When traveling to Holland, you notice a lot of beautiful landscapes, endless tulip fields, and scenic views on windmills. But the towns are as exciting and pretty as the nature surrounding them. The following pictures were shot in Leiden, Gouda, Woerden, and Delft.
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.
Having lived in Lisbon, Portugal, for a few months, I still missed out on some things. Revisiting the city in October this year allowed me to catch up on these experiences. High on my bucket list was a visit to the ruins of the Convento Di Carmo, a former Catholic convent destroyed in the infamous earthquake of 1755, leaving it in a state of decay for the following centuries. Today, it’s open for visitors and offers a fascinating perspective on Gothic architecture and evanescence.
This is the last and final part of my series about traveling to Bosnia and Hercegovina in the heart of the Balkans. It is an exciting and still conflicted country; the remnants of the wars can still be seen, and Bosnia remains divided. At the same time, it is a beautiful country with stunning nature and a rich history full of helpful and friendly people. And it is (for now) a relatively cheap travel destination, very much recommendable to backpackers. The pictures below were shot in Mostar and Sarajevo.
This is the second series about my revisit of the capital of Portugal, Lisboa in October 2017. You’ll find the introduction right here.
During a winter a few years ago, I had the privilege of living in Lisboa (Lisbon), Portugal. Working a full-time job, I had the weekends off to discover the city, trying to capture the colors and the spirit of Lisboa on camera. I published the results on this website between late 2014 and early 2015. You’ll find a collection of the series right here. My piece about Azulejos, the traditional craft of manufacturing ceramic tiles, is still one of the most clicked articles on this website.
So two months ago, I got to return to the beautiful capital of Portugal again for a few days, and I fell in love again. As I used to do, I took my camera bag. I roamed freely around the city again, revisiting parts of the town I already knew and discovering new places like the Convento di Carmo, an abandoned church I hadn’t been to before. Of course, you never take the same shot twice; there is always a new angle, perspective, and, in this case, a new camera and lenses.
It felt like a direct continuation of what I had done a few years before like I would never have been away. Also, the weather was perfect for photography in these last days of Iberian summer. I’ve spent some time curating the new shots and making them into a couple of new series, which I will release little by little during the following months.
Michael Hoffman Photography 