Welcome to my Blog!
I hope to share here my irrepressible thoughts on news, music, books, arts, history, cultural events 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

"I'm only myself in front of my typewriter" ¬Joan Didion (I'd replace 'typewriter' by 'desktop PC'..)
"I always think that the quickest way to understand someone is to look at what's on their bookshelfes." ¬Matt Haig

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.) back in the day.
The books can be ordered directly from the Blurb.com or Amazon.
www.blurb.com/user/ruudleeuw

CURRENT BLOG

In 1818, Derk Coops had a new mill built on the Wiekenweg. This large stone mill surpasses in every way the old wooden post mill, from which Coops had departed after a disagreement with the owner.
The new mill has an exceptional design and is a showcase of contemporary masonry craftsmanship.
The design is unusual due to the cylindrical lower part and the conical top.
The walls are about 80cm thick.
Derk Coops had grand plans for his business, because with two, later three sets of millstones, he had a considerable capacity.

www.molens.nl

See MyFlickr for more windmills like these
1- www.flickr.com/photos/
2- www.flickr.com/photos/

This fine photobook contains over 600 photographs (hardback, pp. 240) and details the story and identity of 340 public and 19 private bridges, accompanying the reader on a visual journey through the city of water.
Each bridge becomes a trace of architecture, life and memory, enriched by discreet quotations that reveal its urban and monumental context.
The text explores the origins of bridges, often linked to their function or to the ancient crafts that animated the surrounding places: oars, pistori, tentori, forneri, scorzeri.
Between dialect references and architectural suggestions: crooked, red, long, small, the book traces Venice suspended between history and contemporary, everyday life.

www.venicephotobooks.com/ 2025 /venice-of-bridge

A collection of musings, thoughts and insights from the greats.

For anyone who has ever wondered about the meaning of life! Drawing his inspiration from '42', of the funniest, wisest, and quirkiest quotations on the big questions in life (see books by Douglas Adams on The Hitchhiker's Guide), Vernon offers a light-hearted look at what philosophy has to say about life, the Universe, and everything...

Deftly interweaving the thoughts of the greatest minds of all time, from Socrates to Monty Python, Vernon provides a platter of witty yet profound discussions on work, love, eternal life, sex, and happiness.
From the allure of cats to the nature of wisdom, this wise-but-funny read is the perfect companion for the armchair philosopher, and proves that even a little introspection can transform our lives for the better!

www.markvernon.com/books

The Old Calixtus Church in Groenlo has already witnessed a lot of war violence. The fortress town in the Achterhoek (The Netherlands) was on the front during the Eighty Years' War and was the scene of fierce sieges in 1595, 1597, 1606, and 1627.
But since Saturday, against the vaulted ceiling of the Gothic church, the silhouette of a modern war has emerged: drones from the battlefield in Ukraine.

The unmanned aircraft are suspended for the exhibition Close to the War, which is open until mid-September. Never before have so many weapons used by the Russian or Ukrainian army, or fragments of them, been seen together in the Netherlands.
Outside, in front of the door of the church, are a Russian tank blown up in Dmytrivka and a Ukrainian ambulance shot to pieces in Kharkiv.
Inside the church, among other things, an engine part of an Iranian-made Shahed drone deployed by Russia can be seen, as well as the Russian glide bomb FAB-500 and the kamikaze drone Zala Lancet.
But also a complete Magura V5, the submarine drone with which Ukraine drove the Russian fleet to the edge of the Black Sea.

The tangible collection of weaponry indeed brings the first major war on the European continent since 1945(!) closer than the avalanche of images on social media can.
Life-size war photos by journalist Daphne Wesdorp and the constant sound of drones buzzing in the air reinforce the impression that you have traveled to the front in Ukraine yourself...

www.volkskrant.nl/tentoonstellingen/het-oekraiense-front- - - (NL)

Through about 160 photographs and numerous other documents - newspapers, magazines, books - this book presents an exhaustive and in-depth way the relationship between the man who has been called "the eye of the century" and Italy.
Retracing the stages of a relationship that began very early, already in the 1930s, and continued until the moment when Cartier-Bresson abandoned photography, in the 1970s.

