I am not doing night photography very often – cause it’s not easy to accomplish. But Amsterdam inspires in the nighttime as in daylight. It is just an incredible city with great views on the channels and on the distinct architecture. Amsterdam is also a town that never sleeps, much like New York, and although the Dutch are very liberal regarding drugs and prostitution, it never feels dangerous or unsafe to walk around during the night.
Winters are not precisely what they used to be in Austria, the climate change doesn’t stop at the Alps, unfortunately. As a kid I remember a lot of snow in Vienna, nowadays we don’t see barely any white in the cold season. But of course, Austria is more than just Vienna, and the conditions largely depend on altitude and location. The following pictures were shot mainly in Western Austria, Tyrol, and Vorarlberg in December.
Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities in Europe. It’s a town I return to as often as I can. I love the open-minded atmosphere and the friendly people, and I love how there are no curtains in front of the windows because you simply don’t need to hide things away. Life happens on the streets, of course, and a lot of it buzzes around. Bicycles are everywhere, and it doesn’t matter if it’s an older person, a father with his kids, or just somebody on her way to work; everybody seems to ride their bikes with great joy, passing by the many channels of Amsterdam while kicking the pedals.
Usually, I don’t use as much processing, but looking at my pictures from Cracow last year, I felt inspired to work on them a bit. Especially interesting for me were the red colors of the city’s historic buildings, and I searched for a way to bring them more to the front while giving the pictures a more classic black-and-white look at the same time. Three of them (pictures 1, 3, 4) show the Wawel, the former castle hill of the Polish kings, and an important national monument of the country.
Michael Hoffman Photography 