eye-opener

blik•opener by © Artstudio23.com Melanie Rijkers/MeRy | Blurb

Blikopener = eyeopener. About being healthy and then...you are handicaped, by accident or illness. What society does, and how you need to cope with life after. 10 Clients of Noutenhof's activitycentre told their story, shared photos and had their portraits taken.



"All of a sudden nothing is obvious anymore, it felt as if all knowledge was deleted, I didn't even know that water came out of the tap."

Impossible Project, factory Enschede, trailer

take a look behind the scenes of the Impossible Project factory in Enschede, the Netherlands. Once the very last working instant film (Polaroid) factory, now producer of new instant films... ♥ 'em!

Short film by Mees (11)

Son Mees (11) filmed this at the playground of Bosbad Hoeven, with a little help of brother Pim (8). Enjoy the 'middelpuntvliedende kracht' of the sand falling down in the wheel.

Grand Theatre Breda

Grand Theatre Breda 2007 by © MeRy/Artstudio23 Melanie Rijkers | Blurb

Grand Theatre in Breda was closed in 2007...I then made this lovely portrait (and now this photobook) of the abandoned cinema. 28 April 2011 there will be a re-opening 'old style' check grandtheatrebreda.nl ...you can now wine & dine there, but no more cinema...



Check out all urbex photos from 2007 in this Flickr album.

JUMP! for your business

"JUMP for your business" was the opening stunt for the Business Breda meetings 13 & 14 April 2011.
More photos of this business event in my Flickr album.

Story Telling: Red-On-Red finalist Gala Awards

Red-On-Red finalist @ the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards

"1,020 series were received for the first screening, and of those 178 passed to the second screening. One winner, 4 runner ups and 29 honorable mentions were awarded, while another 100 series ...were finalists in the second round and will al so be featured in the book Storyteller. Sample of the images of those series are displayed below next to the names of the awardees and finalists. In this occasion we received the series from 44 countries. The first screening has been done by the Artistic and Editorial Team of WPGA while the second round was juried by Julio Hardy, managing director of the WPGA."

More natural redhead beauties via http://www.mery.nl/rood

Australia 2011

Just back from an amazing trip to Oz. I was invited to witness a Giant Trash The Dress event in Adelaide, SA. I just couldn't refuse, being the one who started the mass Trash The Dress photoshoots in 08.08.08 :)))
This time it wasn't such a big crowd as on September 9, 2009 (we had 99+ brides! :) but Kelly from SaySo Weddings did a great job. Hairdressers, mua's, the whole lot was there @ the Stramford Hotel. To me a good example of how to organise an event, though I am more into the photography of it than being the host. The Trash The Dress photos will be uploaded in a later stage, but part 1 of my travels down under is already online! Enjoy my trip to Kangaroo Island and the Great Ocean Road.
I travelled with Adventure Tours Australia and I highly recommend them. Already in 1998 me and my husband did a great tour to Kakadu National park with them. I just love the Australian bush, coastline and animal life. All so very special, I could easily go there and stay! Unfortunately Australia is pretty unafordable now, with the AUD. being up to 200% of what it was worth in '98 AND prices of e.g. a bed in a hostel (dorm) now is 30 instead of the 12-15 Australian dollar in 1998. Also food, even in supermarkets, is very expensive, 'Australian made' or not, it's also 4x our Dutch prices. E.g. a bottle of 600 ml coke, supermarketprice: 4,50 AUD = 3,50 EUR = 0,79/1 EUR in Holland. (!!!)
Still I loved being there, and I had such fun seeing my family again. John, my cousin-twice-removed, still lives in Melbourne and they were happy to have me, so I had a great time seeing them all and meeting the new extras (boyfriends) of the girls. I remember Willem as a little baby, born in 1993, (just when I was there!) and the girls 3 and 5/6 years old...man, time flies..!