The photo book (catalogue), produced in collaboration with the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris, edited by Clément Chéroux, director of the same foundation, and Walter Guadagnini, director of CAMERA - Italian Center for Photography, accompanies the autumn photography exhibition at Palazzo Roverella, dedicated to Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) and Italy.
I noticed familiar places I've visited too, in recent decades (a.o. Venezia and Matera). It is easy to read the advance of modernity and the persistence of local identities.

From the first trip in the company of his friend André Pieyre de Mandiargues, poet and writer, and his partner, the painter Leonor Fini, in which he took some of his most famous images, to the 2nd trip in the 1950s to Abruzzo and Lucania in the footsteps of Carlo Levi.
Continuing with the services for the illustrated magazines of the time, including 'Holiday', 'Du' and 'Harper's Bazaar', dedicated above all to Rome, Naples, Venice, to conclude, again in Matera, a real return to the places frequented 20 years earlier.
A magnificent photo book and document; for those who love (street)photography, Italy and history.

Henri Cartier-Bresson (b.22Aug1908 – d.03Aug2004) was a French humanist photographer, and also an artist. He was considered a master of candid photography, and was an early user of 35mm film.
He pioneered the genre of street photography and viewed capturing what he named the decisive moment as the essence of the very best pictures.
Cartier-Bresson was one of the founding members of Magnum Photos in 1947.

In the 1970s he discontinued his photographic work, instead opting to paint and sketch.

www.dariocimorellieditore.it/libro/
it.insideover.com/fotografia/henri-cartier-bresson-e-litalia
en.wikipedia.org:_Henri_Cartier-Bresson

Formidable collection of essays and reviews from the award-winning London-based writer, Olivia Laing.

Laing is often described as a cultural critic, but insofar as the term suggests a sole focus on the arts, it belies the wider sweep of these pieces, most of them previously published.
A graceful stylist and superb reporter, this author is a journalist rather than a critic.
There’s plenty of first-rate arts criticism in her appreciations of painters like David Hockney and Jean-Michel Basquiat and novelists Patricia Highsmith and Sally Rooney along with musings on topics like gardening.
Disease and death stalk her pages—Kathy Acker’s breast cancer, Freddie Mercury’s AIDS, Georgia O’Keeffe’s agoraphobia, and Hilary Mantel’s migraines—but she brings a fresh and humane eye even to ills exhaustively covered elsewhere, such as David Bowie’s cocaine addiction.

Laing sinks sometimes briefly into socalled 'lit-crit jargon', which goes way over my head.
While she has a gift of being interesting, many of the persons she talks about are unfamiliar to me, Americans and Brits.
Still, a vibrant commentary on art and society by a writer with a sharp eye for the offbeat. Enjoyed it at length.

Olivia Laing (b. 14Apr1977- ) is a British writer, novelist and cultural critic. She's the author of five works of non-fiction—To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring, The Lonely City, Everybody, and The Garden Against Time—as well as an essay collection, Funny Weather, and two novels, Crudo and The Silver Book.
In 2018, she was awarded the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for non-fiction and in 2019, the 100th James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Crudo.
In 2019 she became an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Between 2007 and 2009, Laing was Deputy Books Editor of The Observer.
She wrote widely on art and culture, including The Guardian, The New York Times and Financial Times and has written catalogue essays for many contemporary artists, including Derek Jarman, Chantal Joffe, Wolfgang Tillmans and Andy Warhol.

www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/olivia-laing/funny-weather
en.wikipedia.org:_Olivia_Laing

I visited this exhibition a week ago, in the Fotomuseum Hilversum. The museum provided this text on their website:
'Fotomuseum Hilversum shows the exhibition Blood Bonds: Reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda, featuring work by photographer Jan Banning and journalist Dick Wittenberg.
Along with the exposition the a photobook is released with the same title, including an essay by philosopher Marjan Slob.
The exhibition presents powerful double portraits of perpetrators and survivors of the genocide.'

Photographer Jan Banning and journalist Dick Wittenberg traveled back to Rwanda 30 years after the genocide, to investigate how people continue to live together after such a profound past.
Banning's photos do not simply show victims and perpetrators: in each double portrait, we see a perpetrator alongside a survivor to whom he or she has personally inflicted irreparable suffering...
The photos, together with Wittenberg's stories, make the process of reconciliation feel palpable, showing both its difficulty and its humanity.
Together, they offer a compelling and hopeful view of resilience and living together.

