Finally! It’s time for my summer holiday. I have two weeks off now and I have been really looking forward to it. Not that I don’t enjoy being at work but getting out of the work schedule for a while isn’t bad!!! Since I’m not going away, besides the occasional day trips, I’ve decided to [...]

Not only was it a special day for my mother today as it is Mother’s Day in The Netherlands (like in so many other countries around the world) but it also was a very special day for a mother living close by. My parents have two Great Tits nesting in their garden, even though it’s [...]

Have you ever thought you wanted to be a fly on the wall. I know I have. Sometimes I would love to see and hear what’s going on in another room in the house or even at work when I’m not there. Not because I expect them to be mean about me, but because I [...]

There is a bird house in my parents’ garden which is now occupied by 2 birds having a nest in it. I know there are young birds in there as you can hear them when one of the parents flies in with food. Of course I took this opportunity to take a few photos of [...]

I don’t get a lot of time watching the programs that bring the more ‘entertaining’ and fun news. Not necessarily the news that has to do with celebrities, but just the fun and light hearted news and subjects. But now that I’m at home sick (with my arthritis once again, but trying new medication now) [...]

I have been thinking about participating in the National Geographic Photo Contest for Belgium and The Netherlands but when I went to the site I noticed so many beautiful photographs. Truly much better than mine, and I’m not talking myself down, they just are! So now I’m in doubt, should I just go for it [...]

what you see in the following photo? I guess this post needs some explaining first though. Today I was reading National Geographic Magazine and noticed some beautiful photographs. So I went online and found even more, but these seemed to consist out of textures. Seeing it as a challenge I tried to make some texture [...]

Every year we have kittens with our barn cats. And every year I say the same thing ‘Ooh they are so cute!’ Seriously, they are. If you look at them play together for a little while you can see they all have different characters. Some are a bit shy, others are quite playful and others [...]

This week’s Photo Friday challenge is Minimalism. For me that means, very few things in a photo to distract you except the main focal point. Searching through my personal photo archive I came across a shot that strikes me as simple. But simple seems very close to minimalism so that will be my choice for [...]

This week’s Photo Friday challenge is ‘Difficult Shot’. Since this is a pretty broad subject, because it an be basically everything, I went through a lot of my photographs but decided to go for one I took just a few days ago with the macro lens. This shot is difficult for me for a few [...]

After picking up my macro objective for my camera this morning, I had to test it. I just couldn’t resist leaving it unused until tomorrow so instead of doing the things I was supposed to do (such as house work) I went outside on the hunt for some bugs. I really have to get used [...]

I finally got that long awaited phone call from the photography store telling me my macro objective is in. It took about a month for them to get it in. I can understand they are depending on their supplier to get these things in when ordered, but I would have expected them to call their [...]

I’m done with it. It’s over, or well almost anyway; The new layout for Chantal Photography. The only downside is that I’m using a flash gallery to display my photography, because a variety of plugins for gallery display haven’t been working for me, and (or) didn’t display it as I wanted it to. The layout [...]

I finally started working on the make-over for my photography website. The last time I updated that was June last year (or somewhere around that time). So it was seriously due for an update and a layout change. Especially since the weather is changing and it’s really a good time to take the camera with [...]

I ordered a new lens for my camera; a macro objective. It’s been a week and a half and I still wait for a phone call from the store to say it’s in. I’m anxious to use it as the weather is great and there’s plenty of macro life around. Let’s hope it arrives soon, [...]

After my previous post about live Wildlife Cams, I decided to test my luck with the Djuma Game Reserve website and see if I could get on a cam safari. They only have 80 places available for people to join in on a safari so getting on is a bit like winning the lottery. Yesterday [...]

After my (numerous) posts on TOMS Shoes, here’s another post on shoes. This time from a different angle. I finally had some time to go out with my camera and relax after some hectic days at work. When I looked down at the stables I saw some things that looked like it would be great [...]

