hilde van der sterren photography

Maslenitsa - end of winter party

Today we went to a Maslenitsa - end of winter party. It was very close to our house. When we arrived we saw a doll on a stick and heard wonderful Russian music. 

The most characteristic food of Maslenitsa is bliny (pancakes), popularly taken to symbolize the sun. Round and golden, they are made from the rich foods still allowed by the Orthodox tradition: butter, eggs and milk. 

As the culmination of the celebration, on Sunday evening, Lady Maslenitsa is stripped of her finery and put to the flames of a bonfire. Any remaining blintzes are also thrown on the fire and Lady Maslenitsa's ashes are buried in the snow (to "fertilize the crops").

I love the beautiful skirts they wore.

And then the moment we waited for.... Lady Maslenitsa went on fire. 

And then this lady started to dance... while dancing and me photographing her I felt the attention went elsewere...

Anybody who knows me...know I am not a fan of this...to put it mildly. For me it was not necessary at all to have a wild animal there. And to see a bear do the things he had to do feels very unnatural to me... 

week 52 project - week 8 "morning drink"

As you might know by now a group of very talented photographers, all connected through the fab photographer Nicole Van, have decided to do a week 52 project. Each week we will have a certain theme as our guideline and it is our job to show our interpretation of that theme.

This week our theme is our morning drink. I love my milky coffee in the morning. For many to milky....;-), but I love it. Especially when I drink it after my morning run.

And don't forget to take a look how Tessa Satake and  Jessica Swatts have interpreted this week's theme. Have a nice day.

I play the recorder.... | child photographer Moscow

My eldest daughter likes to play the recorder. And since it is a holiday,  we decided to play around a little and do photoshoot featuring her playing...;-)

week 52 project - week 7 "wide"

As you might know by now a group of very talented photographers, all connected through the fab photographer Nicole Van, have decided to do a week 52 project. Each week we will have a certain theme as our guideline and it is our job to show our interpretation of that theme.

We went this morning to the Red Square here in Moscow. It was quite cold and since we also had some indoor shopping plans (read nice fancy shopping malls ;-), we decided to not wear our ski pants. It proved to be a bad decision as it was very! cold. 

And because we will live here for a few years with many opportunities to visit this area again. We cut our visit to the red square short to get not too cold. I had only my point and shoot camera with me with a wide angle lens (24 mm). And this is the theme of this week. 

The good thing of a wide angle lens is you can include a lot. Like the image above you can show a lot of the envirement. The bad thing is you will get distortion at the side of the image. This can make funny faces in people when you shoot them with a wide angle lens. In lightroom, as well as other programs you can 'fix' that distortion. I would not do this with people. I don't shoot people with wide angle lenses but with architecture it is good that you can fix it. 

Here is the image without the distortion fix. You can see the sides angle inwards. 

And you can see the green tower on the left bends toward the building in the middle. 

This morning we past a market with lovely babushka's.

I am looking forward to go back again. Maybe when the kids are in school and it is a little warmer. There are so many photo opportunities here in Moscow.  I can't wait to explore them. 

Please take a look at what my fellow photographer's have to show:

Tessa Satake

Jessica Swatts

Just giving... for pancreatic cancer

I am in awe with this lady and she knows it ;-). We had once one of our long chats in the Al Fair (local supermarket in Oman) about sports. She was training for a triathlon and told me that she didn't really like it. Don't get me wrong, she does like her sports, but not so much the compition, the training together etc. And I can so relate to that. I love my running. I run my 6 K nearly every day or every other day (at least that was in Oman now in Moscow it is a whole other story ;-). But I never liked so much to train with someone else. I like to do it on my own. And so does Tina. 

And in the end she didn't do the triatlon. Her father got sick. Pancreatic cancer. Again, I could relate to that. My dad had cancer several times (Non-hodgkin). He was given up by the docters, but for some reason or the other made it through. And I am still so very thankful for that. And there my feeling to relate stopped. Her father died. 