Banning was born in the Netherlands from Dutch-East-Indies parents.
He studied social and economic history at the Radboud University Nijmegen, and has been working as a photographer since 1981.
A central theme of Banning's practice is state power, having produced series about the long-term consequences of war and the world of government bureaucracy.
His Dutch East Indies roots are expressed in his choice of subjects, such as Indonesian women who were forced to become prostitutes for the Japanese army during the Second World War in Comfort Women; or former forced labourers in South East Asia during the same period in Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways; also the repatriation of elderly Moluccans from the Netherlands to the Indonesian Moluccas in Pulang: Back to Maluku.
His study of history is reflected in the historical components of his subject matters and his academic education is expressed in his aim to achieve sound intellectual foundations for his projects on the basis of a thorough preliminary investigation.

fotomuseumhilversum.nl/tentoonstellingen/jan-banning (NL+EN)
fotoexpositie.nl/exposities/bloedbanden (NL)
en.wikipedia.org:_Jan_Banning

For my Travelogue pages (2) see Il Carnevale 2026

Fotomuseum Hilversum is the place where everyone can discover and experience contemporary and social photography.
News photography reflects everything happening in society, highlights important issues, and documents developments that form the foundation of our collective memory.
The Zilveren Camera is the most prestigious award for photojournalists in the Netherlands and is traditionally presented first at Museum Hilversum.
It offers a wonderful, endless journey through major and minor stories. All the winning photos, as well as the works of the other nominees, are on view during this exhibition.
As always: impressive and versatile!

fotomuseumhilversum.nl/en/

A first visit for me in this location, though I had attended a similar street venue in Doesburg a few times. I think here was more on offer. I used my Leica M10-P, my Canon G5X.II and Canon S120. My only purchase was a fine photobook.

Digital was well represented, many DSLR models and also very recent ones. Lenses specifically for the DSLR but also the sought-after vintage lenses with special bokeh. Matching accessories such as batteries, CF/SD memory cards or filters, flashes, and lighting were also on offer.
Also think of Polaroid cameras as a collectible or decorative piece, but also as a camera to use to capture something in a way that sticks more than a smartphone photo.
Films and the developing fluids for the darkroom were also, though it was evident they are getting rare for such events.

With top stalls from all cities and towns of the Netherlands and abroad (Germany, Belgium, France), there was all sorts to be found.
The appreciation for photographers like Ed van der Elsken, Cas Oorthuys, and others from the 1960s also ensures offerings for broad interest in this Dutch cultural area. Tables of book specialists, others with beautiful visual material up to the time of Niépce, Talbot, and Daguerre. I came away with an excellent photobook; I did not buy any 'hardware' but informed myself on the prices on a few vintage camera as well as the availability.
Stereophotography from all eras, plus vintage prints. Too much to list all, really.
A very positive experience!

www.fotografica.nl/fotograficabeurs-hilversum-8-maart-2026/

I bought this wonderful book, full of splendid essays, at La Toletta in Venice,Italy recently.
In ​​'Backstage', Donna reveals her admiration for, and inspiration from, the great crime novelists Ruth Rendell and Ross Macdonald, examining their approach to storytelling as she dissects her favorite books of theirs.
She expresses her love for Charles Dickens’ 'Great Expectations' and her appreciation of Sir Walter Scott’s generosity of spirit.
And she chronicles at lengths the amount of research she undertakes to be able to present authentically, through Guido Brunetti and his colleagues, places and characters far from her own experience: interviewing a diamond dealer in Venice to open up the world of blood diamonds; meeting, through back channels, a courageous sex worker and women’s rights activist to depict accurately the trafficking of women in Italy...

This book was published by Hutchinson - Heinemann in 2025, breaking the regular publications of the engaging crime fiction stories with her internationally bestselling Commissario Guido Brunetti as the protagonist.

Venice is central in her memory, whether recounting the semi-comic irritation of a noisy elderly neighbor or the origins of the city’s Carnevale. Her teaching career yields memorable tales: helping a young Black boy in a Newark, New Jersey elementary school; instructing young Iranian pilots in English just before the 1979 Iranian Revolution; taking her students at a Swiss private high school to the famous Frank Zappa concert in Montreux interrupted by fire.

