Blue Hour, Rainbow, Houses, The netherlands by Maarten Kost

About "Blue Hour, Rainbow, Houses, The netherlands"

by Maarten Kost

About the artwork

Houten's Rainbow Houses are a hot-spot in the photographer community, even though it's considered difficult to get a satisfying result. To be able to capture these colorful wooden homes at this little lake in its full beauty, a lot of things have to go right and need to work out. Most of all the timing, the weather and the natural lighting. Houten is a commuter city and its citizen are very serious about the use of bicycles in their hometown. The city was awarded the title Cycling-City last year again after they had won it already in 2008. That's a big deal for a Dutch community since the Netherlands are considered the bicycle paradise of Europe. Needless to say, there literally was no way by car to the Rainbow Houses, but plenty of walk- and bikeways leading to it.

As you can see in my photos from April of this year, nothing went right for me on that day. The weather was terrible, it was ice cold, very windy and it rained almost all day long. The light was so flat that even the otherwise vibrant colors of the Rainbow Houses appeared to be just gray. Also a few hours later, in the evening hours, I was not fortunate enough to land at least one decent shot of this beautiful Dutch architecture. But I do not hold a grudge against Houten or the weather God. Even though I did not get what I came for, I did find something, which fully compensated me for my photography disaster: Eetatelier, a very special local restaurant in downtown Houten with the warmest welcome, incredibly g