photoshop which I know from way back in the day (kinda like 2 decades ago). Not having too much great experience with open source software, I felt this GIMP application should be fairly easy. Easy to install and easy to use. "With Photoshop decades on the market, the open source peeps should've been able to copy most to all the basic features one would expect", is what I thought.
Oh Boy, I was wrong!
Installation of the main GIMP app wasn't too difficult. Always a little more difficult on Mac instead on Windows, but manageable. The difficulties started when I noticed plugins and scripts are required for pretty basic features such as pre-configured filters, watermarking and batch processing. Some filters are provided with the core app. But the features not? Really? After many hours of searching, downloading, installing and testing while also learning how to add such plugins, I ended up with a shitload of filters all over the place, from extensions to some of the standard menus, submenus and subsubmenus to new menus.
Total chaos!
Obviously tested many filters of which most are configurable in quite a lot of detail, which brought chaos to my grey mass that lives somewhere between my ears.
Too much information! Too many possibilities!
I couldn't get the batch processing plugin to work. I also wasn't able to get the watermarking done in auto/batch mode, the way I want. That's for sometime later to solve.
The Walk
This is the building I mentioned before. A building in the 'Amsterdam School' style, or something similar (interested in this architecture style: visit me). When passing this one just 5 minutes outside my own home, I realised a few things at the very same time: 1) Amsterdam Dance Event is near, 2) I have a club almost at my own doorstep, 3) I missed all the cool events in this venue.
The building goes by its codename: 'Het Sieraad'.
Dutch for 'The Jewel'.
'Cocoon'. The brand was created by master Sven Väth. One of Europeans first-generation electronic dance artists/DJs with a respectable age somewhere in his fifties. Techno and House are his styles. Outsiders say techno; Insiders say his music is more House than Techno. I can attest to the latter, more House than Techno. But must admit, I've heard him play full-on Techno more than a few times, a kinda Techno that resonates with my everything. Uhm, maybe you don't care. It's a walking community here, not one of our own gazillion music corners and communities around the HIVE blockchain.
Sorry... Another sign with yet a handful of other DJs! Maybe I should've used a music community instead :( Anywho, now we are here, let's continue. But before I do, just to let you know two kinda interesting club events will be held just around the corner of my own place in just a little less than three weeks from now. Interesting!! 😉
The Sieraad! The Jewel! In all its glory! Well, the 'all' is not in this photograph. For that, you need to read further. Little tip: You can stop reading this blah blah 'story' and just scroll down while focussing on the photographs only, but you don't have to. I mean, you may as well continue reading in between digesting the heavy photographs {lol}
Didn't you notice in the other stills above? The bricks are having quite a strange colour. Obviously, I used some filters. After trying many, I selected the 'Technicolor 3' filter I applied to most of the stills. Not all using the same settings, since I played around with them for a bunch of them. My Head is turning to chaos again while thinking of all the sliders, buttons, and parameters I can tinker with. All for just a single photograph. I guess photography is a profession, can't be a hobby {lol}
Who said open source is cool?! GIMP is complex to handle. Blockchains are complex to handle. Tell me what open source applications are easy to handle? Or did I just select the wrong ones? That must be the situation! I often state: "Why go the easy route when a more difficult route is in front of us?" 🙂 Makes life more interesting; Don't you agree?
At the end of a building, usually, we find a corner. With 'Het Sieraad' it isn't anything different. This corner was one of those I passed many times but never took the time to digest all its details. The hook for instance. We have more hooks in Amsterdam, usually at the top of a building. To give support to a rope. A rope to bring furniture and stuff like that into the house, or back on the street. The latter is especially useful when moving out while being attached to your furniture.
That Technicolor filter is doing its thing! Crazy colours with a twist. The yellow-green-ish in the still is in reality more like broken white. I used the option 'retro' on this one which increases the colour shift a tat more than the default setting. Owwww, I may have used that option on quite a few others as well.
Same building. Same corner. A slightly different perspective. And voilà! Again this building feels totally different.
The colours! WOW. Blue and red 'strips' in the water. Obviously the reflections of the original, not so deep, blue sky and the, not so deep, red bricks of the building.