While I very much liked most of her essays and short stories (I am not a fan of opera), I thought the last chapter particulary moving: reminiscing ('In Memoriam') of 'walkies' in a gallery showing oil portraits of veterans from the various services in the war against Iraq who had been wounded in that effort'. Painted by ex/ President US George W. Bush.
A closing remark by her partner in this visit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (b.15Mar1933 - d.18Sep2020), is notable concise: "And the people responsible for this war feel no remorse, make no admission of guilt. Nothing." And that while the US-Israeli war against Iran is raging...

www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/__/backstage-stories-of-a-writing-life
en.wikipedia.org:_Guido_Brunetti_novels
en.wikipedia.org:_Ruth_Bader_Ginsburg

A prolonged, quiet unfolding of genius is what Jane Livingston, chief curator of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, calls the first century of National Geographic photography.
Striving to portray our planet's remarkably diverse people, creatures, and landscapes, four generations of Geographic photographers have made their work an indelible part of our culture.

When the Corcoran Gallery of Art, one of the nation's leading photographic museums, decided to organize an exhibition celebrating the National Geographic Society's centennial, their curators were granted complete access to the Society's formidable archives.
The Art of Photography at National Geographic, companion to the museum exhibition, presents 289 silver prints, autochromes, and full-color images from the Society's collections.
Never before have the photographs in The Art of Photography been showcased as art; half of these works by 158 leading 19th- and 20th-century photographers are published here for the first time.

The Art of Photography moves from the somber grace of early masterpieces like Henri Bechard's depictions of carved wooden balconies in Cairo, to the insightful humor of recent works like Chris Johns' portrait of two Canadians watching TV in a junked 1940s' sedan.
Subjects and treatments range across space and time from the first undersea photograph to a shot of the moon taken by an Apollo 17 crew member, and portray the human experience as a Havasupai Indian cradles her infant and a Peruvian shepherd boy mourns the loss of his sheep.

In their commitment to telling the story, Geographic photographers have developed techniques and aesthetic standards which give their work a special place in the history of American photography. Seemingly effortless technical mastery - in which these photographic pioneers have always excelled - has been invaluable in capturing the rare, the ancient, the elusive, and the endangered.

Jane Livingston's perceptive introduction traces the history of photography at National Geographic and defines the Society's unique contribution to photographic art.
The Art of Photography reproduces every image from the exhibition in full frame and full color.

Identifying captions for each image are supplemented by additional information and artists' biographies in the book's appendix.
This publication showcases the familiar pleasures of National Geographic - a fresh view of our world's countries, creatures, and cultures woven into a rich and wondrous tapestry.

Jane Shelton Livingston (b.12Feb1944) is an American art curator. She is the author and co-author of numerous books and catalogs.

www.nationalgeographic.com
en.wikipedia.org:_Jane_Livingston

In 1950, photographer Gisèle Freund embarked on a two-week trip to Mexico, but she wouldn't leave until two years later.
There she met the legendary couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Welcomed into their home, she immersed herself in their private lives and the cultural and artistic diversity of the country, taking hundreds of photographs. These powerful photographs are among the last taken before Kahlo's death 2 years later.

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (b. 06Jul1907 – d.13July1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico.
Inspired by the country's popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society.
Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy.
In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist.
She is also known for painting about her experience of chronic pain, as a result of a traffic accident (a tram colliding with a bus she had boarded) at the age of sixteen (elsewhere claimed as eighteen).

Born to a German father and a mestiza mother (of Purépecha descent), Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at La Casa Azul, her family home in Coyoacán – now publicly accessible as the Frida Kahlo Museum.
She met fellow Mexican artist Diego Rivera. The couple married in 1929 and spent the late 1920s and early 1930s travelling together in Mexico and the United States. During this time, she developed her artistic style, drawing her main inspiration from Mexican folk culture.
She had her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953, shortly before her death in 1954 at the age of 47.

Kahlo's work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists.

Gisèle Freund (born Gisela Freund; 19Dec1908 – d.31Mar2000 was a German-born French photographer and photojournalist, famous for her documentary photography and portraits of writers and artists.
With this first doctoral thesis on photography at the Sorbonne, she was one of the first women habilitated there.
Freund's major contributions to photography include using the Leica Camera (with its ability to house 35 mm film rolls with 36 frames) for documentary reportage and pioneering Kodachrome and Agfacolor positive film for colour portraits of writers and artists.

en.wikipedia.org:_Frida_Kahlo
en.wikipedia.org:_Gisèle_Freund
en.artbooksonline.eu/art-79072

In 2017, Marianna Zampieri addressed the Venetians directly, receiving numerous reports and wide and unexpected enthusiasm for the idea of a project in which the photographs are correlated by a description of the cat portrayed, which explains a little about its history and personality.
The idea was born from the reports received: in most cases they were not just cats but 'famous' cats with their own name and a particular area of 'competence'.