So when she told me she was training for a Iron man 70.3:

On March 18th 2012 I shall attempt to swim, 1.9km, cycle 90km and run a Half Marathon in an Ironman 70.3 Triathlon in Singapore to raise funds for this cause. This is the only thing I can now do for my Dad. I cannot let him die without doing something for this terrible disease. Please pray that I cross the line on March 18th!!!

to raise money for research. I felt So So proud of her. Here is a woman, a daddy's girl like me, who wants to DO something about it. And if you know me, I always feel that if you want to make a difference you have to DO something. So here is a woman who doesn't particular like competition but decides to enroll in a iron man. Not just another triathlon but an Iron man!

Her goal is to raise (at least) 2000 pounds:

Or in her words:

Please take the time to read my story. (click on the word story)

 

This is my last attempt with four weeks of training to go, to attempt to get my fundraising site up to 2000.00.

 

Please dig deep and help !!!

 

Thank you

 

Tina

x

So please go to her website and donate... I just did...

In the snow

Well here are finally some images of us in the snow. It is cold but very well do-able with our winter clothes bought in Dubai. This week the temperture reached -37 degres. Apperently that is very cold for here as well. We still wallked to school that day and were fine. 

This image below it taken with the self timer in front of our new house.

Sofie and Niels are enjoying themselves playing outside in the snow. Fleur finds it too cold to play and tends to be more inside. 

week 52 project - week 6 "love or hearts"

As you might know by now a group of very talented photographers, all connected through the fab photographer Nicole Van, have decided to do a week 52 project. Each week we will have a certain theme as our guideline and it is our job to show our interpretation of that theme.

And to hop over immediately  into this weeks theme "hearts or love". 

My second daughter left her best friend behind in Oman. There are still a lot of tears over this. Luckily I made some images of them together. The leaving behind is the hard part of this traveling life. You or the other will move on a some point. Hopefully they can stay connected during holiday time when they will see each other again. I used Florabella's valentine templates for these images. 

Take a look at what my fellow photographer's made:

Tessa Satake

Jessica Swatts

week 52 project - week 5 "directional light"

As you might know by now a group of very talented photographers, all connected through the fab photographer Nicole Van, have decided to do a week 52 project. Each week we will have a certain theme as our guideline and it is our job to show our interpretation of that theme.

So...ok I am too late and ok it is not really the picture I had in mind, but since I am not a quitter, I made it work. 

In my mind I would make this picture: a sunburst througt one of the beautiful trees over here. But life got in the way. Every morning we needed a taxi to go from the appartment to school and then I had to wait for 7,5 hours till the children finished school In my mind I would take my camera with me, in reality I didn't want to carry, car seats, school bags etc. in minus 20 degres. 

So this morning I made this image. 

I paid attention to the shadow behind the little dolly and I like the vertical shadow line on the right...;-)

Moscow | see beauty

We have arrived in Moscow. From the warm (plus 30 degrees) to the cold (minus 20 degrees). We are in a bit of a crappy appartment, but since I like to focus on beauty...I will show you some images I made. And it is like my friend on facebook says: You have a choice, every morning when you wake up.... Are u gonna have a good day or a bad day? I think we have to chose to have a good day. What do you say? It's your choice, every morning.... You are so right G. and that is my choice, having a good day. 

And the house we move in later this week (please keep your fingers crossed, it will be this week;-) looks great. So things will get better. Hopefully the airfreight will arrive soon so we can camp in the house till the sea freight arrives.

Here is what we see from our kitchen window.

Nice old door knobs...that is the see beauty in the old.

Nice old floor...that is the see beauty in the old.

Old interesting lights...that is the see beauty in the old.

We went to the shops and bought some Russian chocolate.

Niels found it very interesting that the aircondition machine is warm ;-).

And we are very happy our cat made it to Moscow as well. It took quite some time to arrage all the paperwork in the Netherlands...but she is here.