As you could've seen from the previous still image, this one above shows yet another...Uhm...Corner of the same building. But what a corner this is! Ninety degrees setup like most of the corners we know from our own neighbourhood. But a special corner for sure! One that houses windows. In fact, it houses a tremendous (in relative terms) amount of windows. A corner that provides shelter for many rooms. By definition, a special corner 😉
Some to more of you may think this is a regular wall, more or less. But it isn't. It is a corner, for sure. That's rule number one. In case you disagree with me, I can only refer you back to the rule, the one I defined as rule number one {lol}
By now we got to the 'end' of the building. A restaurant is located on the corner. The terrace is clearly visible. Not too many peeps hanging outside. I suppose the autumn Sunday (sunny) afternoon isn't good enough for peeps to chill outside. Though it was a day many tiny boats like this one passed by. A hint for yours truly to make a series with just the boats that I see so often when the sun is out and the sky is blue. Not enough time for this little walking round.
The profile description of our Wednesday Walk community says:
Try and get out once a week for a short walk, can be from your office, home or anywhere really and walk for a few blocks or a few minutes looking for things to get shots of.
Hence my conclusion, I couldn't spend time waiting for boats to pass by to create a boat series. The walk could be short still, but it would not be a walk of a few minutes 😉
Talking about corners: I wasn't able to make a complete round around this building without getting some wet clothes and all, or by walking a lengthy detour to pass the canal high and dry using a tiny bridge further down the road. Adding to that, the extended time it'll require which I already argued, shouldn't become too lengthy 🙃
For the last two years plus we have mucho debate in my tiny country the Netherlands about nature and green cities. While my experience is that Amsterdam is quite green compared to many other cities in Europe and I live in this city for a few decades already, still, I can be astonished when I see the kind of front gardens with all its green in streets like this. You must know, this spot is almost downtown. Just about a 15-minute walk from downtown only. These houses and front gardens and with that, all the green, are located on one of our busy streets. You wouldn't expect that! At least, I wouldn't expect that, but it is! Am not walking this street often; Mostly view it from my car or bicycle when going places. As a pedestrian, now njoying the scenery even more.
This one is from the same street; The view to the other side. On my walking round, I also got the inspiration for yet another series. A series about bicycles. Nope! It's not a myth we in the Netherlands have and use so many bicycles. Every citizen owns at least one. Although? For at least 30+ years, I didn't own a bicycle, until a year or two ago when I bought myself a fancy electrical bike. But, I'm not at all the norm 😉 Anyways, a bicycle series I'll for sure create since on this little walking round only, I saw so many crazy bike configurations I simply have to share this with you. Configurations go from retro carriers on fancy modern bikes to extremely unconventional and by definition unique one-of-kind creations, and anything in between.
A little further down the road with the houses and the green front yards, I found myself (we find ourselves) at one of the so many bridges we have in Amsterdam. Due to all these canals, we created more than 1200 bridges during the time the city is being built. I believe it took at least 500 years to build out the tiny fishers village, Amsterdam once was, into the 'rich' city it is now. Rich in between quotes, since I talk about richness in architecture (and beauty) instead of richness in terms of currency. The latter is not the case, as far as I know.
Personally, I do like this view with one side with personal housing only, while the other side shows something different, which is, in this case, a supermarket and some other shops having their backside directly at the canal side. Most canals show housing facades on both sides of the canal. Becomes a bit boring 🙃
So you know, a few minutes further in my walk, I'll enter a supermarket to arrange for my dinner. A supermarket covered by much of the white/red walls on the left side of the canal.
And if you still think Amsterdam is not so green; More green to prove you wrong 😉
By now, I did my shopping and continued the walk from the supermarket back home. Just a few hundred meters from where I left my grocery cart, crossing yet another canal, I had to take this one. Felt like being in New York City. Nope, not the view of the canal itself, the bridge in front and all. Because of the dude at the right side of the still image. He was doing his gym exercises, like something completely normal thing to do, open for everybody to see. Such things we can see very often in a city like NYC. Or at least, that is my tiny experience being in the big apple a few times in my life. But this is something we don't see too often in my country. I suppose the Dutch are a bit reserved to expose ourselves like this in public. Not this dude though. Makes me happy to see this 🙂
Whenever I pass by this little house, I think: "When will they turn this into something else, like a little apartment?" Maybe never, I donno. What I do know is we have more of these little buildings turned into AirBNB apartments in my city. Super cool idea and super cool to stay a night or more in one of those... I would imagine! Since I personally never stayed in one of these 'apartments'. As a matter of fact, I don't even know someone who did. So yes, I can imagine it's super cool to stay in one of these, but in fact, I don't have a clue if my imagination complies with reality. Anyways, this tiny house is still used by the bridge guy, the guy who operates the bridge, I mean.