Venice is a unique city of its kind and what binds it to its cats is a relationship of mutual necessity: cats are needed in Venice and Venice is the city that seems most cat-friendly from the point of view of safety and respect for the nature of this animal.
Many cats are not only free to roam but consequently also free to choose where to stay, without being badly chased away as unfortunately happens in other realities.
There have been several stories of cats owned by a particular shop who have instead elected another place as their point of reference to return to at the end of the various rounds of patrol, welcomed with joy by the "new owners", proud that the cat has chosen them; many have changed residence after the arrival of a second unwelcome feline guest; some who simply like to go and greet people inside other businesses before returning to their own, perhaps avoiding conflict areas with 'friends' who are not too sociable.

There is a fascinating intertwining of stories, personalities, decisions and freedom that these cats tell that represents the great beauty of this project. All enriched by the respect and pride with which Venetians tell and welcome their cats.
The stylistic choice of black and white photography manages to "clean" them of distractions, making the emotions more alive and giving the right emphasis to the subject of the photo which, in this case, has the luck of a timeless background like Venice.
See another edition discussed on MyBlog_2026q2.

www.comune.venezia.it/en/
www.mariannazampieri.it/cats-in-venice-collection

Historian Annejet van der Zijl described the lives of diverse figures such as Dutch nationals Prince Bernhard, Annie M.G. Schmidt, and Gerard Heineken.
In her latest non-fiction book, The Floating World, she highlights the interconnected lives of Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866), a physician and explorer in 19th century Japan, and his daughter Kusumoto Ine, the first female doctor in Japan.
The well-written dual biography is full of engaging stories about cultural clashes, perseverance, and the influence of the East on the West.

Two methods of seduction: the showing of the bare ankle and the neck uncovered.

After a difficult childhood in Germany, Franz von Siebold was stationed as a doctor at the Dutch trading post Dejima (or Deshima), an artificial island off the coast of Nagasaki, starting in 1823.
He had a wonderful time there. Tirelessly, he studied and collected plants and trees that were not yet known in Europe.
He purchased countless unique artworks and maps of the island group. Those maps ultimately brought him trouble, because at that time Japan was still completely closed off to the outside world, and when the Japanese discovered his 'betrayal,' they expelled him from the country in 1829.

He had fallen madly in love with his concubine 'Sonogi' and wrote desperate letters to her and their little daughter Oine from exile in Europe.
When it became clear that he could not return and Sonogi married a Japanese man, he started a family with the German Helene von Gagern and had five children with her.

Siebold's daughter by his concubine, Oine, around the age of ten

More than 20 years after Siebold's departure, Japan, forced by the Americans, cautiously opened its doors to Western trade and influence.
In 1859, Von Siebold finally got the chance to return as a lobbyist for the Dutch Handels-Maatschappij (EN: Trading Company), with his son Alexander (1846-1911).
The second part of The Floating World tells how daughter Kusumoto Ine ‘Oine’ (1827-1903) gained fame as the first female doctor in Japan.
Van der Zijl: 'Nothing in his side of their correspondence shows that Franz had any appreciation or interest in the medical skills his daughter had acquired at the cost of so many personal sacrifices and hard work.'

Oine (O-ine) was therefore not upset when Franz left after two years.
His son Alexander stayed behind in Japan and did become a successful diplomat. His brother Heinrich became one of the first archaeologists of Western-oriented Japan during the Meiji period (1868–1912) and just as fanatical a collector as his father.

Medical instruments which Oine received from her father and which she put to good use!

‘Not even twelve years after Siebold's death, everyone had fallen in love with Japan,’ writes Van der Zijl. The 19th century craze for ‘Japonisme’ and the significant influence of Japanese prints on Western art, for example, on the Impressionists, rightly receive a separate chapter.
The many illustrations in this beautifully produced book also make it clear that the importance of the ‘floating world’ of playful ukiyo-e cannot be underestimated.

