Jen Harvey

[I went for a walk with the dog. This is what I encountered]
Perhaps it was the wind that caught him unaware. After a week of damp south westerlies there was a sudden about turn. A sharp chill from the east that brought with it deceptively blue skies and a last hurrah of summer enthusiasm.
In [...]

Posted on September 17th, 2008 under Amsterdam, Miscellaneous Musings. Tags: Amsterdam, death, pigeon, things you see on the street, walk. Comments: None

When I first moved to Amsterdam, I held the naive belief that it would be relatively easy to integrate into Dutch life.
After all, it wasn’t as if I was in some strange and far off land. All I’d done was pop over the North Sea to a country that, on the surface, was more or [...]

Posted on April 10th, 2006 under Amsterdam, Photography. Tags: Amsterdam, Photography. Comments: 3

If you take a walk from the tram stop on the Van Limburg Stirumstraat in the Westerpark borough of Amsterdam, and head towards the park entrance on the Haarlemmerweg, you’ll find yourself accompanied by three rather unusual figures.
Cast in bronze, these life-size statues seem to be taking a leisurely walk towards the gates of [...]

Posted on March 30th, 2006 under Amsterdam. Tags: Amsterdam, Photography. Comments: 1

You really have to hand it to the architects that designed Borneo Island in Amsterdam.
The variety and novelty of buildings on show is superb. Even if you have no education in architecture, or even a passing interest in it, it is hard not to be impressed by the buildings on show.
Some of the houses were [...]

Posted on March 24th, 2006 under Amsterdam, Photography. Tags: Amsterdam, Photography. Comments: None

Amsterdam is a busy city, so at times it’s necessary to escape somewhere for a bit of peace and quiet.
In such a densely populated country, space is at a premium and solitude is a rare and treasured thing.
The city planners of the 1930s were perhaps a little prescient in this regard, and so in 1934, [...]

Posted on March 1st, 2006 under Amsterdam, Photography. Tags: Amsterdam, Photography. Comments: None

The Afrika warehouse once formed part of the Amsterdam docklands, but as the massive harbour in Rotterdam flourished, the port in Amsterdam dwindled and buildings such as this were abandoned and fell into disrepair.

Posted on February 24th, 2006 under Amsterdam, Photography. Tags: Amsterdam, Photography. Comments: None

…with my little eye …
On the Java Island, some romantic soul has placed a coin operated telescope on the quay.
It looks out over the water to the north of the city and the chemical factory that stands there.
As views go it is not very inspiring and certainly not one you would contrive to look at [...]

Posted on February 23rd, 2006 under Amsterdam, Photography. Tags: Amsterdam, Photography. Comments: None

At the end of the Java Island, this sailor stands keeping a lookout over the river Ij, a monument to sailors that lost their lives in the Second World War.
He was moved back to this spot a couple of years ago, after keeping watch for a while on the quay beside the Central Railway [...]

Posted on February 21st, 2006 under Amsterdam, Photography. Tags: Amsterdam, Photography. Comments: None

There’s a bandstand in the Vondel Park which sits alone and isolated in a pond.
Erected in a more genteel era, it stands there like some memorial to lost music. A faint reminder of polite, half imagined Sundays. Of violins and easy strolls and Sunday best suits.
Nowadays there is no music. The skaters in [...]

Posted on February 17th, 2006 under Amsterdam, Photography. Tags: Amsterdam, Photography. Comments: None