MyDay 014 - MemoWood

MyDay 014

A new DutchCraftwork design: the MemoWood.
An handy organizer for all your notes, bills, cards and photographs.

The MemoWood is an natural and eco friendly product. Made of recycled wood.
Solid and a great friend on every desk!

MyDay 013 - Ciudad Juarez

MyDay 013

In 2006 I participated in an exhibition in Durango, Mexico.
The exhibition was called The Death of Juarez II 2005.

It is now 2009 and Juarez is still an extremely dangerous place for women.

Since 1993, women and girls have been murdered and remain missing in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico. Most victims are slender, dark-haired girls between 14 and 18 years old who work in one of the numerous u.s.-owned maguiladora factories. Many are killed on their way to and from work. Their bodies have been found - sometimes with their blue factory issued aprons on - dumped in the desert or next to the roads leading to the unlit squatter camps ringing the city. In some cases, the victims are mutilated and horrilby disfigured. Objects have been stuffed into their vaginas or anuses and in some cases their left breasts have been hacked off. Many are strangled, then stabbed repeatedly. Others were found with their hands tied behind their backs. Some have their panties removed, even if they are still fully dressed.

More info:
Bordertown - a movie directed by Gregory Nava.
Ciudad Juarez

Thank you Ladies

Treasuries

I want to thank Evihan, Missminoes, ChromaSmear and Alatvian for featuring my work in the beautiful treasuries they made!

MyDay 012

MyDay 012
It wasn't a great day today.

Nothing serious happened but time sort of slipped thou my finger while I slowly lost control over the day. Around 15.30 I decided that I could do two things. One: lying down in the hammock in the garden. Two: preparing some stock photographs.

I choose the last possibility as I was sort of afraid to fall asleep and wake up around six and then having to move my body to the kitchen to cook dinner. Not very appealing... so with a handful of jellybeans spread out in front of my keyboard, I opened my photography map on the PC and looked for the Curacao images.

The funny thing with preparing travel images is that you sort of jump into the scene and revisit the place again. So after about ten minutes I was back in Curacao.
Did some pictures of the Quarantine Building near Spaanse Water, a shot of Boca Pistol with splashing waves on the coral rocks, two kids in a fishing boat near Saint Michel, an image of a old sport complex just outside Willemstad and this one of the oil refinery and the Jewish cemetery.

A weird place for a cemetery. I wonder who ever choose this location.
I also made sound recordings. The noice of flames from the pipes combined with the smell of an oil plant under tropical conditions.

For all the dead, rest in peace...

One and a half hour later, I had finished nine images and felt much better.

MyDay - 011

MyDay - 011

The cascade of Santa Maria Tzeja, a tiny village in the jungle of Guatemala in Central America.

I lived here for a while, in the late 1970’s. This cascade is where we went after a hard day of work on the field, to cool off and let the water massage our backs.

In the village lived about 80 families. They were Mayan Indians.
You could not get here by car. We were flown in from El Quiche and had to walk another 2 to 3 hours to arrive to the village. Our luggage on horses and on our backs.

I was there to assist in a agricultural project. We had to test different crops like soya and all kinds of beans and see how they would do under this tropical climate in highland jungle.

There was no western luxury at all, no stove, no refrigerator and no washing machine. Next to this cascade on the photograph the Indian women taught me how to wash clothes. On the stones in the river. And on the route to the cascade was also the well where we had to get our daily drinking water. A walk of about 10 minutes downhill and then back up with a water barrel on my head. I remember my protesting neck muscles in the beginning.

During my stay the political situation was not stable. Things escalated and we had to leave Santa Maria Tzeja all of a sudden.

And the situation did not get better. In the early eighties life turned into a nightmare. The military slaughtered the inhabitants of Santa Maria Tzeja. Some escaped and fled into the jungle, in the direction of the Mexican border where they tried to survive with nothing left like their horrible memories.

Now many years later, those who survived and returned, have been trying to get their life together.

I have not been back to this small jungle village. But I have sweet memories.
My dear Mayan friends, for those still out there, I learned a lot about life from all of you and I hope you are doing well…

MyDay - 010

MyDay 010

Growing old...

MyDay - 009

MyDay 009

Almost every week I drive 60 km up and down to visit my parents.

They are living in Friesland, a province famous for it's cows, cheese and sailboats.

There are a lot of lakes here and during the summertime many tourists will spend their holidays on the water.

I was sixteen when I moved to this part of the country and during that time didn't like it at all.

I used to live near the beach and close to Amsterdam. Moving to the north felt like going to Siberia. And worst of all, they speak their own language in this part of the Netherlands. It is an authentic language, called Fries. I would not understand a word...

But as hard as life can be... you get used to everything.

And so did I.

Now, many years later I live again in this northern region of the country. I have been away for a while and lived on different continents, but eventually came back to the north. It is quiet, green, flat and windy here. A good place to live...