These photos were made in the city Cochem. This is a rather old city (dating back to 1051) with quite a lot of older buildings such as the monastery and the castle.
Besides that Cochem also has the most beautiful view on the river Moselle there is.
All this together makes Cochem a very nice city and a very good photo location.

We’ve been to several of the key points in Cochem such as the castle and the lookout point at which you have the best view of the Moselle.

– Castle of Cochem – Castle of Cochem	– Moselle, Cochem, Germany – Moselle, Cochem, Germany	– Ruins in Cochem – Ruins in Cochem
– Cochem, Germany – Cochem, Germany	– Cochem, Germany – Cochem, Germany	– Moselle, Cochem, Germany – Moselle, Cochem, Germany
– Moselle, Cochem, Germany – Moselle, Cochem, Germany	– Moselle, Cochem, Germany – Moselle, Cochem, Germany	– Cochem train station – Cochem train station
– Statue in Cochem – Statue in Cochem	– Castle of Cochem – Castle of Cochem	– Castle of Cochem – Castle of Cochem

Of the monkey valley I do not have a lot of good photos as there were a lot of trees and not very much light. This resulted in a bad quality on most of my photos, though I did manage to make a very cute one.

The safari went a lot better as there were more open spaces. There were loads of different animals like lamas, goats, donkeys, deers and wild boars.
The wild boars were especially fun as they had tons of piglets running around which is a very fun sight.

The falkner show was not extremely special though it did give me some nice photos of an eagle owl.

– Baby monkey eating – Baby monkey eating	– Goat – Goat	– Goat – Goat
– Deer herd – Deer herd	– Wild boar – Wild boar	– Wild boar piglets – Wild boar piglets
– Wild boar piglets – Wild boar piglets	– Eagle-owl – Eagle-owl	– Eagle-owl taking flight – Eagle-owl taking flight
– Eagle-owl in flight – Eagle-owl in flight	– Eagle-owl – Eagle-owl	– Falkner – Falkner

As I told you in my previous post I went to Germany for the holidays. I went there with a bunch of friends.
We had loads of fun doing all kinds of things. We’ve ‘hiked’ through nature, we’ve done ‘safaris’ in wild-parks, we’ve visited towns and cities and we got lost in the woods in the middle of the night.
Now I’m not going to bore you with all of the stories (although that last one was rather funny) but I will show you some of the pictures I made during some of these trips.

The lodging we lived in during our vacation was located in the Vulkaneifel, a very beautiful, inactive volcano area in Germany.
Volcano soil is very fertile so everything grows well which results in a lot of vegetation. The dead volcano craters are usually filled with water. These volcano lakes are really beautiful as the water is very blue and there’s usually a lot of trees and other vegetation around them which makes for nice pictures.
Also, apart from the craters, there are quite a lot of mountains on which you have a brilliant view.

These pictures were all made around a group of 3 of these volcano lakes.

– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Weinfelder Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany – Weinfelder Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany
– Weinfelder Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany – Weinfelder Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany
– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Gemündener Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany – Gemündener Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Gemündener Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany – Gemündener Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany
– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany

Of course this was a very nice opportunity to get out my camera and shoot some pictures.
Overall the weather was really nice which made shooting the photos all the easier.

– Efteling – Entrance – Efteling – Entrance	– Efteling – Efteling	– Efteling – Efteling
– Efteling – Efteling	– Efteling – Efteling	– Efteling – The Piranha – Efteling – The Piranha
– Efteling – Efteling	– Efteling – Efteling	– Efteling – Colleague – Efteling – Colleague
– Efteling – Friend of colleague – Efteling – Friend of colleague	– Efteling – Colleague – Efteling – Colleague	– Efteling – Colleague – Efteling – Colleague
– Efteling – Colleague – Efteling – Colleague	– Efteling – Colleagues – Efteling – Colleagues	– Efteling – Colleague – Efteling – Colleague
– Efteling – Efteling	– Efteling – Efteling	– Efteling – Efteling
– Efteling – The bird Rok – Efteling – The bird Rok	– Efteling – Efteling	– Efteling – Efteling
– Efteling – Sinterklaas – Efteling – Sinterklaas	– Efteling – Villa Volta – Efteling – Villa Volta	– Efteling – Fairytale forest – Efteling – Fairytale forest
– Efteling – Fairytale forest – Efteling – Fairytale forest	– Efteling – Talking fairytale tree – Efteling – Talking fairytale tree	– Efteling – Talking fairytale tree – Efteling – Talking fairytale tree
– Efteling – Fairytale forest – Efteling – Fairytale forest	– Efteling – "Seven-league boots" giant – Efteling – "Seven-league boots" giant	– Efteling – Little Thumbling – Efteling – Little Thumbling
– Efteling – Efteling	– Efteling – Ezeltje strekje – Efteling – Ezeltje strekje	– Efteling – Colleague – Efteling – Colleague
– Efteling – Friend of colleague – Efteling – Friend of colleague	– Efteling – Colleague – Efteling – Colleague	– Efteling – Fata Morgana – Efteling – Fata Morgana

