Didn’t really feel like taking pictures this weekend, so after digging through my summer pictures I stumbled on a picture I took while on vacation in Les Deux Alpes.
I took this picture while standing on a rock in the middle of the creek while resting my camera on another rock to be able to take 3 exposures, which apparently worked to keep the camera quite stable 
Quick Monday post, another picture of Charlotte the Marmot posing in front of Lac Lauvitel near Les Deux Alpes.
Another picture from the Tyne Cot Cemetery in Passchendaele. This is the entry gate to the cemetery showing the walkway to the Cross of Sacrifice.
You can read the previous blog entries about the Tyne Cot cemetery here:
Tyne Cot Cemetery Pt. 1
Tyne Cot Cemetery Pt. 2
This is a video showing American forces in the Middle East being attacked by an IED. It’s really impressive seeing the effect of the IED on the pavement. I can’t even start to imagine how it feels to live in constant fear. Good thing nobody got hurt.
A few months ago, in March, I received a very strange email.
The email said that I had to call a certain number to find out if I won a trip to Bermuda. I was pretty sure that it was just some spam, but a part of me was so curious, so I called the number that was in the email. A woman picked up and she said: Ine, you have won a trip to the Bermuda Triangle. The trip included plane tickets, hotel, and some extra cash for two persons.
Doel is a small town in Belgium which is famous for its nuclear power plant. In recent years, the town became a ghost town after the government released plans to expand the harbor of Antwerp in the direction of Doel. Although the expansion was not yet certain, many inhabitants took the offer of selling their houses to the district. Currently the town is filled with squatters, so the term ghost town is not totally accurate, but the overall look of the town is really surreal.
This is a picture of the nuclear power plant which is right next to the center of the town.
This is a picture I took at the “International fireworks festival” in Knokke-Heist. We went to the event together with a friend of mine, Koen Vereeken. This was my first time trying to shoot fireworks with a tripod and the hardest thing to do is to get the composition right. Experimenting with shutter speed/aperture was quite easy and all of the shots turned out quite good exposure-wise, but the hardest thing to get right, in my opinion, is the composition. You can never tell where the next firework rocket will explode…
Later on we were joined by my colleague and fellow photographer Bert Peers and enjoyed a good Westmalle Trappist. (Just a quick mention to make the foreign visitors a bit jealous )
Have a nice weekend!
Another picture of the Tyne Cot cemetery. The name “Tyne Cot” is said to come from the Northumberland Fusiliers seeing a resemblance between the German concrete pill boxes, which still stand in the middle of the cemetery, and typical Tyneside workers’ cottages – Tyne Cots.
The “Cross of Sacrifice” (Upper right) that marks most Commonwealth war cemeteries, was built on top of a German pill box in the center of the cemetery, purportedly at the suggestion of King George V of the United Kingdom, who visited the cemetery in 1922 as it neared completion.
In this picture I added some grain and vignetting to give it an older look. You’ll only notice the grain when you look at the larger version of the photo, but removing it produces a totally different atmosphere.
Last weekend, Kris and I visited the Tyne Cot Cemetery. It is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission burial ground for the dead of World War I located in the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. It is the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, for any war.
The cemetery and its surrounding memorial are located outside of Passchendaele, near Zonnebeke in Belgium.
The memorial is not only known as the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world, but also as a memorial to the missing. Every grave has an emblem, which states from which country the soldier came from. If it is an unknown soldier, the grave is engraved with “known to God”.
We took a walk along the wall with the names of 33,783 soldiers of the UK forces, plus a further 1,176 New Zealanders. A lot of poppies “decorated” the wall of the missing. People have left messages for their since WWI missing family. One of those messages was a poem written by John McCrae. He was a Canadian physician who fought on the Western Front in 1914. ‘In Flanders Fields’ was written during the second battle of Ypres. I think it’s one of the most beautiful poems I’ve ever read…
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead.
Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Kris Taeleman | 
