Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Lolipop Story













This is part of a series of images taken while on lunch break. The spot is one that I often go to. Besides having a gloriously good pizza - but that is different story that I will tell another day - it always has interesting people. Some that I know others that just happen to be there. In the neighbourhood of Place Chatelaine it is the better part of the young side if Brussels. Lively and casual it is littered with small restaurants - some really good others just nice - and most of the crowd seams carefree. Today six youngsters and their mothers took over the entire place - not so difficult as it is the size of my office. There was so much joy and passion in their play, smiles, shiny eyes. They ate their pizzas, fought over deserts and just did what children do. There was no nervous shouting, not stress, just pure simple daily joy. It is of course not always so simple but today it looked like it and I have the proof. As there was a spot-light just over their table, the light created this magic colour contrasting the greyish light of Brussels. This particular image looks cinematographic. It has a story to tell. A good one. I have an entire series including some nice portraits about to go up on my Flickr and Picasa pages.
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Magritte Sky



















This is not my title. A friend of mine, while dining at Chez Oki - a French Japanese Fusion place that everybody loves and I have definitely mixed feelings about - noted this picture in my camera and pointed out that the sky looks just like the sky of Magritte's paintings. How true! Never again Brussels, its lights, its dark blue skies after long days of rain, its contrast trees and art nouveau buildings looked so surreal. The photography above may just as well be called "this is not a tree" or "Ceci nes't pas un arbre". One's life in the city flows with apparent coherence and sense but when you stop it is not even a rat race, it is just a parallel reality where nothing "really is" it is just "represented". On a different note, this may just be my own projection as I decided I live a non-life. I exist and experience but it is a plasticky, artificial reality. Or so it seams at times ...
So this entry is an homage to Magritte and Surrealism, to Brussels and its Expat Purgatory providing for a comfortable Limbo.
http://www.magritte.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Magritte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysteries_of_the_Horizon
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