Welcome to my Blog!
I hope to share here my irrepressible thoughts on news, music, books, arts and such like. In general these will be items, events and issues which I feel have no place on my website (which focusses on aviation history and my travel photography).

The item immediately below this would be the latest posting.

Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself. - Charles Baudelaire
Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived) ¬Bishop George Berkeley

Not even I understand everything I am ¬Aurelius Augustinus of Hippo

In 2013 I started a series of photo albums on Blurb.com, named '36Exp' (a subject adressed in 36 exposures, a reference to the exposures on most common rolls of 35 mm film: 12, 24 & 36.).
The books can be ordered directly from the Blurb.com website or Amazon.
www.blurb.com/user/ruudleeuw

CURRENT BLOG

In 2015 Frans and Theo Barten, professional Dutch photographers, published two photobooks on a wonderful project: dealing with their visits to 52 control towers in the UK, their 'All Along the Control Tower' Volume I provides 218 pages of hi-quality photos and stories how Frans & Theo found them.
The volumes One and Two are discussed on my blog 2017Q2.

The book depicts their history (e.g. open: 1942 - closed: 1946), aircraft based and possible present use.
The structure is most often depicted in two photos plus a satellite image (with coördinates) and, something I really like, crosshairs to find the location on the sat image.

The objective of the Barten Bros. is only to show them in the state as they are today in the surrounding landscape, with no military purposes (though some of them still see military use).

Almost all airfields themselves have gone (mostly agricultural today) but many towers (sturdy, austere) still remain. It is wonderful to see vague traces of runways on the sat. images or see hardstands remaining.
Some of the Control Towers are still in use as such (quite rarely, I must add!), often they are in a derelict state, left to its dismal fate or in some use at a farm, some are turned in a museum and some are (oh joy!) renovated to a house people live in!
One was turned in a B&B! Check out: www.controltowerstays.com
Frans & Theo Barten often found their way blocked by barricades of industrial estates and had to proceed on foot along pathways and fences, some people were quite unwelcoming while others invited them in and many a muddy trek had to be made to document the Contol Tower...
The Goshill Tower was even exported and reassembled for Virgina for the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia, USA! The project is documented on the last pages of Volume II.

Volume III was published in 2017.
It has 230 pages in full colour, hardcover (ISBN 978-90-817110-9-8) and its dimensions (the same as the two previous editions): 22 x 25 cm.
And the text is again in English, because on the British Isles is where by far the most interest in their histories is shared.
I applaud their effort!

www.narwal.eu
www.warhistoryonline.com/reviews/all-along-the-control-tower-review-by-mark-barnes.html
www.airfieldresearchgroup.org.uk

Waarom maakt het werk van nog steeds zoveel indruk? Omdat we niet alleen het landschap zien maar ook een gemoedstoestand voelen. De romantiek in optima forma!
Why do the paintings by J.M.W. Turner, Caspar David Friedrich, Johan Christian, Barend Koekkoek en Andreas Schelfhout still make such a forceful impression? Because it is as much about a mood, a longing, than the illustraion of (e.g.) a landscape.

Romanticism (also known as the Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. In most areas it was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850.
Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical.

The book has too many names to list here, I illustrated some closest to my heart, though I enjoy Constable and Turner too!
This catalogue was published in light of the exhibition in the Groninger Museum, an exhibition I, alas, did not attend.

This exhibition (09Dec2017 - 06May2018) presented Dutch Romanticism for the first time in an international context and shows how important Dutch artists such as Barend Koekkoek, Wijnand Nuijen and Andreas Schelfhout relate to their famous foreign contemporaries.

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (b.11Oct1803 – d.05Apr1862) was a Dutch landscape artist. He came to be known during his lifetime as the 'Prince of Landscape Painting' and was by far the most applauded landscapist of his time and regarded as the founding father of Dutch romantic landscape painting.