This book is one of the rare 5-star rated books for me, definitely a keeper!

www.tzum.info/ - /recensie-annejet-van-der-zijl-de-zwevende-wereld/ (NL)
en.wikipedia.org:_Dejima
en.wikipedia.org:_Kusumoto_Ine
en.wikipedia.org:_Annejet_van_der_Zijl

Selection of columns by Mensje van Keulen
(Nijgh & Van Ditmar, 2025)

Sylvia Agnes Godefrida Witteman (b.Bloemendaal, 09Oct1965- ) is a Dutch columnist.
From 2005 until the end of 2024, she wrote columns for the national newspaper de Volkskrant; from February 4, 2025, she writes for Het Parool.
She writes, imo, in the best tradition of Simon Carmiggelt and Martin Bril with witty observations.
Within a few minutes, Witteman manages to entertain the reader, if not make them burst out laughing, give them the feeling of 'hey, I feel the same way (or not)', make them empathize, surprise them, move them, offer a different perspective on an object or event, and last but not least, on people and animals.
Making choices to compile columns for these 542 (!) pages by Mensje van Keulen was a hellish task, but it is done. And this collection, which is entirely thanks to Sylvia’s unique columns, is indeed something special.
I hope another selection is forthcoming in due course!

Within that writing world, she experienced some sexism; what a male author writes is not judged the same as what a female columnist writes, especially when it comes to articles on the same subject. Those columns by Martin Bril also made her aware of the transience of columns; young people sometimes already didn't know him (he passed away in 2009) in their twenties. She considers herself a bookworm;
it started in her youth with frequent visits to the library, and she had not lost it by 2025!
Her last column in the Volkskrant appeared on December 23, 2024; she found the newspaper had become too polarizing.
This selection, in a very fine publication indeed, appeared on 25-11-2025.

Mensje Francina (Mennie) van der Steen (b. The Hague, 10Jun1946- ) is a Dutch writer who publishes under the name Mensje van Keulen, using the last name of her now ex-husband.

NL.wikipedia.org:_Sylvia_Witteman
NL.wikipedia.org:_Mensje_van_Keulen
NL.wikipedia.org:_Martin_Bril

Photographic Annual from the wartime Netherlands. 59pp, b&w photo plates, one tipped-in color plate, advertising. Bought on a secondhand market, real pleased for my collection.

This book (self-published, 2025) by Peter Turnley (b.22June'55) is a stunning tribute to the enchanting city of Paris.
The photographer's exquisite talent for capturing the city's essence results in a breathtaking portrayal that feels suspended in time.
Each black-and-white image flows seamlessly into the next, weaving a vivid tapestry of key Parisian themes—charming cafés bustling with laughter, the intoxicating atmosphere of love in the air, intriguing characters roaming the streets, and the tranquil flow of the Seine.

There is something magnetic about Paris: how the light shifts over the river, how a café terrace at dusk holds infinite little dramas, how a winding alley feels like a secret told in whispers.
In Paris Je t’aime, Peter Turnley invites us into his Paris, one seen through 50 years of devotion, observation and deep feeling.
His choice of black and white lets grain, shadow and form carry story instead of colour, and the result is timeless yet rooted in memory. These are not simple travel photographs, but framed moments that echo across time: a couple turning with a smile, a man reading a newspaper in the morning light, the Seine reflecting the city’s pulse.
The book draws you in, quietly urging you to pause, look again, to find the gesture you did not see the first time.

Hardcover, 320 pages + 316 photographs (31 x 30 x 3.5 cm).

Peter Turnley is renowned for his photography of the realities of the human condition.
His photographs have been featured on the cover of Newsweek 43 times and are published frequently in the world’s most prestigious publications.
He has worked in over 90 countries and has witnessed most major stories of international geo-political and historic significance in the last 30 years.
His photographs draw attention to the plight of those who suffer great hardships or injustice. He also affirms with his vision the many aspects of life that are beautiful, poetic, just, and inspirational.

www.worldphotoadventure.com/paris-je-taime-a-review
www.peterturnley.com/about
en.wikipedia.org:_Peter_Turnley

In Leica’s anniversary year, the world-renowned photography award will once again be making an important statement with regard to the role and significance of contemporary photography, by presenting and honouring a selection of current image series.
This year marks the 45th edition of the LOBA.

