3Develop image blog

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

Album cover from 1976 by the fictitious symfonic rockband Bereshit

Digital art

10 Fake Album Covers By Bands That Unfortunately Don’t Exist

I often hear or read something—a word, a few words, or a sentence—that makes me think: this would make a great name for a band, or a good song title. Until recently, those ideas usually faded into oblivion. But since AI exists, it’s relatively easy to quickly conjure up a fake album cover for such an idea. I actually thought it was a rare quirk, this fantasizing about fictional bands and albums. But a simple search on Google reveals that entire communities exist around the topic of fake album covers. Well, then I can certainly write a blog post about… Read More

Passing city buses created light stripes near Groothandelsgebouw in Rotterdam on a december evening

Photography

December Evenings in Rotterdam

The blue hours are the two magical moments of the day, just before sunrise and just after sunset. The light is ideal for taking dramatic city photos. These blue hours are there all year round, but in the middle of summer, they’re at rather inconvenient times. In December, on the other hand… New Year’s Dive I’ve often written about January mornings on this blog. It’s the time of year when the sun rises around 8:30 a.m., meaning the blue hour, that favorite part of the day for photographers, roughly coincides with the morning rush hour. So you don’t have to… Read More

Spectacular weather photo with swirls of fog and sunlight at Kop van Zuid and Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam

Photography

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… Read More

De Oude Gracht in Utrecht gezien vanaf de Gaardbrug, op een zonnige, windstille herfstdag

Photography

False accusations of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more of a nuisance for photographers and artists. Usually because your work gets lost among the millions of mediocre AI images that flood the internet every day. And sometimes for a completely different reason: because people (or AI systems?) simply don’t want to believe that your photos are real… Stock photos For about ten years now, I have been uploading photos from my extensive archive to stock photo sites. It won’t make me rich, because the return per photo is disappointingly low. But if those images rot away on my hard drive, I earn… Read More

Dunes, swamps and reeds, with two people for scale, at Marker Wadden nature reserve in the Netherlands

Photography

The Marker Wadden Expedition

Marker Wadden have been there for a few years now, but until recently I didn’t have the chance to visit this newest part of the Netherlands. On a beautiful day in late March, I finally took the ferry from Lelystad with my travel companion R., to take a look at the nature archipelago in the Markermeer. Our high expectations were more than met by both the landscape and the architecture. And the photogenic weather with beautiful cloudy skies also generously cooperated. Zoom out for context, zoom in for details… Markermeer Markermeer is a lake that has only existed since the… Read 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

Styled world map of time zones, in all hues of the colorwheel as well as a relief effect

Cartography

Mapping the World’s Time Zones

A world map showing only the time zones; just the borders between those zones, without any context. It creates a somewhat confusing image: straight lines that occasionally form right angles and suddenly turn into messy winding lines. But then suddenly you spot it: coastlines and national borders, Iceland, India, Argentina. With some colors added, such a map seemed like a nice addition to my collection of world maps. But before that map was finished, I discovered some fascinating facts about international timekeeping. Full and half hours How many time zones are there on our planet? Twenty-four, you might think, one… Read More

The interior and artwork of the Markthal in Rotterdam reflects in the wet pavement during evening twilight

Photography

Countdown: the best photos of 2024

It is a tradition that goes back to the early years of this blog: the annual top 10 of my best photos. Although, “best” is such a value judgment, let’s call it my favorite photos. Or maybe just the photos that have a good story to tell. Since 2016, I have been looking at the photos I took that year every year in mid-December, selecting about 200 for the longlist. What follows is a long and painful process to distill my top 10 from that. Anyway, as long as I have the list and the accompanying blog post ready somewhere… Read More

Stone sculpture of a lion on Delft Gate in Rotterdam

Photography

Bronze and Stone Animals in Rotterdam

The animal kingdom has always been a source of inspiration for art. Anyone who looks around in a city like Rotterdam will see countless animals immortalized in statues, reliefs, and murals. World Animal Day, October 4th, is a good time to take a little tour of these beastly artworks. A photo blog with the theme: Rotterdam’s animals made of bronze and stone. And paint and other materials, but that would make the titlea bit long. Delft Lion Perhaps lions are the most frequently portrayed animals in art, so you can regularly encounter them in Rotterdam. And that’s remarkable when you… Read More

Martian landscape with a rover and in the foreground the wrist of an astronaut with a watch displaying slightly more than 24 hours

Design / Space art

Calendars and Clocks for Mars

A day on Mars consists of 24 hours, 39 minutes, and just over 35 Earth seconds. And there are about 669 of those days, also known as sols, in a Martian year. So, on the Red Planet, Earth clocks and calendars are useless. But what are the alternatives? People on Mars A calendar for Mars? Don’t you have anything better to do, Mr. Blok? Okay, I won’t solve current world problems like war, climate change, or barrel organ terror with it. But I’m an optimist; I believe that at some point, people will live on Mars. Perhaps many people, and… Read More

Calico cat in a room with cat-themed art nouveau wallpaper, all generated with artificial intelligence

Digital art

AI as a tool for creating feline mockups

The ability of artificial intelligence to create art and write texts is still a bit disappointing. But that doesn’t mean AI is entirely useless; two surprising applications are birthday cards and mockups… In both cases, cats are highly appreciated as support acts. Bots A year and a half ago, I wrote a blog post about artificial intelligence. Not long before, the first writing and drawing bots had become available to the general public. I wondered if I could use them in my creative workflow. And whether I should be afraid of them. I didn’t get very enthusiastic, nor very scared.… 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

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