29 Dec 2009
category: Kids, Photos, Technique

As I said yesterday, I’ve been experimenting with my new flash and I really like it. But, a flash is not for every situation. Natural light still rules in my book, when enough of it is available. The following photo is one of those situations where very good natural light was available. My kids figured [...]

Kids in a box 
28 Dec 2009
category: Kids, Photos

One of my Christmas presents this year was an external flash for my camera. I’ve been reading a lot about flash photography on strobist.com lately, and I was eager to start experimenting. During our Christmas dinner I slightly irritated several of my family members with repeated flashing. The next day I found a willing subject [...]

Ella 
26 Dec 2009
category: Uncategorized

I know Christmas is over but I just wanted to share this photo of a very cute little South-American nativity scene. My mom collects nativity sets and this is one of hers. Talking about Christmas being over, in the Netherlands Christmas is officially two days so, over here it’s not really over until tomorrow.

Nativity set 
24 Dec 2009
category: Celebration, Photos

Christmas eve is about done here at the Daams household. We unwrapped our new pajamas tonight, which is a family tradition for Christmas eve. We went over to friends and neighbours to bring over goodies. There’s snow outside, that’s really special, we haven’t had a white Christmas since 1981 here in Eindhoven. Christmas is off [...]

Merry Christmas 
23 Dec 2009
category: Website changes

Just a heads up here. The website is going to change in the near future. I’m going to add a different front page to the site. The new front page is going to be a slide show of some of my favorite photos. That means that if you go enter the website at “www.markdaams.com” or [...]

23 Dec 2009
category: Nature, Photos

What a difference one month can make. On November 20th

Two seasons 
21 Dec 2009
category: Nature, Photos

We had 4 inches of snow over here in Eindhoven during the week-end. That might not sound like much for some of you, but it is a lot for us over here. We don’t get more than an inch or so of snow very often. Here are a couple of photos I made this morning.

Snow in Eindhoven Snow in Eindhoven Snow in Eindhoven 
18 Dec 2009

Today we continue the Cat and Aury saga with a couple of vintage style photos from our engagement session the other day. We took all these photos over at the Eckart castle in Eindhoven. It’s more like a mansion than a castel actually but it’s a beautiful location.

Even more Cat and Aury Even more Cat and Aury Even more Cat and Aury Even more Cat and Aury Even more Cat and Aury 
17 Dec 2009

I’m posting some more photos of the session I did with Cat and Aury yesterday. I learned a lot during the shoot by the way. One of the things I noticed is that the photos I like most are the ones which look least like they are posed. So, next time I’m going to try [...]

More Cat and Aury More Cat and Aury More Cat and Aury More Cat and Aury More Cat and Aury 
16 Dec 2009

I shot my first ever “engagement session” today, with Aury and Cat, in some really appalling conditions. The temperature was -2 °C (28 F) and we had a little bit of snow now and then. We were out at our location for about an hour. By the end of that hour my fingers were so [...]

Cat and Aury Cat and Aury 
15 Dec 2009
category: Celebration, Photos

I pass by this cute little home decor / antique shop on my way to and from work. I’ve been thinking about taking a photo of it for a while now. The other day when I passed by they had their Christmas lights on, so I stopped and took this photo. Someday I’d like to [...]

The antique shop 
12 Dec 2009
category: Celebration, Photos

I was experimenting with Christmas tree light bokeh today. “Bokeh” is the part of the background of a photo that is out of focus. One of my mom’s nativity sets is a three dimensional cut-out made from thin wood. With the Christmas tree lights in the background it produced this very cool effect where it [...]

Shooting stars and bubbles 
11 Dec 2009
category: Architecture, Photos

The other day I was over at the biggest construction site in Eindhoven, Strijp-S. On the south end of the site is a buiding that looks pretty crapy at the moment. It’s a building that is being partially torn down, but most of it will be restored. From 1914 until the early 1960s, the Philips Electronics [...]

Reflections of… Reflections of… 
10 Dec 2009
category: Uncategorized

I just wanted to share this blog post from Jeff Ascough here. Jeff Ascough is one of the most famous wedding photographers in the world. He talks about a common misconceptions of non-photographers and, at the same time, one of the frustrations of professional photographers. I think he makes a good point. Have a look [...]

10 Dec 2009
category: Celebration, Kids, Photos

Last Monday we decorated our house in Christmas style. We don’t have a lot Christmas “stuff” but it was lots of fun to decorate the house while listening to Christmas music. Kailea was in charge of the Christmas tree. Our (fake) tree is pretty small so we put it on top of our dinner table. [...]

Decorating the Christmas tree 
08 Dec 2009
category: Kids, Photos

Ella is sick. She has a snotty nose and a pretty bad cough. At night she feels worse than she does during the day, so she wakes up now and then during the night. I always feel pretty bad when my kids are sick because there is not much I can do about it. But, [...]

07 Dec 2009
category: Kids, Photos

Last Saturday was the Dutch holiday “Sinterklaas“. Kailea was really excited about it. She likes Sinterklaas himself but she liked his little helpers even more. Whenever we were in a store and they had a decoration up with the image of one of them, she would point them out to me right away. I didn’t [...]

04 Dec 2009

The photos you see below are not photos of traffic signs (or road signs, however you like to call them), they are photos of color and light. What do I mean by that? When you look at a photo in the right way, it can mean so much more to you. The same goes for [...]

These are not traffic signs 
03 Dec 2009
category: Kids, Photos

Because of an “unfortunate incident” Ella needed an emergency bath tonight. I won’t go into the details but this sort of thing happens once in a while with babies. Anyway, this was going on as I walked into the house, so I grabbed my camera and fired of a few shots to capture our cute [...]

Splish splash I was taking a bath! Splish splash I was taking a bath! 
02 Dec 2009
category: Kids, Photos

Our little Ella is now almost 11 months old. She is growing and learning all the time. Around the end of September she pulled herself up for the first time. Somewhere in October she learned to stand by herself. A couple of weeks later she was walking her first couple of steps, and now she [...]

Little Ella is getting big 
02 Dec 2009
category: Kids, Photos

The other day Melissa was making cake balls, which are really good by the way. Kailea was right there next to Melissa to observe the whole process. Of course she wanted to get in on the fun of preparing yummy treats but the promise of getting to eat one cake ball after they were done, [...]

Cake balls