Orange-maddness and omg-moments
-beep-beep! (text-message): I'm going to do an orange day on Saturday, interested?
-Uhm, "orange day"?
-Yes, orange day! I'm going to photograph some of the orange in town.
-Sure?!
As some of you may know, orange is *the* dutch color. It comes from our royal family, the house of Orange-Nassau. It is used, not too sparsely, whenever there is something going on that somehow relates to the Netherlands, like on the national holiday queensday or when the dutch soccer team is playing in the European Championship. People can go quite nuts, dressing in orange and decorating pretty much everything they can think of in orange. Yesterday the dutch soccer team was playing in the European Championship
(I'll leave out the final score :lol3)
So, the idea: Photograph the orange-craziness. This type of shooting was quite new to me. We visited two districts in Utrecht (the Netherlands) that mainly house the working-class. A little bird told us that the orange madness had hit there. The weather, unfortunately, wasn't great but that didn't stop us from having fun. All shots minor processing in LR only.
We started out in this street:
Not bad, for a start It is a car-free street, so lots of kids riding the little bicycles, people sitting in front of their houses and quite some orange.
We were walking around there, both of us carrying dSLRs which grabbed some people's attention and it didn't take long for us to strike up a conversation. 2 minutes later we were invited to join them, and if we would like to have something to drink?
We accepted the invitation and ended up sitting with this awesome guy:
Also present, a girl from down the street:
and his wife, wearing a 'roar-shirt'.
A roar shirt is an orange shirt that you can purchase for a few dollars when you spend a certain amount at a store. It has the head of a lion (another dutch thing) on it, and a 'flap'. You can lift up the flap as in the photo above and see inside the lion's mouth. Not something I would consider fashionable really, but hey, it's orange
The guy was friendly enough to give us directions to another part of town where the orange madness had also hit;
We walked around a bit, and found this little girl:
that lived here:
Now, this was already pretty extreme for us. The amount of time and effort that was put in to that, made us wonder what went through those people's mind.
We also found a grandmother outside with her grand-daughter:
I did get her to smile, but unfortunately not in any of the shots with her grandmother;
Now, for one of the omg-moments:
We were a bit in awe, because of the time that must have gone in it to not only put that all up, but also to collect everything.
Around the corner, more orange madness;
If there were no flags, there were balloons:
The streetlights weren't untouched, either:
The tape said "hup Holland" which means "go Holland".
One of the biggest supermarket-chain was giving out 'welpies' (pronounce: well-pee) with every 15 Euros worth of groceries. Welpies are little lions with a lot of hair (mainly orange, but also red, white and blue which are the colors of the dutch flag). The have sticky feet:
and some people used them to decorate their car:
Another omg-moment;
My friend saw one of the women in the next shot just about to get in a car, and asked her quickly if she could take her photo. Not only could she take her photo, but the other women were ordered out of the car to join :lol3
It turns out it were daughter-mother-grandmother. When commented on their outfit, the daughter said "Great, isn't it? we just got them at a sex-shop" :lol3
The extremely interesting thing I found was that usually when people see you carrying a camera, they hide in the bushes. All the people we found Saturday were pretty much throwing themselves in front of the camera :scratch
So there you have it, some orange-madness. Disclaimer for potential tourists: No, the Netherlands is not always like this, and no, not everyone is like this
-Uhm, "orange day"?
-Yes, orange day! I'm going to photograph some of the orange in town.
-Sure?!
As some of you may know, orange is *the* dutch color. It comes from our royal family, the house of Orange-Nassau. It is used, not too sparsely, whenever there is something going on that somehow relates to the Netherlands, like on the national holiday queensday or when the dutch soccer team is playing in the European Championship. People can go quite nuts, dressing in orange and decorating pretty much everything they can think of in orange. Yesterday the dutch soccer team was playing in the European Championship
(I'll leave out the final score :lol3)So, the idea: Photograph the orange-craziness. This type of shooting was quite new to me. We visited two districts in Utrecht (the Netherlands) that mainly house the working-class. A little bird told us that the orange madness had hit there. The weather, unfortunately, wasn't great but that didn't stop us from having fun. All shots minor processing in LR only.
We started out in this street:
Not bad, for a start
It is a car-free street, so lots of kids riding the little bicycles, people sitting in front of their houses and quite some orange.We were walking around there, both of us carrying dSLRs which grabbed some people's attention and it didn't take long for us to strike up a conversation. 2 minutes later we were invited to join them, and if we would like to have something to drink?
We accepted the invitation and ended up sitting with this awesome guy:
Also present, a girl from down the street:
and his wife, wearing a 'roar-shirt'.
A roar shirt is an orange shirt that you can purchase for a few dollars when you spend a certain amount at a store. It has the head of a lion (another dutch thing) on it, and a 'flap'. You can lift up the flap as in the photo above and see inside the lion's mouth. Not something I would consider fashionable really, but hey, it's orange
The guy was friendly enough to give us directions to another part of town where the orange madness had also hit;
We walked around a bit, and found this little girl:
that lived here:
Now, this was already pretty extreme for us. The amount of time and effort that was put in to that, made us wonder what went through those people's mind.
We also found a grandmother outside with her grand-daughter:
I did get her to smile, but unfortunately not in any of the shots with her grandmother;
Now, for one of the omg-moments:
We were a bit in awe, because of the time that must have gone in it to not only put that all up, but also to collect everything.
Around the corner, more orange madness;
If there were no flags, there were balloons:
The streetlights weren't untouched, either:
The tape said "hup Holland" which means "go Holland".
One of the biggest supermarket-chain was giving out 'welpies' (pronounce: well-pee) with every 15 Euros worth of groceries. Welpies are little lions with a lot of hair (mainly orange, but also red, white and blue which are the colors of the dutch flag). The have sticky feet:
and some people used them to decorate their car:
Another omg-moment;
My friend saw one of the women in the next shot just about to get in a car, and asked her quickly if she could take her photo. Not only could she take her photo, but the other women were ordered out of the car to join :lol3
It turns out it were daughter-mother-grandmother. When commented on their outfit, the daughter said "Great, isn't it? we just got them at a sex-shop" :lol3
The extremely interesting thing I found was that usually when people see you carrying a camera, they hide in the bushes. All the people we found Saturday were pretty much throwing themselves in front of the camera :scratch
So there you have it, some orange-madness. Disclaimer for potential tourists: No, the Netherlands is not always like this, and no, not everyone is like this
0
Comments
Great series though. That last photo: the grandmother appears to have chest hair.
ann
My Galleries My Photography BLOG
Ramblings About Me
Sorry about the soccer thingie...
There are some advantages to losing...Spain beat Italy last night and the honking horns went on for half the night.
My Gallery
Nice series, Ivar!
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Hup hup hup hup!!!
moderator of: The Flea Market [ guidelines ]
Enough smilies. Great set and it certainly made me, well, smile.
Photos that don't suck / 365 / Film & Lomography
I am not sure who to cheer for, I don't watch soccer
www.ivarborst.nl & smugmug
And yep, dream gone
Thanks! :curtsey
Thank you, for looking and commenting, Awais
It was an awesome trip in my own city, which I will not forget anytime soon
Thanks!
Hehe, we had that when Turkey won. There are quite a few turkish people over here.
I don't think there is anything that get's people going as much as soccer does. I'll see if I can get you some cycling stuff some time
Thank you, Schmoo
It made me smile, also
www.ivarborst.nl & smugmug
My Photo Blog -->http://dthorpphoto.blogspot.com/