Countdown: the Best Photos of 2025
The frequency of my blog posts has decreased somewhat this year, but of course, I can’t ignore the end-of-year tradition, so here they are again: my ten favorite photos of 2025. Selected from over 5,000 photos taken during walks with fellow travelers A., A., A., I., C., N., and many others. The resulting longlist still contains 236 photos, which in themselves form a cinematic overview of the year.
But I don’t want to bore my readers with a top 236. So, after a painful selection process, the top 10 below remained.
10 – Motorway Composition
This year, the new section of the A16 motorway on the northern edge of Rotterdam was completed. Well, I’m not a huge fan of constantly building new highways, but this one fits in very nicely in the surrounding landscape. With a tunnel under the Lage Bergsche Bos, and elegantly landscaped noise barriers in the other section.
This photo was taken on the Tochtviaduct, a crossroads between a bicycle bridge and an eco-passage. I think the composition is almost perfect. The cloudy sky, the rhythm of the fence posts, the cars, the signing truss on the left, the grass and the trees—everything has its place.
The only thing that bothers me is that front lamppost, which just touches the top edge of the fence. I should have held the camera a bit higher. Can’t you Photoshop that? No, that’s surprisingly difficult with such a mesh. In short: I’ll have to go back in the spring for a retake.
9 – Lochem Lines
Due to a set of circumstances, I suddenly found myself in Lochem at the beginning of February. A charming little town in the Achterhoek region, with a cozy town center and an over-the-top new town hall. And, along the Twente Canal, an impressive amount of industrial heritage, much of it still in operation.
A walk along the canal yielded, among other things, this photo of a facility presumably used to transfer sand, gravel, or other bulk goods from a ship to the silo behind it; correct me if I’m wrong.
A beautiful composition of horizontal and vertical lines, complemented by a few diagonals. Mostly in shades of gray and brown, with a few color accents: desaturated green and some brighter shades of red and orange. With some stains and discolorations that show the ravages of time. The reflection in the canal adds a dimension as well. And all this in the warm light of the low winter sun.
8 – Mother and Child
I also wanted a cute little animal in the list, to compensate for the worrying developments in the world. And the choice fell on this little Egyptian goose, basking in the spring sun, safely nestled against its mother’s back. Or its father’s, that’s not so easy to tell with Egyptian geese.
These creatures have such beautiful plumage, with all those shades of red, brown, and black. This photo really shows it off, with some matching hues in the background. And no, this isn’t an AI image; that leg really does stick out so strangely from the baby goose’s body.
The Egyptian goose (Alopochen aegyptiaca), by the way, is surprisingly not a real goose but a duck. But they probably couldn’t care less.
7 – Still Life in Schiedam
Schiedam, the city where I lived for the first three days of my life, is a kind of hidden gem of the Rijnmond region. While Rotterdam’s old city center didn’t survive the war and, not without merit, a modern metropolis was built in its place, the jenever capital of the world has retained much of its old charm.
This small painting was created during research for a new metro hike. A composition of brick, wood, and peeling white paint. The red accent seems to adhere precisely to the golden ratio.
The tiny house on the right is intriguing. And the sun is almost in the right place in the sky, as beautiful shadows of branches are cast on the facades. That shadow of the lantern could have been a bit further to the right, but you can’t have it all. The bicycle is certainly a detail that completes the picture.
6 – No Future
My traveling companion A. and I were on top of the news this year. At the end of August, we made an epic hike from Lage Zwaluwe station to the village of the same name, with a long detour via another village: Moerdijk. A few weeks later, news broke that Moerdijk will be demolished in a few years due to the expansion of the nearby industrial estate.
That raises a lot of questions. Couldn’t the industry be stacked to save space? Couldn’t Moerdijk simply be moved so that the village community remains intact? Or could it even be turned into an enclave, like the garden village Heijplaat in the port of Rotterdam ?
Anyway, I don’t know enough about it to really make a judgment. But it is certainly sad for the residents. Something may be lost in translation but still, this photo, of the only café in Moerdijk, closed since 2022, sums up the drama well.
5 – Fata Morgana
It was January 2nd, a cold day with a constant supply of hail, sleet, and thunderstorms from the northwest. But it was interspersed with clear spells, so my traveling companion A. and I decided to get on our bikes for a ride through the countryside around Rotterdam.
Above the Schieveense polder, we were treated to spectacular skies, thunderclouds, rainbows, and more meteorological spectacle. It was pure bliss, until we suddenly found ourselves caught in a sleet shower. The world seemed very small for a moment, but then the sun broke through above the city. And there was the skyline, like a mirage. The sheep (and two geese) weren’t particularly impressed, but they did provide some nice context.
Okay, technically it might not be the best photo, but just try holding a camera in a snowstorm.
4 – Golden Dunes
Solitary trees are (also) on my list of favorite things to photograph. They stand powerfully yet fragile in the landscape, and there’s almost always a story to tell.
This is my favorite solitary tree photo of the year. Taken during a heroic hike from Alkmaar to Bergen aan Zee and back. It’s mid-February, a time when the sun isn’t yet very high in the sky. The golden hour lasts a nice, long time, bathing the dune landscape in a warm glow. The pine tree in the photo is beautifully framed by some branches of other trees. A few fluffy clouds create an interesting sky. And the path that curves around the tree and leads to unknown distances also adds to the expressiveness of the image.
3 – Brutalism in Brielle
Concrete isn’t everyone’s favorite material. In some circles, it’s even considered a kind of insult. In other circles, however, there’s a growing appreciation for brutalist architecture. Brutalism isn’t so much related to the Dutch word “bruut” (brute), but to the French “brut,” as in “beton brut” (rough concrete).
This almost cathedral-like space is located on the underside of the Brielse Bridge, a canal crossing between Europoort and the island of Voorne, opened in 1970. All good things come in threes, as do the V-shaped columns supporting a graceful arched structure.
The trees and shrubs in the background, still in their winter regalia, match the concrete’s color palette perfectly. But the most beautiful aspects are the signs of time, the aging patterns that are different on every piece of concrete. The interplay of sunlight and shadow are eye candy as well. And wow, that water reflection on the left!
2 – Tarscape
Travelers to the town of Vlissingen, province of Zeeland, don’t exactly arrive in the city center, but that’s precisely its charm. The station is located about a kilometer and a half east of the city center. It’s a terminus; the train doesn’t go any further here, and wouldn’t even be able to go any further because it would plunge into the Western Scheldt.
Those who want to reach the city center have to take a bus or choose the scenic route: via a few narrow footbridges over the locks and on the path along the Western Scheldt to the fishing harbor.
At those locks, I encountered this landscape of tar and rust on a steel bollard. But if I had presented it as a NASA satellite photo of an area 200 by 150 kilometers on a distant planet or moon, everyone would have believed it. A fascinating network of channels and gorges between large and small hills and table mountains. A world in itself where the eyes can wander endlessly.
1 – Disaster Movie
It looks like a disaster movie is being filmed at Kop van Zuid in Rotterdam. Has anyone seen Steven Spielberg? Did the Martians just land on Katendrecht? Or is it just a storyline from the Sinterklaasjournaal that’s gotten out of hand? It is December 5th, after all.
No, none of that; the special effects in this photo are entirely due to the weather conditions. Every now and then, a peculiar phenomenon occurs in Rotterdam: a very localized fog that lingers over the Maas River and barely penetrates the city. I can see it from my living room, and whenever possible, I go out with my camera to shoot some spectacular pictures at the transition from fog to clear. I wrote a blog post about it a few years ago.
On this fifth of December, upon arrival at Leuvehoofd, things turn out to be a bit different. The Maas River is largely free of fog, but “South” is in the thick of it. Clouds swirl around the towers on Wilhelmina Pier, and the sun tries to break through. Well, the image speaks for itself. An unexpected Sinterklaas gift. And a well-deserved first place in this top 10.
