atlanta + amsterdam: bikes
This week's theme of the project atlanta + amsterdam is bikes! It’s funny how this project already made me look with different eyes at all the bikes in this city, shifting them in polaroid worthy and non-polaroid worthy.
Anyway, Amsterdam is considered the second bike city in the world, after Copenhagen. There are more bikes than inhabitants in this city, as some people have one ugly / old bicycle and a fancy / beautiful / vintage one for special rides to one of the local coffee bars (Just kidding).The first one would make you shrug your shoulders while mumbling something like “Whatever…” when it got stolen, while the second one, well, that’s another story. But this is where the '1,5 bike per person' comes from.
Because of the large quantity of bikes in the city they are literally everywhere! Every bridge, street lamp or wall is covered in bicycles. And so is this overgrown wall in the Jordaan area…
You can head over to Andrea’s blog hula seventy for the story behind her polaroid (isn’t it lovely?!) Oh, and maybe it’s nice to tell that although it looks like we coordinated our bike shot; we didn’t. Honestly. It’s just one of those serendipitous things that happen sometimes, and which I love so much.
Have a lovely evening, guys!
Joyce
P.S. Have you seen our previous polaroid diptychs of buildings and treats yet?
atlanta + amsterdam: buildings
Today is the day of the first official post of the atlanta + amsterdam project, of Andrea and me. Our first theme is buildings. An abandoned building (and a tiny pedestrian) in Atlanta and a light blue corner building in Amsterdam.
When I started thinking about my polaroid for the theme buildings I knew I had to shoot this one, because it's unmistakably Amsterdam. It's one of my favourite buildings in a neighbourhood I adore: De Jordaan. I love the textures of this corner building, the light blue chipped paint, the ivy growing wildly and the quirky cat eye glasses in the window. And of course the bicycles everywhere, which is so typically Amsterdam as well.
For both Andrea and me this is such an interesting project; to surprise each other every week with new polaroids of our cities, and to find differences and similarities between our lives in Atlanta and Amsterdam, to see the cities through the lenses of our beloved SX-70 cameras.
We have a, still secret, list of 11 more exciting themes to come, for another 11 weeks of atlanta + amsterdam !
Please check out Andrea's (wonderful!) blog for her story. You can find the introduction to our project AND our portraits on polaroid in our previous post.
