Globalroamink’s Weblog

It was lots of fun working with Amber Procaccini, the photographer behind the lens of this issue’s Eye Spy photo essay, to compile her collection of bikes in Amsterdam.

Because Amber has been to the Netherlands 4 times in the past 10 years, she had lots of images to work with. And she has plans to return to the country! For her, there’s just something about the Netherlands.

Here, she talks a little more about her Amsterdam bicycle fascination:

I love the idea that masses of people live without owning cars. It’s amazing how bikes in some cities have taken over. In Amsterdam, there are traffic lights for the bike lanes!

It seems that everyone in the Netherlands owns a bicycle. Walking down the street of any big city or small town, I always notice the bikes parked out front of stores, apartments, schools, and restaurants.

They are waiting so patiently and I always wonder where all those bikes will travel next. I feel adventurous for them. Their rider could come out at any minute and ride them away to a new destination.

It’s completely possible to bike through the countryside from one town to the next. There are separate paved paths for bikes that run parallel to the roads. I’d love to bike all across the Netherlands.

The bikes are definitely a recurring theme in my pictures every time I’m there.

I also have a fetish for photographing the bathrooms of our hotel rooms.

Lately, I’ve been trying food photography, too. It is fun to show people that you can buy sandwiches or crepes or Turkish pizzas or mounds of French fries drowning in mayonnaise right off of the sidewalk.

The fries are the bomb! Hot, crispy, oily, salty goodness with a big blob of yellowish heaven on top! It’s not like regular mayo, it’s better. Mmmm….fries and mayonnaise.

When April Dobbins, author of this month’s travel essay Mondesa on my Mind, sent me a batch of possible photos to accompany her story, I immediately knew I wanted to use this image. I loved its brightness and vitality.

The picture depicts Ernst Taniseb, an artist April encountered in the Namibian township of Mondesa and a character in her essay.

When I emailed April gushing over the shot, she wrote back:

Funny thing about that Ernst silhouette. It’s one of my favorites, but it was a total mistake. The camera wasn’t focused. I love it, but I never thought anyone would use it because of the blurriness. I like so much because I think it captures the energy his house.