The World Through the Eyes of Jan Tielens

Taking photos of toddlers is a real challenge; they never sit still (only when they are eating), they never look into the lens (unless you play peek-a-boo behind the camera) and they tend to like leaving fingerprints on the front element of the lens. But sometimes you’re lucky and the toddler (in this case our daughter) does exactly the right thing (in this case lying on her back in the grass and laughing out loud). In those very rare circumstances, you just have to press the shutter button on the camera, and you know you’ve got a great shot.

One of my favorite portraits from our holiday in Prague: our little daughter Fran (check her blog here) playing in our hotel room. She is so cute. 🙂

The Grass is Always Greener on the Other  Side of the Fence – Our daughter has a swimming pool/sandbox. Once in a while you have to move it, otherwise you end up with multicolored grass like this. This image is not "photshopped", just slightely post processed!

It was a very nice evening today. One of the very few this summer. On an evening like this, even clouds look pretty.

Growing out of Nowhere – A single flower growing on our driveway. It gets extra points for courage.

Taken from the Charles Brdige in Prague, in the background you can see the castle.

Every lot on a parking in the city center of Prague had its own iron “guard”. They didn’t seem to have any purpose, you couldn’t put any coins in them or anything like that.

Our daughter Fran looking up when suddenly heavy rains fall on the veranda roof.

Our daughter Fran explores a goat (all sides covered) in the children’s farm of Planckendael (a zoo in Mechelen, Belgium).

Just to be sure, we washed her hands afterwards! 🙂

Town Square in Jicin, Czech Republic, a lovely little town. Very quiet compared to Prague!

Some small flags in the city center of Jicin, Czech Republic.

The subway stations in Prague have a nice retro look (or maybe they were hip when they were built). It seems that every station has it’s own color set.

Sunny Day in Prague – Taken on the so called “kids island” in Prague, while our little daughter was having a great time. Sometimes life can be easy…

Bokeh is a photographic term referring to the appearance of out-of-focus areas in an image produced by a camera lens. Different lens bokeh produces different aesthetic qualities in out-of-focus backgrounds, which are often used to reduce distractions and emphasize the primary subject. (from Wikipedia).

Steps to reproduce this image: wait until it’s dark or almost dark, find some interesting looking lights (e.g. street lights, decoration …), switch your camera and/or lens in manual focus mode, pick a nice big aperture (small f-number) and go wild! 🙂 Make sure to check the result on the LCD of the camera.

Another one from last weekend’s trip to Blankenberge (Belgian coast). Of course you have to photograph the sunset (I was told so by Bart S.).