The only requirements for a nomination are that the photographs be of a documentary or conceptual-artistic nature, and deal with the relationship of humanity to the environment. This humanistic constant has been a feature of the LOBA competition, since its inception in 1979.

www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com/en/

Koekkoeksjong (Boekerij, 2013)

Robert Galbraith, none other than J.K. Rowling, is an expertly written exercise in both crime and social criticism.
Cormoran Strike is a hard-drinking, hard-bitten, lonely mess of a man, for reasons that is revealed bit by bit, carefully revealing the secrets he keeps about his parentage, his time in battle and his bad luck.
Strike is no Sherlock Holmes, but he’s a dogged pursuer of The Truth, in this instance the identity of the person who may or may not have relieved a supermodel of her existence most unpleasantly: “Her head had bled a little into the snow. The face was crushed and swollen, one eye reduced to a pucker, the other showing as a sliver of dull white between distended lids.”
Rowling’s roundup of sinister, self-serving, sycophantic characters is impressive, they inhabit the world of high fashion.
Helping Strike along as he turns over stones in the yards of the rich and famous is the eminently helpful Robin Ellacott, newcomer to London and determined to do better than work as a mere temp, which is what lands her at Strike’s door. Her employment with Strike does brings stress to her relationship with her fancée Matthew.

Perhaps because I read it in Dutch (read the English version a long time ago, the Dutch language needs more words than the English to describe the same), it was a bit long-winded but a pleasant read if you can find the leisurely rhythm.

Joanne Rowling (b.31July1965), better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is the British novelist who wrote the Harry Potter series, published from 1997 to 2007, with over 600 million copies sold.
She writes about Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.

Continuing the Cormoran Strike series of detective novels, The Silkworm was released in 2014; Career of Evil in 2015; Lethal White in 2018; Troubled Blood in 2020; The Ink Black Heart in 2022; The Running Grave in 2023; and The Hallmarked Man, which was released in September 2025.
In 2017, BBC One aired the first episodeof the five-season series Strike, a television adaptation of the Cormoran Strike novels starring Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger, with a sixth season being shot in 2024.

www.kirkusreviews.com/ - /robert-galbraith/cuckoos-calling/
en.wikipedia.org:_J._K._Rowling

Exhibition Kawase Hasui. Capturing the Soul of Japan (19Dec2025 - 15Mar2026)
An awe inspiring exhibition in Leiden, at the Japanhouse a.k.a. the Sieboldhouse.

Shin Hanga: the rebirth of Japanese printmaking.
At the beginning of the 20th century, traditional Japanese printmaking (ukiyo-e) appeared to be in decline. Photography and lithography were gaining popularity, and classical techniques were at risk of being forgotten.
Thanks to the efforts of the publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, printmaking was revived in a new, contemporary form: Shin Hanga — literally 'new prints'.
In this movement, artists, block carvers, printers, and publishers worked closely together to create high-quality prints that blended traditional methods with modern sensibilities.

Master of landscapes Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) began his artistic career relatively late, producing his first prints at the age of 35.
His landscape works were the result of extensive sketching trips across Japan.
While his predecessors often focused on famous landmarks, Hasui frequently chose intimate, serene scenes, revealing lesser-known locations that he believed captured the true essence of Japan.
This approach proved highly successful, and his prints were eagerly collected both in Japan and the United States.

Hasui Kawase (b.18May1883 – d.07Nov1957) was a Japanese artist who was one of 20th century Japan's most important and prolific printmakers. He was a prominent designer of the shin-hanga ('new prints') movement.
After seeing an exhibition of Shinsui Itō's Eight Views of Lake Biwa, Hasui approached Shinsui's publisher Shōzaburō Watanabe, who had him design 3 experimental prints that Watanabe published in August 1918.
The series Twelve Scenes of Tokyo, Eight Views of the Southeast, and the first Souvenirs of Travel of 16 prints followed in 1919, each issued 2 prints at a time.

www.sieboldhuis.org/en/exhib/kawase-hasui.-capturing-the-soul-of-japan
en.wikipedia.org:_Hasui_Kawase

From 02Nov2025 - 01Mar2026, De Roode Tooren (museum @Doesburg) will dedicate a special exhibition to the Doesburg city draftsman Derk Jan van Elten.
Extensive research over the past few years has led to the tracing of several of Van Elten's works.
Almost twenty of these will be on display at the exhibition, some of which come from De Roode Tooren's own collection.

