Tagged: animation

The Ares, the spaceship on which the First Hundred travelled to Mars in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, arrives in orbit around the Red Planet

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy

The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is one of the highlights of American science fiction, as far as I’m concerned. Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars were published between 1992 and 1996 and tell the future history of our neighboring planet over a period of almost two hundred years. In those two centuries, Mars is fully terraformed: transformed from a cold, dry, lifeless desert into a living world with seas, forests and cities. Not all main characters are happy with those changes: the battle between the Reds, who prefer to keep Mars as it is and the Greens,… Read More

Photo made in May 2015 of the Room for the River project in Nijmegen, showing the work on progress on the new channel and the Promenade Bridge

Work in Progress: Room for the River, Nijmegen

About five years ago, when employed at Royal HaskoningDHV, I worked on the Room for the River project near Nijmegen. Perhaps the most radical of all the projects in the national Room for the River program. Near the village/neighbourhood of Lent a new channel is created, cutting off the inside bend of the river Waal, resulting in a new island: Veur-Lent. Among other things, I made this animation. Suggested soundtrack: “This is your Lent” by Simple Minds on. Stills from the film were used to inform the public about the project like on these information cubes: Last Friday I was… Read More

Photo of a chestnut tree near Lijnbaan in the center of Rotterdam, made beginning of May, when the tree is in full leaf

My Favourite Tree – a Springtime Animation

My favorite tree is a chestnut in the park in front of my apartment at the Lijnbaan in downtown Rotterdam. Every spring I am amazed about the speed with which nature operates. Within a few weeks time a metamorphosis takes place: the barren tree gets buds, leaves and a short time later flowers which then also pretty quickly disappear. Last year, during the months of March, April and May, I took a photo every day at nine a.m. from the walkway in front of my appartment on the sixth floor. In a perfect situation I’d use a weathertight protected fixed… Read More

Evening has fallen over Rotterdam; still from a time lapse movie with a dark blue sky over the Old West and Erasmus Medical Centre

Rapid Nightfall – a Time-Lapse of Rotterdam

I am a big fan of time-lapse movies, with those rapidly moving people, cars, clouds and stars in breathtaking landscapes. You don’t need very specialized equipment to make them. After some study in the manual of my Nikon D5100 I discovered the shooting interval option that allows you to define exactly how many frames you want with any given interval. A tripod is of course essential, and a reasonably presentable view is also useful. And then you have to wait for the right weather for a nice evening twilight, just about halfway between a bright sky and a thick cloud… Read More