Not so much to show this time. Just two lucky shots that I took with the Canon Ixus 850 right outside our frontdoor short after a heavy rainshower. Lucky in a sense that the rainbow appeared just outside in front of our place. 
A total view of the rainbow
And a close-up
Didn't took much pictures the last two weeks that were worthwhile to share. But last night we had a a great night with musical fun.
Last Night N., two friends and also former roommates and yours truly went to a concert of the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra in our hometown Utrecht. For those who are not familiair with their music you can describe their music as Madness meets The Pogues with a bit of punk-, jazz-, soul-, funk- and bigband- and even klezmerinfluences added to the overall mixture, creating a live performance that turns every musicevent into a partying, jumping and dancing whole.
N. and I saw the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra for the first time two years ago at the Parkpop Festival, a free music festival at The Hague, which is always held at the last Sunday of June every year. Although they were playing early in the afternoon, they got the whole crowd jumping and dancing, including me and that's quite an achievement if you know that I'm not a big dancinglover. They have a great and very energetic live performance and they also proved that last night.
We had a wonderful and fun time last night N. and I manage to made a few pictures and I shot two videos that I uploaded at YouTube. The video's can be seen here and here.
I also made a (little more extended) posting about the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra at my musicweblog at BrownNoiseMusic.
I have a busy period behind me. Last Friday I got married with the love of my life N. and although we didn't had a very big wedding there was still a lot of organization involved. We had a few guests from Japan, England and my brother came across from Israel and they all needed to be looked after. But everything went smooth and we had a marvelous day with a nice ceremony and an enjoyable party with good food and drinks in a quiet and pleasant relaxed atmosphere.
For those who are curious about our weddingpictures I have to disappoint you. I'm not going to post pictures from our wedding on this photoblog. Not that they are not worth seeing, but because N. and my mother in law doesn't like it when their pictures are shown to everybody on the internet. I probably might post some of them on an online private photoalbum where only invited people can enter.
So you have to do it in this post with part 2 of my catching up pictures. This time a selection of pics from a cycling trip that I made early in the morning of May 5th, 6 days before our wedding and almost two weeks after the pictures that I showed in the posting before this one. Again they were taken at my regular route from my hometown Utrecht, Oud-Zuilen, Maarssen, Breukelen and Nieuwersluis. After Nieuwersluis I didn't continue and I turned and went back home, because I had some things to do in preparation of our wedding.
This time mainly pictures of birds with little chicks and a stray picture of a building. Most will speak for themselves again, so I won't add much comment to them. 
This is part of the Willem III (William the third) militairy barracks at Nieuwersluis and named after King William III who reigned from 1849 until his death in 1890. The barracks first served as a trainingplace for new recruits. After that it became a facility for disciplinary punished soldiers and nowadays it's a women's prison. The barracks are close to Fort Nieuwersluis, the fortress that is part of the Hollandse Waterlinie (Dutch Waterline) and is on the opposite site of the river Vecht.
Because of the reed it was hard to focus on the swan and its chicks, but the unsharp reed adds some nice effect to the pictures I think. A passing by pedestrian offered to keep the reed away so I could get a sharp picture of the swan, but I told him that I didn't want to disturb the swan and the youngsters too much.
Here are some pics again which I made during a cyclingtrip on one of my regular routes. I often ride from my hometown Utrecht, through Oud-Zuilen, Maarssen, Breukelen, Nieuwersluis and Loenen. It's a very nice route. If you take the camera with you, you always find something interesting to photograph from birds, nature, landscapes etc.. And besides the many photograph opportunities it's also a very nice and gorgeous route to ride. Also an advantage is that about 95 % of the cyclingroad is asphalt which guarantees a comfortable ride.
Unfortunately the wheather has become worse the past few days, but the past weeks I've been lucky and I drove hundreds of kilometres on this same route. It still doesn't bore me.
In this post you see a selection of pictures that I made on April 22nd, a little more than two weeks ago. And again it's a mix of animals (birds), still lifes, landscapes and houses. Most of them will speak for themselves, I guess.
This heronnest with youg herons was taken with the Nikon AF-S VR 70-300 mm f 4.5-5.6G IF-ED on maximum zoom. Because the nest was on the other side of the river and about 25 to 30 metres high in the tree I had to make a cutout from the original picture to get them at this close-up size. Despite the maximum zoom and the fact that I didn't use a tripod the result is quite sharp I think. I like the mohawks on the heads of the youg herons.
I wonder where the grebe is looking at.
The reflection in the water of the leaves and branches gives a bit strange effect around the swimming duck and her two younsters
It was hard to take pictures of the swan without any shadow. But because of the position of the wings I wanted to take some pics anyway. On the third and the fourth pic it doesn't bother too much, I think in these two pics it probably enhances the picture.
I already posted a picture from this electricity distribution house as a preview in my former post. Here is a selection of the whole serie. As you can see it's not that big from the other side of the river Vecht. So it's not that strange I didn't notice this remarkable point in the landscape earlier during one of my previous cyclingtrips.
You might think I put this empty Gauloisesbox by myself for compositional reasons, but I swear I didn't. I noticed it while I was taking the pics from the electricity distributionhouse.
This picture is unsharp because these babyducks were moving pretty fast in the water. But it also gives an impression of movement in the picture, I think.
A total view of the rainbow
And a close-up
This is part of the Willem III (William the third) militairy barracks at Nieuwersluis and named after King William III who reigned from 1849 until his death in 1890. The barracks first served as a trainingplace for new recruits. After that it became a facility for disciplinary punished soldiers and nowadays it's a women's prison. The barracks are close to Fort Nieuwersluis, the fortress that is part of the Hollandse Waterlinie (Dutch Waterline) and is on the opposite site of the river Vecht.
Because of the reed it was hard to focus on the swan and its chicks, but the unsharp reed adds some nice effect to the pictures I think. A passing by pedestrian offered to keep the reed away so I could get a sharp picture of the swan, but I told him that I didn't want to disturb the swan and the youngsters too much.
This heronnest with youg herons was taken with the Nikon AF-S VR 70-300 mm f 4.5-5.6G IF-ED on maximum zoom. Because the nest was on the other side of the river and about 25 to 30 metres high in the tree I had to make a cutout from the original picture to get them at this close-up size. Despite the maximum zoom and the fact that I didn't use a tripod the result is quite sharp I think. I like the mohawks on the heads of the youg herons.
The reflection in the water of the leaves and branches gives a bit strange effect around the swimming duck and her two younsters
It was hard to take pictures of the swan without any shadow. But because of the position of the wings I wanted to take some pics anyway. On the third and the fourth pic it doesn't bother too much, I think in these two pics it probably enhances the picture.
I already posted a picture from this electricity distribution house as a preview in my former post. Here is a selection of the whole serie. As you can see it's not that big from the other side of the river Vecht. So it's not that strange I didn't notice this remarkable point in the landscape earlier during one of my previous cyclingtrips.
You might think I put this empty Gauloisesbox by myself for compositional reasons, but I swear I didn't. I noticed it while I was taking the pics from the electricity distributionhouse.
This picture is unsharp because these babyducks were moving pretty fast in the water. But it also gives an impression of movement in the picture, I think.
