This is one that I like particularly from my series called 'Our current land', depicting as simple and straight as possible the strange and often overlooked beauty of small local transformer houses. Without complaining they do their work day and night and nobody cares about them. I encountered this one not far from home when touring the bicycle on a very dull and misty day and not expecting anything interesting enough to get my camera out of my bag for. I like it because of the limited colour range and because of the colour repetition: brown floor, light grey facade, brown roof, light grey air and mist. Well see for yourself...

This litle bringer of light in the darkness has some memories attached. I found it on a dull October morning, while on a photo outing with Jacobus, former Pbaser, currently at Zenfolio ( http://jacobus.zenfolio.com). We went to the Fochteloërveen in Friesland, one of the very rare peat bog areas on higher ground that are still active. It is a success story for biodiversity and nature conservation policy. However, that morning nature made it quite hard for photogs. Light was scarce and mosquitos where abundant. While diligently trying to focus on this little precious thing, there were three on my forehead and two on my hands. Of course looking back, as always, it was all worth it.

This is the Koppelpoort (1380-1425), through the window of the train rushing by, with some extra frontlight from the snow reflection. I have passed this thousands of times, on the way to work and back homewards. It is especially beautiful in the evening glow, but last year a multistorey building was erected almost in front of it, blocking the late evening sun. Ironically that building houses the organisation managing the built cultural heritage of the Netherlands. The snow offered a rare chance to have some frontlight on the building in the morning.

After some interesting strolling through outskirts of Leipzig and riding around the city by tram I returned to the busy square on the eastern side of the old town, with the Opera, the Gewandhaus and main tram interchange. Dusk fell and the square in front of the Opera began to fill with youngsters preparing for halloween. They had carefully dressed up for this night. They would not tell precisely whether they would put up a show later that night, but were very willing to pose. In some ways it even seemed to me they were (semi-)professional actors, because they were so good at putting up faces and posing.

This image is dear to me, because it was shot during a very fine clear evening in York, after a holiday in the north of England with way too much rain. I was glad I took my G9 along when we went out for dinner. I remember I was so overjoyed with the light that I completely and consciously ignored my travelling companions who wanted to move on. I was redwarded with an area a dark stone showing the York Minster reflection with extreme clarity. It made my day, photographically.