Andreas Schelfhout (b.1787–d.1870) was a Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer, known for his landscape paintings. He belongs to the Romantic movement.
His Dutch winter scenes and frozen canals with skaters were already famous during his lifetime. He became one of the most influential Dutch landscape artists of his century.

en.wikipedia.org:_Romanticism
en.wikipedia.org:_Barend_Cornelis_Koekkoek
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Schelfhout

Small but nice: 11.5x17.5cm, 91 pages. Published (2006) in Holland to advance reading of crime fiction books.

DI John Rebus is upfront, stubborn, curious, emotional and tenacious as a pitbull. His many failings get him into trouble but he is good at what he does, bringing criminals to justice and 'failure is not an option' for Rebus.
Here we have a dead person with two mobile phones, a stalker of a radio presenter, family secrets, fraud, adultery, abuse of elderly in home care centres, and historic detective work in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes...
Rebus' job does not merely evolve around murder cases!

The booklet contains short stories published under the following English titles: Atonement, The Acid Test, Tell Me Who To Kill and Talk Show.

Books by Ian Rankin are frequently discussed on my blog:
blog-2011q1.htm, blog-2014q2.htm, blog-2015q1.htm, blog-2015q3.htm, to mention but a few!

en.wikipedia.org:_Ian_Rankin

'Bruce Davidson | American photographer', was a retrospective exhibition I visited last year. And where
I bought this fantastic book, a retrospective account of Mr Davidson's photography.

Since the 1950s, Davidson (b.1933) has devoted his time and energy to photographing those for whom
the ‘American Dream’ has turned out to be unattainable and who have attempted to hold their own in society.

Davidson depicts major themes as civil rights, violence, poverty, racism and immigration, all from a personal perspective.
For many years, for instance, he tagged along with a street gang in Brooklyn and travelled with civil rights activities to the South to take part in The Selma March. This approach has given him first-hand experience with the subjects of his work and enabled him to poignantly show what the ‘American Dream’ has meant for them.

The exhibition features almost 200 photographs, including work from his famous series 'The Dwarf', 'East 100th Street' and 'Subway'.

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/10920152/Bruce-Davidson.../
en.wikipedia.org:_Bruce_Davidson_(photographer)
Profile at Magnum Photos

In November or December each year I buy the new edition of Snoecks, a yearly publication. And again Snoecks managed to deliver a new edition of inspiring photography and an international selection of art, architecture, literature and fascinating articles.
There is new and first published work in th 2018 edition (by e.g. Jan Fabre), as well as weird and wonderful work by Levon Biss, who managed to photograph insects in extreme detail.
There are photo documents on the French Manouche and Lagos Island, embedded in Mongolia and
places like Tunesia and Haïti (beyong the earthquake).
What about poverty in... the USA?
Next to work by established names (Eamonn Doyle, Zanele Muholi, Holly Andres and Rodney Graham), Snoecks introduces younger talents with photography by (o.a.) Olivia Locher, Kim De Molenaer and Chad Moore. There is an essay by Rebecca Schiff, first published in a Dutch translation.

Work I particularly liked:
Yann Gross - The Jungle Book
Rune Guneriussen - Postkaarten uit de wildernis (EN: Postcards from the wilderness)
Hamid Sardar - Eén met de nomaden (EN: One with the nomads)
Shinya Arimoto - Overleven in Tokyo (EN: Surviving in Tokyo)
Matt Black - Geografie van de armoede (EN: Geography of poverty)
Dougie Wallace - Sympathieke taxikitsch (EN: Road Wallah)
Brent Stirton - Witgoud is bloedgeld (EN: Whitegold is blood money)
Mark Neville - documentairemaker vol empathie (cover) (EN: documentary photography w/ empathy)
Margi Rotiers / Corentin Fohlen - Haiti de beving voorbij (Haiti beyond the earthquake)
Henk van Cauwenbergh - Durbuy, een jongensdroom Marc Coucke (EN: A boy's dream)
Kim de Molenaer - Enkele reis Athene (portretten) (EN: Singe trip Athens)
Rodney Graham - Humor, ironie en melancholie

Snoecks seems to get better with age!

www.snoecks.be/snoecks-2018/