Last Friday was the opening of Minishop Confetti on the Meent 133 in Rotterdam. Minishop Confetti is a temporary pop-up shop in the center of Rotterdam. The shop has various handmade products (scarfs, bowls, jewellery, clothing and more) from different designers such as Iefke de Roos, Twinklebird, Lennebelle, Miga de Pan, Mae Engelgeer, Mari(e), Elke van den Berg and others.

It was a lovely evening with very nice people. I shot some photos with my Leica to document this event. However, I still have some exposures left on my roll so I can’t show you those right now. What I can show are a couple digital photos of the shop interior I took this weekend.

With Queensday in sight people start planning things to do that day. If you’re in Rotterdam you’ll probably end up at Oranjebitter. If you have tickets that is. The 2012 edition of Oranjebitter Rotterdam is announced and will be held on the 30th of April on the Parklaan In Rotterdam. Tickets are available at your local selling point Level, Picknick, SHPPR and No Boys Allowed.

Oranjebitter Rotterdam is a place to dance to the beats of local and national artists from the festival scene. You can also pimp your t-shirt, jump in a photo booth or participate in traditional Dutch games. Or grab a typical Rotterdam kapsalon at the Sticky Fingers Truck.

Remember Oranjebitter Rotterdam 2011? Go see the video.  

I was so busy discovering parts of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile over the last couple of weeks that I didn’t had the chance to spend some time to figure out what’s on the menu during the International Film Festival in Rotterdam (IFFR).

No surprise, the big shots were sold out but as always the festival has lots of other interesting and entertaining things to offer. Take the Home Movie Factory, a project by Michel Gondry (the genius behind lots of movies and video clips). Home Movie Factory is a temporary make-your-own-short-in-just-three-hours studio.

Another festival, another blast. I still can feel VOLTT Loves Summer in my legs. The music was really great on this festival with The Advent as closing act. VOLTT delivered.

Voltt takes place in a industrialized area on the NDSM dock in Amsterdam. The showers and big threatening clouds couldn’t kill the party spirit. Good times all over the place. I was in the photo taking mood and took my iPhone and the Spica app for a spin. Spica is great for taking photos in b/w with high contrast. If you like the mood of these photos I really recommend buying it.

Enough with the talk. I’ll let the photos do the telling. See you next year VOLTT!

A new date is set. The next Analog Photo Collective meetup will take place on Sunday the 4th of September. APC member Jeroen is brewing a dusky program for the day.

Stay tuned for more info.

Year in, year out we were dreaming about it. A 2.000 km roadtrip through Belgium, France and Spain with a couple friends to visit the Monegros Desert Festival in Spain. It’s finally happening!

Monegros is the biggest electronic music festival in Spain. ‘A lot of terms are used in an attempt to describe this festival, however it is literally impossible to put in plain words if you have not had the chance to attend it. A Life experience!”

De Parade is a typical cultural annual event I’m looking out for year in year out. De Parade is a theater festival packed with surprising acts that visit Hollands biggest cities during summer.

De Parade starts in Rotterdam, followed by The Hague, Utrecht and finally Amsterdam. De Parade attracts nice people and is excellent for socialising. It the kind of place where you encounter all those people who seems to be vanished during the year. But when De Parade starts, they are there. A real gathering spot. I’m really looking forward to it.

The Rotterdam edition starts on the 16th of June and lasts till June 26th. Saturday the 18th will be a very nice day. When the Analog Photo Collective will have it’s 4th meetup which ends at De Parade. I guess I’ll be shooting some photos there.

Hope to see you there!

Koninginnedag / Queensday 2011 was a delight. As always during my day started at the Hoogstraat where friends gather for a nice and cold beer and tastefull water pipe.

Oranjebitter was my next stop where joyfull people where partying their asses off. I took my Leica with me that day and shot some photos with a Lomography Redscale film while I was still able to. Some turned out very nice. See them in the full post.

Want to know more about the camera settings? Click on the photo to head for my Flickr. The info is all there.

Looking for Oranjebitter Rotterdam 2012? Click here.

Amsterdam is supposed to be the best place to celebrate Queensday (or as we say, Koninginnedag) on the 30th of April in Holland. Rotterdam is a great alternative ever since the Oranjebitter party is in town. Oranjebitter started 2 years ago as a rather intimate party organised by a couple local companies with great success.

This years Oranjebitter edition will be oraganized by even more companies and will be held at a bigger spot in the city, Laurenskerk Square next to the Laurenskerk and Heidegger.

The teaser is out and tickets will be sold from the 8th of April at various locations throughout the city. Picknick, Venour, Level, Daily Rush and Shopper.

The Rotterdam Museum Night is celebrating its 10th birthday!

Dial 010 for Rotterdam: the tenth edition of the most entertaining night in the city at the Maas completely revolves around 10 x 010! 46 galleries and museums will open their doors deep into the night for a programme full of exciting exhibitions, festive performances and an abundance of surprises. They promise you to be blown away by 10 magnificent initiatives by Rotterdam artists and performers. The Museum Night is art and culture tenfold!

All this will take place on the 5th of March 2011 in Rotterdam. Visit the website for the full program and other festivities around the event.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is in town, so I’m pretty excited. Time has been flying over the last weeks so I guess it’s time for some relaxing by watching some good films. I might be catching some of these films. I might write some review posts about them afterwards. Let’s hope I can get those tickets! Hit the full post for titles and trailers.  

Last Tuesday Len and I went to see the Thomas Dybdahl matinée in Paradiso, Amsterdam. It was a very cosy atmosphere in the small venue upstairs and that might have been the key ingredient for a cool concert.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about. Thomas Dybdahl is a musician from Norway and plays some amazing and touching music with his band. I’ve seen him playing live before and have seen numerous videos from performances elsewhere. I think he’s amazing. You can check out a song after the link. If you dig it make sure to get a copy of ‘One Day You’ll Dance For Me, New York City’. Because it’s awesome.  

I’m excited about this. In two days I’ll be hitting Berlin for the weekend with a couple of friends. I guess it’ll be a photo fest since everyone’s bringing his digital and analogue camera’s. So be prepared because they’ll land here next week, Berlin through our lenses.

We’ll be staying in Kreuzberg at 36 Rooms. From there I don’t have a clue what we’re up about. I guess we’ll be fahrrad’ing from district to disctrict through East-Berlin to catch the best spots this cool city has to offer. Mike spotted a crazy party at Berghain so that’s what we’ll be doing for sure. As for the rest, equipped with my Unlike Berlin iPhone app I guess we’ll be just fine.

We joined Forza Vespa for a Vespa Rideout on a lovely sunny day (10-10-10) in Rotterdam. The trip went to Moordrecht, Zevenhuizen, Nesselande and back to downtown Rotterdam. A very nice 4-hour ride. Nice people and nice Vespa’s (Sprints, 50 Special, PK’s). I tried to shoot some pictures while riding. Two first two of them were part of another roll. As for the rest, make sure to check out Cloud Cuckoo on Twitter to be the first to know when they drop on the site.

Update: Now with 2 videos! Edited and uploaded by John Matze and Paul van Schaik.

After a couple of weeks of waiting for the remaining pictures, the other roll finally made it’s way through processing. Here is part 2 of the Wereld van Witte de With festival.