Book Fair 2010 - Antwerp Expo.

I decided to make my exam-assignment for "Press" about the book fair in Antwerp Expo this vacation.

I arrived there at 11 'o clock so I was very early, there wasn't a row of 150 metres before me on the cash desk as I expected.

I went inside and took a look in the four halls of the Expo. The book stands were overwhelming, there were like a milion books all over the Expo. I went to my favorite stand immidiately and started reading backsides of books. I felt my heart tearing apart because I was there without ANY money...

It feels like entering the temple of temptation but you can't touch anything.

I laid the books back on there pile and took my camera. I walked around the Expo and took some shots of people reading and reading.

There were also autors to sign there books, but because I was so early there was almost no one there.

Then I saw Mark Tijsmans - actor and autor of youth books -, I walked to him and asked him to pose with his newest book. He smiled to me and said 'Ok'. He was so friendly, I think he is a very kind and warm person. I also took a photo of Piet Huysentruyt, our cooking "god".

I wanted to wait untill Pieter Aspe, my favorite crime-autor was there, but my feet began to hurt and it would be at least another 40 minutes untill he would arrive. I decided to go home, with pain in my heart because I never went home from a book fair empty handed.

Mark Tijsmans

Piet Huysentruyt

Clavis - Book Stand

Another pile of twilight books

31 okt.

Intermezzo: Frustrations

I have a lot of frustrations, and I never had the courage to write them all down. Sometimes I get so nervous of it and want to shoot everyone who's irritating me with something, even if it is my best friend.

Chewing gum,

I hope the developer of this kind of candy had a painful death because he fucking deserves it. When I'm sitting on the bus and in front of me is sitting someone chewing and chewing all way long, I just can feel the blood running through my veins because I just get so nervous of the look of it.

Don't people realize that they look like a stupid cow? Right now, one of my good friends is sitting next to me chewing like a starved cow, and I have to hold myself back to say something about it, to her.

The noise of chewing and popping bubbles deserves definitely a place in my top ten.

Like Willy Wonka would say; Chewing gum is really gross, Chewing gum I hate the most.

29 okt.

Books, stories, letters...

I really want to write something down right now...
I didn't really know what I wanted to talk about but then I saw the cover of the book I'm reading at the moment - J.K. Rowling, the biography by Sean Smith - and I thought about explaining what the other part of my life is, beside photography.

Books, Stories, Letters...

It would be kind of awkward if I don't like to read when I'm hosting my blog for more than a year. But what made me to love letters so much? I actually have no idea. It just happend.
I don't exactly remember what the first book I ever read was, and that's one thing I regret so much.
But the first book that I remember was Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets. I read it when I was like ten years old? We were on vacation on the seaside and I read it while I was sitting on the beach with my parents.
Right then I wasn't really into books the way I am now. Ofcourse not, I was a child and I had other things on my mind like playing with the girl next door and crying when I couldn't get what I want. That's how most children are, that age.
But years and years later I started to read more and more. In school we have like four reading- assignments a year, but that is something I don't like. Simply because I don't like to read on pressure. I've always been a slow reader, a book of 300 pages I read in a month, other people read it in a week or less. When I'm reading I have to concentrate and read pages again.

The books that changed my life the most are definitly the Harry Potter series of J.K. Rowling. As a ten-years-old child you're amazed by the wizards and spells they use and just the fact that our favorite character beats the villain - Voldemort - every time again. But when you're older you look deeper into this story and you find everytime something new, something we haven't seen the last time. And we start to realize, everything happens for a reason and we start questioning. For example, why is this boy called Harry Potter? Who are these characters based on... Why the hell did Joanne start writing about a wizzard with silly glaces?
These questions are the reason why I'm reading her biography now, to find some answers. And these story is getting even more deeper than I ever could imagine, this could only been written by a genious... So one thing is absolutely sure, Joanne Rowling had a hard life but now she has the pride and everything she deserves. That makes her one of my favorite writers of all time.

"I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses ... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper in death — if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

27 okt.

Car Crash

On the 21st of oktober I walked with my friends out of school when we heard a loud BING - BANG - BOOM ! We walked to the place where the noise came from and we saw a whole bunch of people walking to the 'crime scene'. Three cars were involved in this spectacular car crash. I haven't seen what actually happend but one of the cars laid upside-down. The street is a 30km/h zone because of our school... So tell me how a car can crash like that when you drive only 30 km/h?
Impossible... So in my opinion it is his own fault. It's so sad that this crazy-car-pilot, involved two others into his madness. Happily no one died.

Like a photographer used to do... I took my camera and took a picture, as fast as I could, cause whatever happend, this was serious, and everything these victims could miss was another disaster tourist.

Glass.

For industry and publicity, our first assignment was 'Glass', there are two techniques to photograph glass. First: Black outline (white background) and second: White outline (black background). My first picture of glass, I ever made was of my grandmothers' cristal wineglasses

I liked this subject so much... I mean, you can do a lot of things with glass and I think this was the coolest object we have ever done in industry classes. So I went home, took my stuff and started to experiment on my own. At home I haven't the studio-material we have in school, so I had to be creative with the things I have but if I can say it of myself, I think I did it pretty well?

I don't know wich technique I like the most, black or white outline, I guess it depends on the kind of glass we are working with.

PS. The logos of Nina Ricci and Lolita Lempicka are easy to find on the internet, just add the file to your photofile in photoshop.

Stadsfeestzaal

Last year, we had to make a commercial series of pictures of our own city, the city of Antwerp. We could choose between a fashion-route, industrial-route,...

I like fashion - not that I am fashionable by myself but, still I like to look at fashion - so I choosed this. We have a beautiful shopping place in the middle of our famous shopping street 'De Meir'. I went inside and used many many of colour.

Hope you like it.

25. okt

Les Absurdités

What is absurdity?
- when we can't answer the 'why' question.
Why can't we answer the 'why' question?

- Simply, there isn't even a why.

Selfportrait incl.

Our first assignment for school was: "Make a fashionable selfportrait.'

I hated this from the beginning and yes... I know why.
We had to make it analog, so not digital.
When you have less selfconfidence this is a whole test. You have to make pictures and you can't see if they are good or not, so you can't make small changes untill the picture is good.
No, you have to wait at least three days and then you have to conclude that you're even more ugly then you even thought!
I wanted to quit it, but then my teacher came up with the fact that we have our first exposition and that our selfportraits will be the photographs to show off. Shit, shit, shit.
I'm very ambitious cause I wanted to be famous from my earlier childhood. And this was a chance to show people what I can.
I got home and went to my bedroom to search a few outfits and said to myself, 'you really don't want to be the only one without a picture?'
I took my digital camera and made my pictures, yes I did it digital but I have my pictures and that's the only thing that mattered.



24.okt