En route to Scotland I took a layover in Amsterdam for a few days. I always take an extended layover whenever possible as I feel like it’s a free flight to a great city, be it in North America or abroad. I’ve been very lucky and this was my 8th visit to the city so I made a conscious effort to relax and not try and do anything to touristy, no tours no museums just walk around grab a coffee or a beer when ever I feel like it. I also opted to stay in a part of town away quite a bit west of the centre just to get a different feel and it was a great experience.
Landing in the city I was coming off a full day worth of travel and only about 30 minutes of sleep. Within 20 minutes of being in the apartment I crashed for 3 hours and by 1pm I was ready for a couple days of fun. A good friend Ben who I met about 15 years ago while spending a summer in Greece has been living in Utrecht and met up with me a night and what was supposed to be for a beer or two. It ended up with many beers, about three different pubs and me trying to find a taxi would that would drive me and my new Kebab back to my apartment. It was a great first night of my trip!
The second day of my stay I had lined up a small personal shoot with Amsterdam Ballerina Duvessa. I wanted an opportunity to simply practice shooting with my subject in the middle of the frame and work on my direction. I know it seems silly to some but it’s certainly something I don’t do very often and I wanted to spend an entire shoot with those focuses. Also I find that shooting with two people, or a couple is sooo much easier than shooting one person alone. A couple feeds off each other and brings emotion and a connection that is impossible to replicate with a solo model. This made me want to focus more on the direction and posing of just one person. Duvessa was fantastic and such a fun and extremely talented artist. Watching her elevate on her toes was something to watch and I literally stopped for a minute in awe when she first did it.
Enjoy a few days of my trip and if you want to follow up on the Scotland portion of my journey you can find it here:
