3Develop image blog

visualisatie, ontwerp, fotografie, stadstours / visualisation, design, photography, city tours / visualisierung, entwurf, fotografie, stadtführungen

Category: Various

All things related to running your own businesses in the creative sector. The fascinating life of a freelancer. From apple pie to business card. Promotion and acquisition on old and new media. Maintaining a bilingual website and blog. Visits to completed projects. Exhibitions and more.

Sleeping artificial cat on a photobook about Rotterdam

Various

Photobook: a Year in Rotterdam

My own photo book, in large stacks at bookstore Donner, featuring a selection of the thousands of photos I’ve taken of Rotterdam over the last few years—well, that’s a dream of mine. But a hard dream to realize, because the necessary investments are considerable, and the chances of recouping that money are slim. Okay, so let’s start with a very limited edition. Offer A few weeks ago, I saw an advertisement on Facebook from Saal Digital GmbH. As those last four letters suggest, it’s a Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, a German company which apparently wants to enter the Dutch market.… Read More

Camp of barracks for the housing of forced laborers during the second world war in Berlin

Various

Two Years in Berlin

In early March, accompanied by my travel companion I., I spent a few days on a city trip to Berlin. Exactly eighty years earlier, my father, Willem Blok, was there too, but for a much longer period. He wasn’t there for fun and certainly not voluntarily. He was one of the millions of forced laborers brought by the Nazis from occupied territories to keep the wartime economy running in Germany. Our visit was a good opportunity to visit some places where Willem lived and worked between 1943 and 1945. I made grateful use of his memoirs titled “From Abacus to… Read More

Ship and ugly fence on Park Quay in Rotterdam

Photography / Various

Misery on Park Quay: the Horrible Fence

Park Quay, or in Dutch: de Parkkade, is one of my favorite places in Rotterdam. It is a so-called waiting location, a place where seagoing vessels wait for a berth, undergo inspections, or change crew. But recently, this beautiful quay has been marred by a fence. How did it come to this? Nautical Park Quay is one of the few places in Rotterdam where the city and the port come close together. Of course, the historic ships in Leuvehaven near the Maritime Museum also create a nice nautical atmosphere. And with the boat tours by Spido or Futureland, you can… Read More

A glass of Westvleteren Trappist 8 on the terrace of the visitor centre of St. Sixtus Abbey

Various

Westvleteren, hiking and tasting

The Trappist of Westvleteren holds an almost mythical reputation among beer enthusiasts. This is undoubtedly due, in a large part, to the taste of the beer. However, the relative rarity also plays a significant role. It makes the Westhoek region of Flanders an excellent destination for the fifth hike from the hopefully forthcoming book “The Best Beer Hikes of the Benelux.” Scarcity The monks of Saint Sixtus Abbey unintentionally provide a valuable lesson in economic principles. They want to prevent their beer from becoming a commercial product, which is why the bottles have traditionally only been available for personal pickup… Read More

Grafisch voorstel voor een betere verdeling over het jaar van de nationale feestdagen in Nederland

Various

The Great National Holiday Shift

The national holidays in the Netherlands tend to cluster somewhat together. And some of those holidays have little meaning for most of the population. But any proposal for change leads to emotional discussions. It seems like an unsolvable dilemma. Or is there a creative answer to the question? Yes, I think there is…. Holidays In the Netherlands, we have the following national holidays, in order of appearance: New Year’s Day, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, King’s Day, Ascension Day, Pentecost Sunday and Pentecost Monday and two days of Christmas. Additionally, Liberation Day is a day off for some people. Cluster… Read More

Walking path along the Noorder Canal in Rotterdam with the highway and the old Hofplein viaduct

Photography / Various

The Rotterdam Ringroad Hiking Trail

Where other cities have a ringroad, Rotterdam has the Ruit, which literally means the Diamond. The A20, A16, A15 and A4 together form a diamond-shaped road network that has led car traffic around the city since the 1960s. But would it also be a nice route to walk? No, not over the hard shoulder of course, but over hiking trails in the immediate vicinity of the highways? Dream Believe it or not, the idea for the Rotterdam Ringroad Hike came to me in a dream. I dreamed that there was a long-distance hiking trail that followed the Ruit. It seemed… Read More

Reddish brown highlands with patches of snow and a hut for hikers near Hraftinusker in Iceland

Photography / Various

Laugavegur, Iceland’s best hiking trail

In July 2023 it will be fifteen years ago that travel companion A. and I hiked the Laugavegur trail, according to many the most beautiful long-distance hiking route in Iceland. That’s a good reason to write a blogpost about that epic journey. Illustrated with photos taken with the simple IXUS850 camera that I had back then. It actually made quite nice pictures, but in the alien landscape between Landmannalaugar and Þórsmörk that is not too difficult. July 28, 2008: Landmannalaugar – Hraftinusker (10.3 kilometers) In the days before our hiking adventure there is a heat wave in Reykjavik. In Iceland… Read More

The church in the village of Slenaken, province of Limburg, The Netherlands, seen through the trees in a hilly landscape

Photography / Various

The Gulpener Beerhike

This third walk from the yet to be published booklet The Best Beer Walks in the Benelux is set in Southern Limburg, that beautiful and very unDutch-looking part of the Netherlands. It is as if our country has tried to dig deep into Central Europe in order to get its fair share of hills and half-timbered houses. As a side result, also a few interesting beers were dragged within the national borders. The map can, as always be zoomed and panned; click here for a larger version. History The history of Limburg is fascinating. In fact, the province could just… Read More

The Werkspoor "Cathedral" in Utrecht, The Netherlands with in fornt of it the cafe and terrace of brewery De Leckere and the former Werkspoor harbour

Photography / Various

A Beer Hike to De Leckere café

This is the second pre-publication of the hiking guide, The Best Beer Hikes in the Benelux, which will hopefully be published one day. The first blog post in that series was about our hike to Koningshoeven Abbey near Tilburg. That’s the place where the Netherlands’ most famous Trappist beer La Trappe is brewed. On this second walk we went to the café of a much younger brewery: De Leckere in the city of Utrecht. The aim of this series is to combine a visit to a brewery or tasting room with a hike of around 20 kilometers. We therefore walk… Read More

Artist impression of the sculpture by Hendrik van den Eijnde from the facade of architect W.M.Dudok's Bijenkorf department store, back on its original location on Coolsingel in Rotterdam

Various

The return of the sculpture on Dudok’s Bijenkorf to the Coolsingel

For more than twenty years, Rotterdam art lovers have been trying to bring the sculpture by Hendrik van den Eijnde, the only remnant of the old Bijenkorf department store by architect W.M Dudok, back to the place where it belongs: the Coolsingel. And in september 2024, it finally happened! Woerden As early as 2002, Aad Koster, board member of the Roterodamum Historical Society, raised the alarm: the Bijenkorf sculpture had been wasting away for decades on a business park in Woerden. There, at the Bijenkorf’s distribution center, the artwork was placed in 1973. Plaque The sculpture is often referred to… Read More

Fotograaf Frans Blok in actie op een zonnige herfstdag in het Groene Hart bij Woerden

Frans Blok – 3d artist, designer, photographer and city guide

De 3Develop-nieuwsbriefCreatieve muurdecoratie bij Werk aan de MuurBuy my work at Fine Art America

DONATIONS

If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi