Prinsengracht Canal

This is a view along the Prinsengracht canal or Princes Canal with the Westerkerk (Amsterdam's tallest church) seen in the background and on the left one of the buildings is the famous Ann Frank House. Many of the buildings along the canal were built during the Dutch Golden Age, a period spanning the 17th century when Dutch trade, science, military and art where the most acclaimed in the world. This canal is the fourth and longest of the canals in Amsterdam and is named after the Prince of Orange.

Turn To Clear Vision

This classic viewing binocular was shot at Seaport, East River, New York just close to the Brooklyn Bridge. This was a 3 bracket HDR shot post processed in HDR Efex Pro and then Silver Efex Pro 2.

Ronde Lutherse Kerk

This lovely building can be seen on Singel, Amsterdam and provided a good opportunity to use Silver Efex Pro 2 to post-process the image into an antuique style photo. 

The church was designed by Adriaan Dortsman (ca. 1636-1682) and was opened in 1671. The organ was built by J Batz in 1830 and it was restored in 1983 by Flentrop Orgelbouw. In 1882 it was rebuilt after a fire. In 1935 the Lutherans left the building and it became a concert hall.

In 1975 a tunnel was built by the neighboring Sonesta Hotel, today called the Renaissance Amsterdam Hotel, for its own access. The hotel rents the church from the Lutheran church which is still the owner today. In 1983 the church was closed for a long period of restoration, but ten years later in 1993 the dome burned again. The church was again restored.

Today curious visitors and potential customers may enquire at the Renaissance hotel for an opportunity to view the church, which is not open for the public. A security guard must accompany visitors through the underground tunnel to the church where the ground floor of the consistory has been converted to bathrooms and the upper floor to a meeting room. Of the main hall, the impressive columns, galeries, organ and pulpit can still be seen.

Red Phone Box

These classic old red phone boxes can still be seen in a few locations and this one was photographed in the small village of Plockton in north west of Scotland. This image was post-processed using Silver Efex Pro 2 from Nik Software and the red colour of the phone box recovered back to create impact.

High & Dry

This is the small remote village of Toscaig in on the west coast of Scotland on the Applecross peninsula and this bright blue boat stood out having been left high and dry at low tide. This image was post processed in Nik Software's HDR EfexPro 2 and Silver Efex 2 applications.

Flatiron Building

Another iconic building in New York is the Flatiron Building which at it's time of completion in 1902, was one of the the tallest building in New York and is regarded as one of the groundbreaking skyscrapers. It is situated on a triangular block at the intersection of 5th Avenue, Broadway and East 22nd Street. The building is a functional office building although I believe there are still some individual units being utilised as apartments. The building is also known popularly as being depicted as the headquarters for the Daily Bugle where Peter Parker worked as a freelance photographer in the popular Spiderman movies.

KKB Shophouse Black & White

This is a typical Chinese shophouse in Kuala Kubu Baru. Kuala Kubu Bharu (alternately known as Kuala Kubu Baru, Kuala Kubu Bahru or Kuala Kubu Baharu; commonly referred to as KKB), is a town in Hulu Selangor district, Selangor, Malaysia. It was built after the town of Kuala Kubu was destroyed in a flood in 1883. Kuala Kubu Bharu is located on top of a hill. It is the district capital of Hulu Selangor.

This Chinese shophouse belongs to Lim Guan Joo and going by the sign below the name deals with ginseng and most likely other herbal remedies.

Black & White Batak House

This is another shot I took of a Batak house on the shores of Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. A previous shot of another house was shown in an earlier blog. For this image I post-processed to black and white using Silver Efex Pro 2 and this really brings out a lot of the details and tones of the old wooden building and adds a historical look to the finished image.