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...

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...

This morning's goal was to upload the 1st images from the MOD cosplay event I visited yesterday.. yet suddenly I realised that I had completely forgotten to share some pictures from the O-Parade earlier this month. Blame it on work ( tradefairs , Pairi Daiza photowalks , videoclips , webinars , shoots ,.. life is back to normal and I need to get used to it again )! Before I always thought the O-Parade in Genk and the Zinneke Parade in Brussels were about the same age. A big mistake from my side. Zinneke started in 2000, and the O-parade is apparantly already 67 years "Old".. Maybe that's what the "O" stands for? Luckily the acts, the costumes and the massive public interest make it feel everything except old. Going from steampunk & giant balloon art, over the mesmerizing Queens of May and inspiration to support our bees, butterflies and flowers, to scifi-imagery reminding me of Star Wars and Mad Max. . I think next year I won't be planning any...

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

Honestly: I have never seen so many poppies in the fields as this June.  Evidently there is a perfectly scientific explanation for it ( poppies are more resistant than other wild flowers and so they thrive while the other flowers have perished during the hot summers of the last years ) On a strictly artistic level I just had to make some poppy shots. This is the first, more will follow on Flickr .   You saw this image first on Instagram

  Tumuli are Gallo-Roman burial mounts and in my region there are plenty to find ( even 2 in my own village ).  In this article on Wikipedia you find a map and you can see how concentrated they are. You should overlay this map with a map of the major Roman roads through the empire and the important regional cities of the era (1st till 3rd century). These tumuli are not only great landmarks to photograph, they are also excellent hiking targets. But please do show some respect, you wouldn't want screaming children climbing on top of your tomb. And littering in the landscape should be a mortal sin everywhere. More images from Haspengouw

You can't imagine how many chapels are hidden in Haspengouw / Hesbaye. And some are truly special.. This one is called "The floating chapel" and I easily can imagine it combined with a model in a regal fantasy costume featuring a very long gown floating in the wind. As always: more on Flickr

This work of art is one the many touristic highlights of my region and at dusk it truly become magical. Artwork: Reading between the lines Artists: Pieterjan Gijs & Arnaut Van Vaerenberg Borgloon - Haspengouw - Limburg More images are on Flickr