The Dutch Files

It’s contest time again! I decided to celebrate the “birth” of my new photoblog DutchBitch View (The DutchBitch Photoblog) with a no shit real photocontest!

The theme of the photocontest will be

“Lather * Rinse * Repeat”

Anyone and everyone can enter. Yes, you lurkers, who never comment, you can enter as well. I assume everyone of you owns a photocamera and/or a mobile with built-in camera, can take a picture and has some level of imagination, so I expect tons of entries! Seriously!

You can enter the contest by sending me a photo on this theme. The interpretation of the theme will be left to your imagination, obviously! And very important: NO Photoshopping allowed! This way the photoshopically-challenged have a shot at winning too. Entries don’t need to be professional level pictures. It’s all about the interpretation of the theme, really.

Obviously I won’t be judging the contest myself to avoid any whiff of nepotism. So I have invited 3 fellow bloggers to judge the contest.

Judge 1: The infamous Otilius, New Yahk photoblogger
Judge 2: Penelope, crazy Chardonnay Bitch from the UK
Judge 3: Rainy Pete, unbalanced Canadian blogger extraordinaire

Wow! How an international judging panel!!! Don’t be intimidated by them, please. I hear from reliable sources they can all be bribed and they take all major creditcards and PayPa payments.

Deadline: Tuesday June 10, 2008
Entry submission: Send in your entries to thedutchfiles@gmail.com

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What? ‘Scuse me? Prizes? Oh… You want to hear about the prizes? It’s not sufficient if I tell you prizes will be worthwhile? Huh? Well, ok, I guess I owe you that much.

First Prize:

A custom design by Delicious Design Studio!

Second Prize:

A(n upgrade to a) FlickR PRO account!

Third Prize:

a $20 Amazon gift certificate!

So go put your glad rags on gear up those cams and get clickin’!!! I would love to get tons of entries for this competition and this is one that I am sure everyone can do! And spreaaaaaad dah word!!! Don’t let me down!!!

Oh and BTW: I am considering posting all entries at the photoblog, so ya know… it will all go public… Just sayin…

I can be a total tease… You can ask The Guy… Seriously! Ok, so that’s not the kinda tease I wanted to tell you about… Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am getting to it, to what I wanted to tell you… Sheesh!

This one, this post you are reading, is meant to be a teaseR. Cuz ya know… now that the contest prizes of the last contest at The Dutch Files have finally all arrived at the winners (see HERE and HERE for reference) I figured it was time for A NEW CONTEST!!!

Details will be up on May 27, so next Tuesday…

Can’t tell you about all of it yet as I am still working on some of it, most importantly the kick ass prizes.

One thing I will tell you is that it will be a photocontest… Something I think all of you can do. No extensive photoshopping allowed, so the photoshopically-challenged amongst you can enter too. Yeah, I do think about you too. I am one of you!

So watch this space!!!

Oh, and don’t forget about visiting Mah Bitch O’ Tha Week. She’s up there in the far right hand sidebar, in the Dutch A Pimpin’ quarters.

So I got kinda bored with stuff lately and felt that I needed to have something extra to do. I don’t know why as my life is excrutiatingly busy at times, but I needed something new in the leisure side of life, I guess…

I find myself driving round or walking round outside or even while moving thru my appartement, thinking about how certain things I see would make such a good photograph. Especially on busy days when my head is filled with office stuff or other things, I fórce myself to look úp and see what is around me. Cuz I tend to retreat “inside” my head if I don’t when I am busy or stressed. And looking around me is a good “therapy” to realize that there is more to life than just work and shitty problems.

I take a lot of pictures, good ones, bad ones, some of which end up at my FlickR account. I just want to do more with photography than I am doing now. I have however no time nor money to do a course or whatever, and right now that’s not what I am looking for anyway. Not yet.

I’ve decided for now to take a different route. I’ve set up a photoblog: DutchBitch View (The DutchBitch Photoblog). I downloaded a special photoblog theme, and added the Yet Another Photoblog plugin, to get rid of all the normal blog clutter and put in some special photoblog features. I can tell ya: that’s opened up a whole new world of theme tweaking to me! Whew. I’ve added a “Photoblog” tab in this blog which will take you there if you click the blog template at the Photoblog-page.

For now I’ve decided to join in with the Photo Friday challenges to at least have something to focus on for my photograps. Also that will make me post a photo at least once a week, and who knows, once I get the hang of it, I might even post more than once a week. I have a strong preference for black and white photography, so I will be focussing on that for now.

And just for the record: I am not at all a professional photographer, nor do I have professional “material”. I am not even close to a very dedicated amateur. This photoblog is for me, and anyone who wants to take a look is obviously welcome to do so. Just don’t get on my case about my pics not being professional. They’re not meant to be… They’re what I like and what I know, and right now that’s good enough for me…

Yesterday I went to see the annual Flower Parade. It’s route passes by about 50 m from my frontdoor, so it’s pretty relaxed going there. I am not too big on watching the Flower Parade myself. I’ve lived along the route ever since I was 4 and we all know what happens to that stuff that your parents máke you do year after year: once you venture out on your own that stuff usually takes a backseat. So this too.

However, we have several foreign PhD students at the department and the other day I figured that it might be nice to invite them over to come see the Flower Parade with me and The Kid. So I did. Unfortunately La Bra-Dutch couldn’t make it. She is having 2 Brazilian friends over and they preferred going to Brugge (Belgium) over the weekend, but 3 others could and were very enthusiastic. So I had one Romanian (yes, Fab) male PhD student and 2 female PhD students from Iran and Germany come over yesterday. As the town is closed off about an hour before start of the parade they came over early and I made them a nice lunch. Then we went outside in the bright and sunny Spring weather (a first this year!) and watched the parade for 1.5 hour and afterwards we went back to my place for drinks.

I like showing Dutch shit to foreign friends (yes, babe, get your hot sexy ass over here soon!) and so I had a really nice time. I’ve got a somewhat seen it-done it-been there feel about many Dutch sights, but I LUV being a tourguide and showing friends a good time. Some of the Flower Parade pics are in the slideshow below. The rest of it is on my FlickR account. Just click the badge in the far right sidebar and it will take you there!

That was a great first day of my week off!

While driving back in the early evening, after having dinner at the Sis on Sunday, I drove past this. Even after living in this area most of my life, I can not get enough of these views… Tulips are starting to bloom and in the fading spring sun, it looks so awesome and serene…

[click to enlarge]

[click to enlarge]