Sooo much to tell about this canal! It's yet another one, about 200 meters away from the canal in the previous photograph. No tiny boats in this canal though. I mean, docked and all. In this canal docking boats is not allowed, unlike most other canals in my city. The reason is that this is one of the very few canals in Amsterdam used by professional cargo ships and (small) cruise boats. No such boat or ship in this image though. Couldn't wait for one to pass. Wouldn't comply with the intentions of this community, as mentioned before. Ssssjjjjh*t: I start to repeat myself. "Are You Healthy Edje? Not good!"
My street! They started half a year ago, and claim they will finish the project in about two years. A whole re-organisation. The canal walls need maintenance, or replacement or something. Because of that, they decided to renew everything, from the pipes in the ground (sewage, gas, energy, telecoms/internet to whatnot), the canal walls, the street, to an extra walking path between the canal and parked cars. On paper, it all looks super. In reality, I don't know yet. I guess in about two years I'll know 🙃
I very much like the colour reflection on the round red/white street sign. Honestly, I only saw this when I opened the photograph on my laptop. Have no idea where this came from. If this was there in reality, or my lens and/or camera added this. Anyways, I like it 😉
This shot had to be taken! Two times a poo box. The Dixi at the back, the blue-ish vertical box, is our standard poo box for builders of any kinda all the way to party peeps and artists at festivals. The inventor and/or manufacturer must be a gazillionaire by now; Such an amount of those boxes we use on a daily bases at so many spots throughout the country.
In the foreground, you see yet another poo box. One to leave the poo of our pets.
"Poo Squared" could be an interesting title for this still image. Only if I would've given names and titles to all the stills, which I didn't, obviously! 😉
Before going back inside and starting to prepare my dinner, I decided to chill a bit in front of my door on the opposite side of the street. A little bit of chilling on some bench was in order. The bench itself, I'll show you a little further down.
A stair in front of me. A stair we see more often used/build in/at canal sides/walls {stop using the / edje! it's getting annoying!}. A stair with a special story. Well, more a stair that feels lonely from time to time. For at least a hundred meters to a kilometre (I never measured it though) no other stairs around. I believe the city government doesn't like peeps to swim in the canal (can be dangerous when boats and ships sail through). Boats are not allowed to dock. Hence no need for this kind of stairs. Only in case of emergency, when someone falls into the canal, such a stair comes very handy.
That said, since we have such a stair, during warm days plenty of children are making use of this one since they don't follow the rules of the government not to swim in the canal. I only praise such behaviour and approach to our local rules (and laws)! Rules are to be broken, to not follow them, to go by our own rules 😉
The moment I sat down, pigeons (and seagulls) came my way. It's a long story with lots of details I can tell you, but that's for another post. In summary, this bench, and the other one in the next photograph, was frequently used by one of my neighbours down the road, to feed these birds. I suppose they became so accustomed to that, they thought I was about the feed them. Soon enough they found out I behaved very selfish by not sharing the food I had with me in a shopping bag. I felt they need to learn to hunt for their own food again. They shall not rely on some human to make it super easy for them to 'hunt' for their dinner.
Just before I headed back into my own place, trying not to damage my kitchen too much preparing my supper, I took this one: "The sunken bench." A friend joked earlier on, asking if I chilled on that one. Maybe I'm not Cosmopolitan skinny, this heavily sunken bench couldn't be the result of my own weight. One must be a giant, maybe Big Foot, or like the giant in Gulliver's travel, to cause such a situation. "Orrrrr? Was this built by design? To create some form of puff for our legs to rest?"
Homage to Actifit
It felt the walk was not long in distance, as well as in time. I took about 3000 steps; Walked about 2.3 kilometres. For sure a little longer than short. My Health app isn't telling me the duration though. Something I wanted to know/share as well. Maybe we can calculate from some other indirect parameter? 3.4 kilometres/second was my average walking speed. This tells us that my little round took me about 40 minutes. Not too much time, but still, quite a decent amount of minutes for a quick walk around the block.