Derk Jan van Elten (June 24, 1750, Doesburg - January 28, 1807, Doesburg) was born as the son of Nicolaas van Elten and Johanna Smit.
He married Helena Theodora van Zadelhof (1757-1829) in 1786 and worked his entire life in Doesburg. Van Elten was buried in 1807 in the Grote or Martinikerk.
Both Derk Jan and his father Nicolaas are listed as painters and glaziers.

In 1805, following the painting 'The Fire at the City Windmill' (1804), he was appointed city drawing master by the Magistrate of Doesburg.

deroodetooren.nl/expositie/derk-jan-van-elten (NL)

For lovers of enchanting atmospheres and magical winter evenings: Castle Town Illuminated 's-Heerenberg returns in 2026!
On (this) Saturday, January 24th and Sunday, January 25th, 2026, the historic town of ‘s-Heerenberg will once again be transformed into a fairytale-like setting, with sparkling lights, cozy spots, and special experiences.

This year, the event will be entirely dedicated to 'the history of Bergh.'
During these special evenings, the rich history of the town and its surroundings comes to life in a dazzling display of lights.
Walk through centuries-old stories unfolding in the streets, experience how buildings reveal their secrets, and be enchanted by the grandeur of Castle Huis Bergh, the shining centerpiece of this unique spectacle.

Witte wieven (regional dialect for "white women") also: witte juffers, joffers, jomfers, widde juffers, juvvers, wiefkes, olde witten, guede holden or telewitten) are folkloric beings.
It is the name for female figures that appear in legends and are sometimes benevolent, sometimes malevolent!

Mist patches or fog banks are also called 'white ladies' in the north and east of the Netherlands.
' White ladies' / 'Witte Wieven' are often associated with witches or ghosts.
These white ladies have many similarities with the Irish sídhe, the Celtic-Irish banshee, and the Spanish-Mexican 'woman in white': la Llorona.
Connections are also made to marsh women, fairies, or elves. The word elf occurs throughout the Germanic languages and originally seems to have meant 'white being'!

nl.wikipedia.org:_Witte_wieven (NL)
www.kasteelstadverlicht.nl/
More on Flickr.com

Foam presents Witnessing Life, a solo exhibition by Co Rentmeester (1936), one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.
As a pioneer in both photojournalism and commercial photography, Rentmeester has shaped our collective visual memory with iconic images, including the famous Jumpman photo of Michael Jordan, which was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential images of all time.
Also The Gunner is iconic, imo, and the many LIFE magazine covers.

Jacobus Willem Rentmeester (b.28Feb1936 -), nicknamed "Co" or "Ko", was a Dutch rower (1960 Summer Olympics in Rome ). He later became a famous photojournalist and covered the Vietnam War (among others, e.g. the Watts Riots in Los Angeles).

In early 1961, Rentmeester moved to the United States and studied photography at the Art Center College in Los Angeles.
After receiving his Bachelor of Arts, Rentmeester initially started his career as a freelance photographer in 1965 for Life Magazine. A short time later, he joined the LIFE Staff from April 1966 thru 1972, when LIFE Magazine folded.
After Rentmeester was wounded by a Vietcong sniper near Saigon, he returned to the U.S. in 1972.
His pictures from a trip through Indonesia were shown in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and Asia House in New York.
In the following years, Rentmeester worked for numerous major publications as a photojournalist and as an advertising photographer.

www.foam.org/events/co-rentmeester
en.wikipedia.org:_Co_Rentmeester

The Ice Sculpture Festival 2026.
Step into a world where you stroll among gigantic sculptures made of ice and snow, each carved with incredible detail by the finest artists. A place where fantasy, creativity, and wonder come together in a magical winter experience.
From December 13, 2025 to March 8, 2026, the Dutch Ice Sculpture Festival will once again open its doors in Biddinghuizen. Forty-five international top artists will transform over 300.000 kilos of ice and 275.000 kilos of snow into a breathtaking world you can experience for just one winter.
This year’s theme is Let’s Go to the Movies: Ice Sculptures from the Silver Screen.
The festival is entirely dedicated to iconic films... See if you recognize them all.
Sail aboard the Titanic, disappear into Alice’s Wonderland, escape traps and dangers with Indiana Jones, swim with the sharks from Jaws, or dance through the streets of Pulp Fiction.
It was (again) a great visit, we admired the art on this icy movie set!

https://ijsbeelden.nl/en/