Red Cathedral

Yes, I know: I had promised to cover only one carnaval's parade per year. But I have a great excuse: a brandnew camera fell into my lap to experiment with and I needed an event for testing. So no, it was neither the free booze, nor the happy people, nor the smoutebollen that lured me to Hasselt.. those are simply perks of working . Just to be clear: that Sony A9III is a magnificent camera with crazy specs. I will probably consider buying the 2nd or 3rd generation of its Global Shutter sensor technology, but for now it's great, but not needed for what I shoot. Sports + wildlife shooters and everyone who runs into banding effects are the intended targets and they'll enjoy it greatly.  Hasselt carnaval has a very enjoyable parade wth several international participants & loads of confetti. The 2024 parcours had some very long, straight streets.. perfect to test a huge 300mm f2.8-lens. Thes most excillerating was however something tiny & strictly personal: I r...

Every season Pairi Daiza, Le Jardin des Mondes , hosts special events. The festival of lights & carnaval have brought some light to the dark season.. which is probably not a very good thing for the resident animals.. but it was a blessing for us humans fearing the Dark of Winter . .  A photo gallery: The fire show was by Pyronix Productions & the beautiful Venetian carnevale costumes in the Dome are from Regards Vénitiens . Both splendid! The only 2 things I found a missed opportunity during the 3 weeks of Carnevale were: 1. The teams of costumed people were only to be found in the Dome and at the entrance. Please let them roam the entire park and how wonderful would it be to have them in themed costumes from the different regions in the park.  2. Organise a (1) Fully costumed visitors enter for free -day.. or for a reduced price. For us with a season's pass it doesn't change much, but imagine all the great pictures in the gorgeous archtitecture of the ...

Tongeren looks at its best when the entire city is celebrating . Carnaval is on the shortlist of highlight events. So eventhough I was still completely exhausted from the wonderful masked ball Ensor Danst in Alden Biesen the night before, had only slept 4 hours and my aching back was killing me, I hopped.. well rather: crawled .. on my electric step so I would not miss the big carnaval parade in the city center. An image gallery : This year I stayed on the sidelines instead of jumping into the parade and shoot portraits like last year . So that's different. What's also different were the antique Carnaval Giants leading the parade. They had been lost for decades and after being recovered the team from Mario's delicious ice-cream parlor restored them. Kudos to that restauration team! If I'm feeling better & more alive next year, I'll be once again in the middle of the action.. the way I like it. ▷ All photos can be found on/downloaded from my Flickr...

Have you ever been to a carnaval parade?  There are several genres. You've got the stylish & elegant Venetian style parades and there are those where the people take back the right to satire everything they see in the world around them. The best known & biggest ( 105k spectators on Sunday ) carnaval parade in my country is the carnaval in Aalst which happened at the same moment as the one in Tongeren.  But I took my electric step and vroomed to the eldest city in Belgium: Atuatuca Tungrorum ( founded 7 BC ) and I enjoyed myself. . Just like many other regions, Limburg has a rich carnaval history and you could really see the people yearn for this parade. The 2019 canaraval got cancelled last minute due to a storm. 2020-21 Had a pandemic. Apparently there was a tiny last-minute carnaval parade in 2022.. yet I seem to have missed it.. and not just me. Hence the recently invented Dutch word knaldrang was almost tangible in the air: people wanted to celebrate,...

My first event coverage after a long recovery from surgery. C19 had made most of the local carnaval parades impossible these last years and earlier this month a car crashed into a carnaval group killing 6 and hurting dozens more. But you can't destroy  the true carnaval spirit that lives in the smaller cities & rural villages of Europe. In the past decennia I've covered carnaval parades in the Le Nord of France, in Malta, in Italy and last weekend: at 12km from my home, in a tiny town in the middle of fields and meadows called Veldwezelt . And they know how to celebrate.. The pictures are HERE, on flickr A one minute video is HERE, on Clapper Some samples?  ;   . . More pictures are on Flickr

Do you enjoy the baroque Venetian carnival costumes of the " Carnevale di Venezia "? The costuming group " Regards Vénitiens " travels every year from Namur to Venice to showcase their own costumes. But since these costumes are too much work to stay in the closet an entire year, they make it a habit to have parades, photo walks and photoshoots troughout the year. Last weekend they came to visit Bruges, the city that was named " The Venice of the North " in the Middle-Ages. And they were besieged by a legion of photographers & photoclubs. Who can blame them: it have been 2 strange years for events & shoots. For me it was the 1st event-test for the new Sony A7IV There are 3 short videos on Clapper: Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 And a load of pictures on Flickr .  Some Samples: . .