Overview of 2011
Happy new year!
The last year was a year filled with different experiences. The year started with Adrienne leaving for an internship at Philips Hong Kong for almost five months. During that time I went to Orlando Florida for a conference followed by a month long visit to Bremen Germany at Fraunhofer MEVIS, my employer. Towards the end of Adrienne’s stay in Hong Kong I went to visit her there, and we went for a trip around Malaysia together.
After Adrienne came back from Hong Kong I left for a survival trip in Kloten, Sweden with Arjen and his brother in law. I finished my PADI open water course in July in Zeeland and a few weeks after that me and Adrienne went together with Thorsten on a diving trip in Egypt, I completed my PADI advanced open water course there and saw an amazing underwater world. Right after that trip we found out that Adrienne was pregnant!
Somewhat later I spent a weekend in the Ardennes in Belgium with my colleagues. Adrienne and me moved to ‘s-Hertogenbosch in September and in the middle of the mess I had to go to Toronto for another conference and I visited the Niagara falls. In November I went to Chicago to present my research at the RSNA conference, the biggest conference in the world. And as you could have read in the previous post on my blog, we ended the year with a trip to the enchanting Marrakech, Morocco.
It has been an incredible year, with many travels and experiences. For sure even bigger adventures are ahead of us, with Adrienne due in the beginning of April, I am sure it will be a year with even greater adventures… I’ll keep you updated!
The Streets of Marrakech
Adrienne and me decided we would like to go on one last trip before the end of the year. We wanted to go to a place where the culture was different, the weather was good and the flight wouldn’t be too long. That mixed with a limited number of airplane tickets still available brought us to Marrakech Morocco.
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Neda & Lotte
Some weeks ago Neda invited me over to Den Haag to take pictures of her and her friend Lotte who brought a few special necklaces made by her mom. The idea was to take pictures outside, but the weather wasn’t cooperating so we ended up taking some shots inside. I only used a single off camera speedlight flash and an umbrella. The shots turned out quite alright for such a limited setup.
Chicago
To present our research work, me and a number of our group members went to RSNA, the biggest radiology conference in the world, in Chicago. It was my first time in Chicago and I enjoyed my time there a lot. It’s a big city with many things to see and do. One of the big tourist attractions is of course the Cloud Gate at Millennium park; a huge shiny metal bean.
I bought a Sony NEX 5n there for Adrienne and I must say that I am impressed with this little camera. So much so that I began to doubt if the Leica M9 would still make sense. The NEX 5n has fast and accurate autofocus, a great LCD screen, versatile stabilized lenses, a relatively large 1.5 crop factor sensor, great high ISO performance, excellent exposure metering, and is even smaller than the M9. I took pictures with both camera’s in Chicago.
Only when I was home and opened the images on my computer the difference in picture quality between the Leica and the Sony became evident. I still like the look of the Leica pictures better, they somehow have a bit more atmosphere to them, but I love the NEX 5n for quick and simple shooting.
I ordered a converter to use my Leica lenses on the Sony camera, so I am really curious to see what that will bring.
Model Shoot with Neda
Last Tuesday we had another model shoot with a few members from my photography club. Neda offered to model for us. This time I used my Leica M9 for the pictures. I just bought a few month old 90 mm Summarit lens from Marktplaats and I wanted to test it out. I like the images, they are sharp and the colors are good. The Summarit line of Leica is the most affordable line of lenses, but the quality is still great. For only a few shots I used my forty year old Leica Summicron 50 mm. When I saw the pictures on the camera’s LCD screen I was disappointed with the amount of flare from the lens caused by the light behind Neda. But when I opened the pictures on my computer I was very surprised to see that the pictures had a special glow to them. The first of these four images was shot with this lens and it is my favorite for sure.
Walking around in my new city
Yesterday I went for a walk with Pieter and Clarisa around ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Me and Adrienne moved there some weeks ago and up to now I didn’t really find the time to go for a stroll. It’s a nice place with a lot more character than Eindhoven.
Model Shoot
Together with a few members of my photography club, we organized a monthly model shoot. Nata and Irene agreed to model for me. Here you can see the results.
Niagara Falls
In conjunction with the MICCAI conference in Toronto Hakim organized a trip to the Niagara Falls. Last time I was there it was bad weather, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give it another try. Little did I know that the weather would be even worse this time. Combine being on a boat down into the horse shoe of the waterfall, with a cloudy rainy day and gray is what you will get.
DIAG Ardennes weekend
Last weekend our lab organized an “Ardennes weekend”. We went with almost the entire group to an excessively luxurious house in the Ardennes in Belgium. It was an amazing place and everybody had a great time.
Lichtstad ’51 Portrait Workgroup Photo shoot
Today, a small portrait workgroup that I joined, organized a photo shoot. I asked Neda, Lena and Nata to model for us. I started out taking pictures with the Canon 1Ds Mark III (the first two images in the gallery), but I soon traded it in for my Leica. For some reason I have started to like the kind of ‘imperfect’ look of the Leica over the clean Canon pictures.