Endnote
Initially, I planned to show you the same series of photographs using a different set of filters in my not-too-easy-to-master-and-quite-chaotic GIMP app. But now after more than 3000 words, the end to this blog post is much overdue.
To all those who kept on reading all the way down here: Don't you have a life {loL: sorry to be that outspoken and upfront; I can't help that I'm Dutch from origin 😉 }
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people( @edje ) sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.
😎
Hooks at the top of the buildings? That's cool.
I hope the rope can hold a piano too, so the music people, those who have chosen the same thing with black and white keys can easily move their toy to any floor... But I am not sure are the windows big enough? 😂
So, ade is coming soon? Attending one of the days? Just took a super quick glimpse at the program and saw Nils Frahm on Thursday, 20 of October 🎹🎶🎶
Het Sieraad looks nice and colourful 💎
Seems there is no place that allows swimming in canals!
Yeah, only option: break the rules 😂
Absolutely those hooks can hold pianos. Well, the rope can and the hook handle the rope. For as long as centuries we have peeps living in these types of houses with at least 4 levels with narrow staircases, hence the hook, rope and larger windows had to be used for anything large and heavy, incl pianos. And yes, the windows are pretty large. Well, maybe not the windows, but the frames could (and still can) be taken out fairly easily.
ADE: didn't check the program at all. Owww Nils! Really? Since its Thursday probably the 'Music aan de IJ' location, which is beautiful! This weekend I'll check the program and will start my 'thinking' process on what I shall not miss out on.
Super cool for the hooks, ropes and window frames then 🥂👍
When I moved to the city, and eighth floor (maybe you remember the story, if not, doesn't matter) there was no elevator... or hooks, ropes or else to carry easily my upright piano to the apartment 😅
Nils - it will be held in Concertgebouw according to the ade info ;)
Happy checking and thinking process to you this weekend 😎🎶
Ahhhhh concertgebouw. Or mean concert hall for (mainly) classical music.
Superrrr :)
NJOY your weekend as well 🎶🥳
It is a very nice place as I could see from the photos :)
But maybe some edje made photos about that place would be even nicer 😅
Still didn't check the schedule, this gig and all. Probably sold out big time. I dont even want to check 😂😂😂
....owwww wait....
Sold Out indeed 😱
....owwww wait....
Ticketswap: Just a handful sold and look at the more than 1000 peeps looking for a ticket. For sure, its not gonna happen that edje is somewhere in the building when Nils is executing his performance, orrrrrrr I need to break in or something ;) I think this ADE will be a chill one for me, surfing my own couch ;)
😂😂😂
Do I have to respond three times?
🤣
Lol
Oooooh, so nada for Nils if you don't break in, or get some backstage related help. But chilling in the couch also sounds as cool as Nils' music (hope he doesn't read this 😂)
Just 49 sold and 1102 people still wants to go? (at least in this place). Nice, all those will have to chill too somewhere else 🎶🎶🎶
But back to the concert hall. Maybe one day you visit it for some other artist, so edje photos have an opportunity to exist 😁
GIMP is quite complex 😂 so are other open source stuff. I don't know why I still use them despite my frustration but I guess, just cause I like solving problems, they are more appealing to me than others. I like how the canals there are clean and no trash in sight. I kinda wish that was the same where I live too :D
GIMP is indeed kinda crazy cool, but requires more than some practice. I suppose a lot of hours/days/weeks we need to spend to get most under control. But as you say, solving problems is something nice to do. Same here 🙃
Yea, in my tiny country most of everything is pretty clean. Though mucho Dutch throw stuff on the streets, we have cleaners in our streets, almost every day of the week. Dutch are a bit better at not throwing litter in the canals. That said, it happens. Some filter systems are embedded in our canals as well to take out the stuff that doesn't belong in the water. Every night this happens.
NJOY going the difficult routes instead of the easy ones 😂
I used them a lot for making logo etc, my early days of blogging here was basically doing stuff with them. I was a pro on them until I don't use them anymore😅. Now I get frustrated when I don't know how to delete layers haha.