Today I had my first event to photograph. A riding school in a neighboring town was celebrating their 30 years of business. There were all kind of performances in different kind of equestrian disciplines. I managed to take some great shots and I will post them on Chantal Photography tomorrow, as I still have to [...]

Finally instead of procrastinating I decided to make some progress on my photography site. Granted there is still a lot of work to be done and the layout is not completely my own it’s based on the Rockstar 3 theme by themevibes.com. Generally that’s not my thing but I’m entirely without inspiration at the moment [...]

The site disappeared years ago, but now it’s back, Theme Thursday! It might be interesting for those of you who (occasionally) participate in Photo Friday. For Theme Thursday you will need a Flickr account though since they now operate as a group there. I think challenges like this are a good way to share your [...]

This is what my balcony view looks like at 6 AM. Yes, you read that right, 6 AM. I got up this morning to go out and take some shots at sunrise. Luckily I didn’t have to go as far as I thought I had to go. All I had to do is step out [...]

What do you do on a cloudy day with high chances of rain? You stay indoors if you can and find the perfect spot and lighting to take photographs of borrowed orchids. Well, that is if you’re anything like me and are still drooling over the new camera you bought last week… So I went [...]

In a previous post I talked about how it shocked me to see my site statistics go downhill in about two weeks. Today I visited my stats page again to see how things are and once again I got shocked. No visitors today at all… Which is very weird as one of my default pages [...]

I don’t want to jinx it but I’m feeling a lot better than last week. The flu seems to be gone although my throat is still acting up. Not sure if that’s the last bit of the flu, a ‘warning sign’ for my arthritis due to the weather, or a combination of both. I’m just [...]

Yes you read that right; I’m in love. Not with a person though (let’s face it, no cute guys around here…) but with my new toy. A Canon Selphy CP720 printer to be able to print my photos. It’s another step in the right direction for selling my photographs. With it I’ll be able to [...]

Everyone relaxes in a different way. I like to sit on my balcony and watch the sunset. Here are a few photos I want to share you from the view I have. Total relaxation for me, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Remember I’m in the middle of the city so [...]

The promise I made about posting the photographs I took of some flowers has to be broken. Well sort of anyway, I will still post them sometime soon but for now I have something else. I was thinking that since I don’t have any photographs of myself on this site (anymore) most of you probably [...]

As most (or some) of you know I love photography. And I would like to implement that part of my life into my house and my decorations of the house. Of course this will be after Christmas as right now my Christmas decorations are up and the designated spot for my photography is in use [...]

It’s been a while since I did a Photo Friday Challenge so I suppose it’s time for one. This week the challenge is Innocence. Usually I have to go out and acquire the photograph that matches the challenge but this week I have photos a plenty. Why? Well because my animals like to pretend they [...]

It’s officially fall now, it has been for a few days. The weird thing is that it doesn’t feel like fall yet. The trees are still green, flowers are still in bloom and producing buds. These photos were taken on September 10, 2006. Which is a little while ago but not that long. Not much [...]

My portfolio is finally up and running, when I managed to install WP again yesterday it seemed to unblock the layout block. I managed to scrape a somewhat decent layout together which is now viewable on Chantal Photography. You’ll have to be a bit patient though, not everything works yet (such as Terms of Use [...]

Even though it’s a day late (as I promised it would be up by yesterday) I’m fairly happy to present to you my photography portfolio. I say fairly happy because I’m not 100 % satisfied yet. With this current set up I can only have three albums, and I would have preferred more. The only [...]

This one is for my regular visitors and my closet fans. This week’s Photo Friday challenge is circle. I found it a very difficult challenge, but going through my photo collection (which will be up tomorrow if things go well!) I discovered a photo that might just pass for this challenge. If you look at [...]

Today my arthritis is killing me and therefor it’s rather difficult to type. So no useless random facts, sarcastic articles or witty entries today. You’ll just have to put up with this photo which was taken at the Dvur Kralove Zoo in Czech Republic. I think this photo shows the power of nature and how [...]