This is one of my all-time favourite Van Gogh paintings. Do you know the story behind it? Well, on January 31, 1890, Theo (Vincent’s brother) wrote to Vincent to tell him about the birth of his son whom they named Vincent Willem. In response to this wonderful news, Vincent, who was very close to his brother, got out his paint brushes and painted these blossoming branches – his favourite subject to paint. He sent it to his brother and sister-in-law, and they put it in pride of place above the piano.

On January 31, 2009, I finally bought myself the Dutch museum pass so that I can visit this painting anytime I want for the whole year to come. It is one of the best birthday presents I’ve bought myself to date.

xx

PS There is a fabulous exhibition starting at the Van Gogh museum this Friday February 13 to June 7, in collaboration with the MoMA in New York. It’s called Van Gogh and the colours of the night. It will be the first exhibition to be devoted to Van Gogh’s representations of the evening and night. I can’t wait to check it out!

PPS And yes of course I am also excited to visit all the museums with my new pass! And I promise to report back here after each exploration.

image source from here and here.

…or Madrid. Can you tell I’m a little envious about everyone else’s snow? Well, I suppose I can find contentment with the fact the birds in my canal can walk on water…

PS Vic even got a snow day off work. Come on Amsterdam, don’t let me down.

Well this is the last of the ‘amsterdam at christmas time’ series of photos. Have you been enjoying them? I do hope so. I hope they have ignited some festive cheer, and that no matter where you are in the world, and no matter what is going on in your life, that you have been able to take some quiet moments to yourself and enjoy this series of photographs.

I have chosen not to poladroid the images in this post, even though I was tempted, I find them much more engaging in original format – the blacks are as black as the night sky has been lately, and the moon and lights … well, you tell me.

So, shall we get to it then? I’ll meet you at museumplein. Here, as you see above, the moon is full and the christmas tree in front of the rijks museum is shimmering. We can see that perhaps Damien Hirst’s diamond encrusted skull is inside the museum as the haunting image of it hangs on the musuem’s facade. Opposite us in the square is the concert gebouw hall as you see below…

Have you got your woollens on? Make sure your feet, hands, neck and head are well covered because I assure you, it’s chilly out there. I have a cup of warm spiced wine ready for you to take on our little wander. And would you like a song? here’s one that I adore and which I think is perfectly fitting for our little wander – every word she sings is how I fill about this beautiful city…

Arm in arm we shall wander the cobblestoned walkways of old Amsterdam together, and breathe in the sparkling scenery… enjoy, mes chers amis…

I may be a little addicted to polardroid. as are each of you by the sounds of it! and anyway, how could i resist posting this one to get us all in the festive mood?! This is a costume shop here in Amsterdam, and I just adore their festive window display!

Also I’ll take this opp to answer your questions in the previous post’s comments:

1. The text that I add is handwritten by me with my pen tablet (like I draw harriet and doodles) – I write on the image in photoshop (if you don’t have a pen tablet you can always write on it in a text font – it would look great too!).

2. the guy who created this lovely piece of equipment wanted to mimic the real polaroid as much as possible so he purposely added the effect of the ‘cartridge’ running out after taking 10 shots – a notice will come up on your screen that says something like “the cartridge has run out, please quit and relaunch” – so all you have to do is quit the poladroid and then click on the poladroid icon in your dock et voilà, it pops up again and you can poladroid away. cool huh?

3. I’m going to check out all your fab poladroids soon! I can’t wait!

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Now I have to get cracking on some super fab posts for you all… today is my last day to post for the next coming days – can you guess why??

The title of this post is not a misprint… did you catch it? Yes, I said ‘polaDROID‘ as opposed to ‘polaROID’. And what is polaDROID? It is the COOLEST THING EVER!! The suspense of telling you about this little gadget has been killing me all week. I wanted to tell you straight away but decided to play with my amsterdam wandering photos in poladroid-style first to see how it works and to see if I like it enough to share it all with you. And the answer is YES I DO. Take a look at the above image I took with my canon digital camera on a wander along the prinsengracht, and then take a look at the one below…

What do you think? I’m in love with it! I added the writing like a real polaroid. I do still like digital and original film of course! but I love having this option – I’ve been playing with it all week. And when you install this little machine it mimics the sound of a polaroid, and spits out your picture and you have to wait for it to develop – you can even shake it to speed up the developing process! It is so much fun.

SO how do you do it? Well thus far this FREE little piece of equipment is only available on macs (pc users will have to wait as apparently the man who invented this is currently working on a version for you too). Although it is free I do highly recommend you donate, even a dollar, as the guy deserves every penny! Anyway, you can download it here, just follow the instructions. and have fun! You will be poladroiding to your hearts content…

…another little bit of magic is that you can develop the photos at different stages so you can get different exposures. How cool is that? If you download it and use it let me know, I’d love to see your results.

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Next Up: our final amsterdam wander in the very dark of night. without the aid of poladroid this time. you will definately need your warm woolies for this wander!