I don’t know whether I should thank Aleah of Solitary Wanderer who tagged me at the 7 Super Shots game or detest her (just joking Aleah hehe). The challenge seemed easy enough at first glance; select seven of your best photos that would fit the seven themes of the game.

Well… Upon second thought, this is not really easy stuff after all. Considering I have 75,159 photos sitting on my hard drive (more than half of which I have really not yet processed), easy just got thrown out the window. It would be, as the cliché goes, like picking seven needles in a haystack.

But I want to do this, so off the top of my head here are my needles.

The Royal Dutch Airline working with Digital Photographer Philippines and Lonely Planet Philippines launched a photo exhibit a month ago featuring the works of four photographers showcasing the Land of Windmills and Tulips. A week of the exhibit was devoted for my work along with multi-faceted photographer Joel H. Garcia during our amazing seven-day stint shooting The Netherlands.

Aptly titled Capturing Dreams, please allow me to share my humble contributions that graced KLM’s exhibit walls at the RCBC Plaza a few weeks ago.

The first day of shooting was held at The Hague where we were based for the whole week. We roamed its brick-paved streets, passing innumerable old-world structures that I’ve only seen in books. The afternoon was spent chasing windmills along the windswept rural parts of the region. I have to pinch myselft that I really was in Europe.

I was looking forward to flying to Cebu this October and get my Cebu Starbucks Mug, but unfortunately my trip to the Netherlands coincided with my Southern City date; I chose Holland over Cebu of course.

After seven days of photographing the cities around Holland, I still didn’t have my target mugs from this country, The Netherlands and Amsterdam mugs. Starbucks Coffee shops are not as rampant here like in our country. I think I counted just four near our vicinity, the word “near” quite relative as I didn’t see even one Starbucks during our tour.

The final day came and I still didn’t have my mugs! We were late going to the airport as our bodies finally gave up on us and didn’t let us wake on time. After all our papers were done, the first order of the day was to find the Starbucks Café in the airport; and Schiphol Airport is freaking gargantuan! It’s like Megamall only more confusing.

After almost half an hour of running around, we finally found it.

I paid €12.95 for each mug (it was much cheaper in Starbucks Amsterdam by €3.00) without flinching. It cost Php781.00 in our currency, almost double the price of the Starbucks Mugs being sold in the Philippines.

I was nevertheless very happy with my purchase, I finally got my windmills and Singel Canal Mugs; my trip to The Netherlands is at last complete.

Today we photographed a real castle with a real moat, two gorgeous Dutch models (or at least J did hehe), and a beautiful sunny countryside full of yellowing autumn leaves; this was gonna be our last shooting day in The Netherlands and after a rainy Rotterdam tour yesterday the sun did finally take a peek and blew all the clouds away.

Despite the fantastic session we had during the day, what stuck to me was the impromptu sunset shoot at the beach near where we were staying in Scheviningen. We were looking forward to shoot the setting sun from this vantage since the first day we got here, and at last we finally got the chance do so during nothing less but our last day. It was a bittersweet afternoon for me at the sandy shores of The Hague.

The day was grey as we went out of bed; after four days of excellent sunny weather we finally got a taste of the real climate in The Netherlands. It was drizzling as we zoomed to Rotterdam, the working district of this country. The architecture here was very different from the cities we visited previously, here modern skyscrapers and bridges outnumber the classic Dutch brick structures. 

The rain was not gonna let us down, we went out with our cameras wrapped in plastic and started shooting the city.

We finally got inside a cheese factory, our beautiful Dutch guide explained to us the ins and outs of making cheese. We also had our fill of different kind of cheeses. My fave is their Holland Cheese with Herbs, yummy! We simply were unable to resist and bought bagfuls after the tour. :P

I was up at half past six in the morning after two hours of sleep, I wanted to check out a trail that we passed by the day before. I was down the chilly streets of the city in no time; hand stuffed in my pockets, cameras dangling down my neck, and briskly walking alone at the deserted streets of The Hague.

Amsterdam indeed lives up to its title of being the capital of The Netherlands, there are tons and tons of people in the street. I was a bit intimidated at first to shoot with the throngs of European people moving en masse, but I got on with the flow after a few clicks of the shutter.

We visited canals after canals surrounding the center of the city; Amsterdam is not nicknamed as the Venice of The Netherlands for nothing. I love everything about the city; its postcard perfect architecture, the multitude of bikes, the trains, even the infamous red light district, the restaurants, the quirky stores, the food and most especially the grand canals. All of these make me want to quickly find flights to Amsterdam again, and I’m not even halfway through my vacation.

Our first day of real shooting started on a freezing seven in the morning, pretty late for landscape enthusiasts you might think but the sun actually rises at eight in the Netherlands so we’re still good. Our first stop was at the beach that’s just a few minutes’ walk from Hotel Ibis.

The sun came up and everything looked fantastic. It paints everything in a beautiful golden wash and this light seemed to be on the whole day long. It was just amazing.

Later in the afternoon, we checked out the iconic windmills of the Netherlands. Blue sky, green fields, horses and quaint homes; we got the postcard-perfect Holland on our cameras.

* Not really my best photo of the mills, but I hope this suffices for the moment as we’re not allowed to post the really good shots yet ‘til it’s printed in the magazine.

Travelling 794 kilometer per hour, aboard a KLM plane bound for the Netherlands, between Tientsin and Chendou in China. 10 hours left ‘til Amsterdam and tired of writing, I opened my window and there they were, majestic snowcapped mountain peaks floating above an ocean of soft white clouds. I have only seen these in movies and travel documentaries; I cannot believe I am actually witnessing this.

Postcards is a new segment I’m doing in Lakad Pilipinas. I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a netbook for my travels. But I really don’t feel like doing full articles when I’m travelling since it takes too much time and I’d rather be exploring outside than be inside the hotel room, faced with a little LCD screen. So this is what I came up with, one photo posts with a few words for company. I’m hoping it’s enough to fill in the gaps when I’m out travelling and give flavor to my readers of my current whereabouts.