Waruno Mahdi

In Leiden I tried to capture on photo
la lumière hollandaise.

During a short stay in the Hague, the Netherlands, in April 2010 I visited the neighboring town of Leiden three times, to meet some friends, and to browse for literature I needed in the libraries. At the beginning of my stay, I happened to see a TV program on Dutch landscape painting with particular attention on the unique light effects. The reason for this seems to have been the wide water surfaces in the country, leading to a high humidity that introduced a certain degree of mild haze.

      I was immediately reminded of this when in Leiden I walked over the drawbridge shown on the right, on my way from the railway station to the university. I simply had to make photographs of the Galgewater, that is the waterway immediately to the right (east) of that bridge.

(I was there again in August, see below) 		 
 
The drawbridge near the windmill "de Put",
from which I made the following photos
 
 
 
 

I made the pictures on different days, i.e. under variant weather conditions.

The photos were further- more shot at different times of the day, so that the sun- light fell from different angles.

 
 
 
 
 

Afternoon, April 19,  2010

Late morning, April 22,  2010

Around noon, April 23,  2010

Just by chance, the (later-built) drawbridge from which I made the photos was just next to the place where the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn had been born (see below).

 
View from Rembrandt notice onto the windmill across the water:

 
 
 
 
Below: relevant detail of the map of Leiden 		View along the alley onto the drawbridge. On the right is a later-built building with a plaque (indicated by a red arrow) informing that this was where Rembrandt had been born:
Close-up view of the plaque:
Close-up of the English part of the notice text on the left:
 
 
 
 

I happened to be in the Netherlands another time August the 5th till the 11th, and made another picture at the same site.

 
 
 
 

16:15, August 6,  2010
 

Passing the site again some days later (09:45 on Aug. 10, to be exact) I saw this floating excavator at work, dredging silt from the bottom of the canal. So I took some more pictures.


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