Before    After

Many pictures were taken with a Praktica: an East German no budget Fred Flintstone camera. Every once in a while the mirror got stuck after taking a shot. The viewfinder would show only darkness. Dutch film director Jaap van Hoewijk (a neighbor and fellow student at that time) suggested to smash the camera violently with the bottom onto a brick. It worked, for some time. Fortunately, I have a secondhand Nikon now.

Putting the images in the computer is another example of financial efficiency. Digital camera? No money. Negative scanner? No money. Kodak photo cd? No money. Simple flatbed scanner, scanning prints.
 
My reflex camera is now broken and I don't have money to repair it, so it might take some time before new photos appear on this site. Donations are most welcome!

Some black-and-whites were taken using infrared film. You can tell by the green of the leaves turning bright white and the radiance of white objects. If you are interested in this sort of thing I suggest you visit Andy Finney’s Invisible Light. He specializes in infrared photography and is a very good photographer.

I also like to play with disposable cameras, Polaroid cameras and panorama cameras. Every tool has its distinct character and I like that.

Color photographs with a white edge are Polaroids. They were taken with a $25 Polaroid camera. Wonderful system.

The panoramic images are taken with a cheap disposable panoramic camera.

Before    After

And how did I manage to throw the metronome so straight? Actually, my brother Wessel was standing on a small ladder, just out of view, holding the strings we attached to it. This photo has waited in my drawer more than a decade for computers to become good enough to make the strings invisible.

That's how I edit my photos: by playing around with Photoshop. I change everything, like contrast, colors, I make some parts lighter and other parts darker. Sometimes I even make photos blurry on purpose! I stop at nothing.

Some other people do pretty daring things too: one day I found a website that used my photos without permission. I contacted the webmaster, and was surprised to receive a very friendly and generous answer: in exchange for the use of my photos, he gave me a domain and web space for free... I moved from "The Dark Room of Onno Zweers" to www.landscapes.nl.

When this site moved, I completely redesigned it. The front page was given a nice randomizer: every time the page is loaded, you will see a different combination of 9 photos. There are almost 500,000 possible combinations. I hope you enjoy them all.

If you think this site needs improvement, please tell me. If you like this site, please tell others.