This afternoon I had a practice shoot with my mom and 2 good friends of mine just to get a little feeling for it (as I’ve never really done anything like this before).
As it turned out that was a pretty good idea because I made a few mistakes I now know I have avoid next time.
I used two construction lights to manipulate the lighting which turned out pretty handy.
However, the amount of light coming from those lamps wasn’t as much as I thought so a lot of the photos are a little blurry.
I can solve this by increasing the ISO settings a little (they were at only 100) so that should help.

Apart from the photos being somewhat blurry I quite like the result though so I have good hopes. It’s not as if I’m expensive anyways.

– Practice shot – Practice shot	– Practice shot – Practice shot	– Practice shot – Practice shot
– Practice shot – Practice shot	– Practice shot – Practice shot	– Awww… How cute – Awww… How cute
– Teddybears and cuddle bunny – Teddybears and cuddle bunny

I have to say I definitely don’t regret going there as I really like the outcome of some of the pictures.
The pictures were made around sunset which I hadn’t really done before a lot so I just went and played around with my camera settings which was lots of fun.

At home I edited some of the photos to gray scale which I think gives them a real old look like those photos you see in museums sometime.

– Windmill on Kinderdijk – Windmill on Kinderdijk	– Windmill on Kinderdijk – Windmill on Kinderdijk	– Windmill at sunset on Kinderdijk – Windmill at sunset on Kinderdijk
– Windmill reflection in the water – Windmill reflection in the water	– Kinderdijk – Kinderdijk	– Windmill on Kinderdijk – Windmill on Kinderdijk
– Windmill at sunset on Kinderdijk – Windmill at sunset on Kinderdijk	– Kinderdijk – Kinderdijk	– Kinderdijk – Kinderdijk
– Kinderdijk – Kinderdijk	– Tree reflected in water – Tree reflected in water

Right now I am in my last year of school which consists of half a year theory lessons and a final internship of about half a year.
Since I already did the theory lessons last year I just had the internship left.
My internship is at the Neuroscience department in the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. Basically they gave me a problem and I had to think of a solution and make it.
The problem they gave me is as following:
One of the things Neuroscience researches is hand-eye coordination to detect Alzheimer disease or brain damage caused by internal bleedings. This research is done using a research assembly the people there have created over the years.
This assembly however is not very flexible. Everything is completely fixed and it is very hard to move. This is why they would like to have a new assembly which differs in height to match different patients and is easily movable.
Also they would like to be able to change some other things in the assembly, but I’m not going in to too much detail as that would be a very long story.

In the first few months of my internship I have created a full design for the new assembly and I am working on parts for that assembly now.
These photos are from two of the somewhat bigger parts which were quite a challenge to make.

– Turning aluminum – Turning aluminum	– Turning aluminum – Turning aluminum	– Turning aluminum – Turning aluminum
– Bronze part in turning machine – Bronze part in turning machine	– Bronze part in turning machine – Bronze part in turning machine	– Aluminum accessory in turning machine – Aluminum accessory in turning machine
– Aluminum accessory on milling machine – Aluminum accessory on milling machine	– Aluminum accessory on milling machine – Aluminum accessory on milling machine	– Milling bronze – Milling bronze
– Milling bronze – Milling bronze	– Milling bronze – Milling bronze	– Milling bronze – Milling bronze
– Milling bronze – Milling bronze	– Milling bronze – Milling bronze	– Bronze part on milling machine – Bronze part on milling machine
– Bronze part – Bronze part	– Bronze part – Bronze part

Oh well, at least I got some nice pictures this morning.

– Snow in the city – Snow in the city	– Snow in the city – Snow in the city	– Snowy bushes – Snowy bushes
– Snow and ice – Snow and ice	– Snow on red leaves – Snow on red leaves	– Bridge over the ice – Bridge over the ice
– Lamppost covered in snow – Lamppost covered in snow	– Snow on the tree – Snow on the tree