March 8 // 7:17AM
Amstel Canal, Amsterdam // The Netherlands
The week before I arrived in Amsterdam the canals were frozen over and folks were ice skating on them. It was cold and windy, almost unbearable.
I arrived at Schiphol airport late the night before. I hopped on the tram and rode to Prinsengracht (my street) to walk to my hotel. Sleep came fast and it wasn’t long before I was dreaming on the images I hoped to make the next day.
I woke up and layered my clothes to head out to make photos of the streets and canals in the heart of Amsterdam, the Centrum. There’s not a lot of car traffic in this part of the city, rather, everyone rides bicycles. Every canal, building entrance, and the edges of the canals are lined with bikes. There are hundreds in a 100 yard stretch.
I watched the people as I walked. Bikes whizzing by, some folks walking, others running. I looked for a set of houses that I wanted to make a few photos of when the sun came up. I had my tripod and my Nikon on my back, with my Fuji in my hand as I walked. I found it torturous to stop to set up the tripod. It was hard to keep the camera steady in the wind, and the images just weren’t compelling. I kept walking.
My time was short in Holland. I knew that this would be one of the few opportunities I had. So I persisted.
As the sun came up and started to light the narrow homes and buildings along the canals, the air remained incredibly cold. The sky was turning pink and orange, and I was still struggling to slow down my hurried walking long enough to find a decent composition in the cold.
I finally decided to shoot the houses across the Amstel Canal with this bicycle in the foreground. The spot was blocked from the wind and it turned out to be a great representation of the city – which was my goal. The color was short lived, as the rest of the day was a cold, dull, grey mess.