We are terrible with both. There's litter everywhere and despite numerous effort on cleaning it, even through laws and policies, people still do that. This wednesday walk is more engaging that what I normally read haha
So far GIMP is for me an image manipulation tool. Never really designed something other than a few things here and there. Usually, I use Powerpoint for that. An app I'm using from the day it was released, well, almost from that day onwards 😉 Powerpoint was my tool for almost anything since for work I had to make plenty of presentations and all that to try and have something visual when visiting customers. I think because I used it so often, I started to do all sorts of other things with it as well. Anyways, now I try and master GIMP, but need time and lots of playing around :) And I need to get the batch processing work, that's super important to reduce the time on posts like this one 🙃
I realise how quick information and knowledge get lost in our grey masses when not using such anymore. Google (well, Presearch) is therefore my best friend 😉 For my HIVE posts I'm getting too much used to Hivesearcher. Not too many use that tool as far as I know, but perfect tool to find whatever one wrote 'once upon a time' :) But am digressing, as I did in my post hahaha
I do hope your government/community will do better over time with the littering. I suppose it took as a ling time as well before we turned into having clean streets.
Wow this is new from you, Wednesday Walk 😊 . And those are sharp pictures!
I figured I have to comment on this before I start working lol. You deserve a lot of $$$$ for this post! :D
Thanks! 🙇
Inspired to go for a little walk with some form of a camera in hand as well?
Any interesting work these days?
Owwww, are you still on the island or moved back to mainland by now?
Moving to civilization soon - which is next month! :)
soon then! nice! hope it'll not be too stressful to pack, leave the beauty of the island behind, and re-start in the big and busy city again 🎶
I wish I could accompany you 😢 but thanks for taking us to this nice walk. It was lovely to see the city again.
Whenever you have the chance to visit this little village that is classified as a city, let me know and I'll show you around 😉 In the meantime, I'm planning to be a returning guest to the Wednesday Walk which will feature Amsterdam more often, am pretty sure about that. When the next will happen, I have no idea. Maybe soon, maybe not so soon 🙃
Thank you for the offer, I really appreciate it. There's a high chance to be there next year, so I will definitely like to meet 😀 and I'm gonna take you up on the offer! How does that sound? 😁
Till then, I'm going to reward myself with reading your posts.
That sounds cool! In all aspects 😉
Cool to see Amsterdam and your neighbourhood from a different angle approach.
Welcome in the community. Looking forward to more walks @edje
Great captures and that building has lots of different visuals thanks to you.
The edits are great. Keep experimenting.
Have a wonderful week further. 👋🏻😊
Thanks so much for your feedback and little compliments 🙇
I'll try and go full-on Amsterdam series.... Owww and in between less Amsterdam, since this city is not the only place in the world 😱
NJOY 🎶
You are welcome @edje 😊👋🏻
That’s cool… of course hehehe 🤭 been to Limburg yet?
I lived there for about 28 years of my live in different places 😉🤓
Enjoy your Friday and weekend!
Groetjes
Limburg? Sure, have been there. Didn't realise you're from NL. Superrrrrr dan kunnen we ook Nederlands chatten 🙃
I do like Maastricht, though did only spend a day here and there.
Also like nature a lot.
Been living in Nijmegen for a long long long time ago, not too far away from Limburg 🎶
Cool you have been.
Yep, kunnen gewoon Nederlands praten.
Although I have lived in 5 countries so far, my passport is Dutch 😉😎
Maastricht is a great city to explore. Indeed. Lived close to it 1 year. Most of the time I lived in or around Roermond. Now since 2015 in Spain with a year Malta in between…
Soon I move out of Spain. We have some options where next, it all depends on work. 🤓
Nijmegen isn’t far indeed from Limburg. Been there but not many times.
Have a great weekend! 👋🏻😎
Nice! True world citizens, you are 😉
Had family in Maasbracht, I guess my most visited spot in Limburg. But now all my close family who lived there past away, hence I likely will not visit this village anymore.
Already good you have options to select from.
NJOY ur weekend as well 🎶
Yep, see myself like that… don’t remember living in one spot longer than a year hehehe 🤭
I know it as lived one village over when I was a child.
Changing generations… when they pass away one doesn’t visit those areas. I know.
Thanks will do. Flying back to Spain in a few hours from the US. Soooo a longggg journey ahead of me and 2 flights. Will arrive tomorrow mid day ish 🤣😉
Welcome to #WednesdaWalk! That was quite a walk :) It's like you have shown us everything lol! Loving all the photos and filters.
Thanks 😉 Hahahaha yea, when not taking my advice to skip the 'stories' then indeed it was (is) quite a walk. Am glad you made it through 🙃