So I obviously have not blogged in quite a while now. Both the madness of Christmas and writing my dissertation (which is now finished and submitted woo!) are to blame for my absence. As is the loss of my camera. I went to Amsterdam over the holidays and you would think that someone who’s been to such an amazing city would rush back and blog away! Well, I would have done, as so many exciting and incredible things happened there, but something very sad also happened. My camera got stolen. The strap round my shoulder was literally cut off whilst walking in a crowd and I was (and still am) very heartbroken. I went with my boyfriend and we were really trying to experiment and taking interesting shots of the city. We tried our best to avoid all the stereotypical touristy photographs, instead focusing on beautiful light and interesting angles. We were so inspired by the museums and galleries we were in so we got some really interesting shots! He took some gorgeous snaps. And I took a lot of photos for research purposes including ones of Anish Kapoor’s work!! YES, I have now see the work of Anish Kapoor. This is what happened in the gallery as I realised what I was looking at:

ME: “Is that…Jamie, I think that’s Anish Kapoor’s work”

ME: “Is it? I think it is…”

ME: “I’m pretty sure that’s Anish Kapoor’s work!”

ME: “Oh my God, Jamie, that IS Anish Kapoor’s work!”

ME: *countless excited squeals*

JAMIE: “Are you ok?”

It was a very exciting moment for me. I got to get up all close and really see the texture of Kapoor’s stuff. I’ve done so much reading and research into him that it actually felt like I was meeting a celebrity through his work! We felt this in a lot of cases as of course we did the Van Gogh Museum which had some Edvard Munch work too. Seeing their work really was something, it had this real sense of presence. Their reputation in the artworld really affected your reception of their work. But I will be looking into that more in a later blog post. 

Apologies by the way for these very touristy photos. Luckily I had my old camera from when I was fourteen with me too, so on the last day I was just doing a point and shoot of everywhere to make up for the loss of my images. So that is kind of why I haven’t been blogging recently. I’ve almost gone into mourning at the loss of my camera. I know there are more important things in life and this is not the end of the world, but when the camera got stolen I not only lost the camera itself, but I lost the memories that were on it. I lost the spontaneous moments we’d captured together, I’d lost the research photography I’d done for my course, I lost a whole bunch of blog posts I was going to do and I lost a fair chunk of money…Not fun.

These really are the most touristy images I could possibly upload to an art blog (the shame!) This building above was my absolute favourite though – I called it the ginger bread house. We walked past it loads and even when we weren’t planning to, I asked if we could walk this way just so I could see it again! Even though the camera got stolen the day before we left (slight dampener), we had the best time! We did so much as well. We bought a Museum Card which is a bit pricey but I would definitely recommend it if you plan on doing lots. It covers so many places that you save so much money by having it instead of buying individual tickets for places. 

Amsterdam really is the most arty city. I have officially fallen in love! There were so many inspiring places to visit including The Photography Museum, FOAM (also photography and very powerful photography at that!), The Van Gogh Museum, The Stedelijk (the museum of Modern Art – I want to live in there it was that amazing!), The Rijksmusuem. We also did the Sex Museum, The Erotic Museum, the flower market, and a few other places. It truly was spectacular and a trip I will never forget! And I’ll just have to use the stolen camera as an excuse to go back!