Pic(k) of the week 39: Amsterdam Street Art

After all of the Aviation photography of the last few weeks, it is probably time to blog about some of my other photography facets... 

 But before we continue, this the 300 post on the Bjorn Moerman PHOTOGRAPHY blog! Thank you to all the ones that are still here since June 2009 and welcome to all the new readers. The blog readers community has been steadily growing and we hope to keep on doing so for the future. Thank you!

As a travel photographer, I'm always on the go. During my last visit to Amsterdam earlier this month, I was reminded how this city can be summarised in just a few words; "open minded, laid back, tolerant, liberal". 

Beside being open to prostitution and soft drugs, the city is also very open towards graffiti artists! While graffiti is often seen as vandalism and is penalised by law in other cities, the Amsterdam municipality has taken a very different approach which seem to work just fine... They are trying to decriminalise the activity by creating legal opportunities and places to paint and make it into "Street Art".

One example of this was taken in the Spuistraat, where I made the collage of 4 images below;

2013 Pic(k) of the week 39: Amsterdam Street Art

The most interesting graffiti painters are given the status of "artists", sometime even with commissions to paint. Over the last decennia, galleries have started trading in graffiti art and some pieces have been bought by modern art collectors.

I really like the idea of expressing one's vision and ideas by spraying paint on something different than a traditional canvas. As long as it's legal of course!

Image details:
Fujifilm X-E1 (Sexy-1) with Fujinon 18-55
ISO 1600, f6.4, focal lengths between 18 and 24mm, varying shutter speeds
RAW development in Lightroom 5.2
4 image collage made using the Print module in Lightroom 5.2

For the ones using Lightroom, be sure to download the latest 5.2. update by clicking "Check for updates" in the LR menu.

Remember, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up" - Pablo Picasso

BJORN



Comments

Post a Comment