Take a Photo, it Lasts Longer – World Press Photo ’15

Imagine if You Can; Picture This.

During my short stay in Amsterdam, I had the fortune of visiting the World Press Photo 2015 photo exhibit that displayed winning entries, taken and submitted, from around the world. The photos were judged by various panels of judges through multiple stages/rounds until winners in different categories could be decided upon. The process took place in Amsterdam itself and hearing about the selection process was almost as interesting as the photographs themselves.

I happened to catch the exhibit during its first display in the Nieuwe Kerk on Dam Square, from the 18th of April to the 5th of July 2015. The exhibit will be travelling worldwide and showcasing the most affecting photographs entered into the contest. Entry to the exhibit was only 10 Euros and without quite knowing what to expect, I took a curious gamble and ventured inside.

The New Church certainly has an impressive face on it.

I was pretty sure that I had heard the name of the organisation before, but I could not recall the context or time that the memory was created, nonetheless, upon being graced by the grandeur inside the church and greeted with a wall displaying the history of winning selections; I was lost inside a new world.

The world may be beautiful, but its history often isn’t.

In this world, hope wasn’t always apparent and the sheer volumes of photos that reared the uglier head of humanity were all too clear to see. From war and civilian death in the Ukraine to strangers eating at fast food restaurants, the range and variety of styles, subjects and techniques were an awe-inspiring experience for a plebian novice such as myself. Matching the oft gruesome photographs with the majesty of the building that housed them was almost a juxtaposition too far, for my brain to handle.

The House of Angels displaying the evils of men.

One of the more immediately striking photographs was taken during riots in Turkey in response to the death of a young lad who had been hit in the head with a tear gas canister. Everything from the colour present to the girl’s expression forms a powerful effect and leaves an instant impact upon the viewer.

Although still a relatively small exhibit, there was a great variety of media available to digest: winners from each category were displayed on boards giving a short story behind the entry and providing a QR code that could link you directly the photo page on the website (useless for myself, but no doubt appreciated by others); there was a small off-set room that ran interviews with members of the judging panel detailing the selection process and their thoughts behind some of the main winners and lastly, a room dedicated to video documentaries.

The documentaries were displayed on large screen projections with tendrils of earphone cables hanging from suspended racks. Given the topics and subject matter of the films, the strength of silence, when not connected to any headphones, was almost deafening. I managed to watch documentaries on cubicle living in Japan; Ebola outbreaks in Monrovia; illegal entry into Europe and police violence in America before I had to just move on. Without a doubt, the video of Eric Garner’s death was a lot to deal with and it was hard to process the cocktail of anger, sadness and disappointment that it drew from within.

Fortunately, before leaving the multimedia area I encountered the interactive documentary {The And} that took a simple premise and turned it into something that was hugely effective. 30 different couples were asked to sit and face each other whilst asking and answering questions that had been written onto cards for them. Three stationary cameras then recorded their interactions and the pieces were edited together to make a personalised and personable response to how the viewer had answered a series of questions at the computer terminal, beforehand. After watching the tailored sample, you were then free to browse through any of the couples that had taken part in the documentary. In my humble and honest opinion, it was both parts of Ali {AND} Andrew that were the best to watch – if you so desire, the couples’ gallery can be found at theand.us website after watching your tailored film segment. Just the honesty and the emotion between these two was heartbreaking yet hilarious and warming. Relationships are often messy and none of that quagmire of experience is lost on these exes.

The one item I made sure to purchase from the exhibit gift store, for 25 Euros, was a copy of the book detailing the photographs and their stories. The overall winning entry to claim ‘Photograph of the Year’ was displayed on the cover – this year it was a portrait of a gay, Russian couple on the floor next to a fireplace. Simple, yet beautiful the picture displayed true love in a country where oppression was rampant. The world may not be filled with overly apparent hope, but beauty can still be found in the tiniest of corners.

Should I Visit an Exhibit?

Yes. Take an open mind and a fortitude of mental mettle; your world will be challenged and your eyes will feel the sting of what you see.

An Amsterdam’ Good Trip?

Amsterdam was the last city of my foray into Europe and would mark the (eventual) meeting of another friend on the continent; with my meagre budget I knew it would be a challenge to find entertainment, as well as adequately feeding myself, but accepting the challenge I ventured forth!

Day 1 – Pouring Rain and Strangers

I arrived near Sloterdijk Station after a 3-hour journey on an iDBUS from Brussels to a wet and unforgiving Sunday evening, on my own and without mobile internet or anyone to meet me. If I was to describe my general thoughts at the time they would be encompassed within the single word: ‘Bollocks.’ Failing to follow the simple directions on the Google map screenshot on my phone I wondered around hopelessly until a kind stranger asked where I was going and then offered to give me a lift in his car. Normally I would be apprehensive about getting into the car with strangers, but I assumed that the kind sir and his wife (who sat in the back of their 3-door car so that my soggy, foreign ass could take the front passenger’s seat) were not going to be the types to maim my still-living body and leave my corpse to bloat and decompose in some canal. The couple were both Muslim and the guy asked me where in England I was from and other general questions that helped the awkward silence of me soiling the car with second-hand rain water; going on my brown skin and beard, the guy assumed that I was Muslim too and not wanting to dishearten the saviour in my predicament, I did not correct him.

Eventually, I reached my destination: WOW Hostel, Wiltzanghlaan 60.

The building certainly gets points for colour.

All that is needed is a couple of twins on tricycles – ‘The Shining’ eat your heart out.

I have stayed in plenty of hostels before, but shared group rooms are the bane of my journeys away from whichever place I’d call home, and this stay would be the most depressing and soul-destroying one yet – despite a welcome lack of strangers’ snoring. As my trip was a budget journey, I’d opted for 2 nights BnB in an 8-person room, which came to a total princely sum of £22 (31 Euros) when done through online booking. Once I had checked in and been briefed on the usual hostel rules etc. I was desperate to find somewhere warm where I could get dry, snuggle up with a wifi-enabled device and forget about the horror of not having a personal guide/chauffeur/host, as was the case in Belgium. Enlightened by travel tips ensuring that a lot of travellers leave their plug adaptors behind at hotels and hostels I tentatively asked the guy behind the desk if he had any EU to UK plugs spare; a brief look yielded a plethora of EU multiplugs and no adaptors. Damn travel site advice. Once I had left my phone on charge at the desk and after sitting around waiting for it to charge, it was up to my room to get cosy; but alas, further hardships were yet to come.

I will begin with a simple observation – when you are a child there is nothing more effing awesome than a bunk bed that you can climb and claim as your tower amongst the putrid presence of lower bunk peasants whom may abide in your kingdom; as an adult, however, finding the energy and effort to scale such a construction is tantamount to listening to a friend’s boring story and smiling whilst resisting the urge to tell them how much you want to develop a time machine just so that you can travel back to before the conversation begun just to save yourself from the inanity. That, or I just really hate bunk beds now. Due to my late arrival, the only bed left was a top bunk by windows that took up nearly the entire space of the end wall. Dumping my stuff in an under-bed storage chest left me with a grim realisation that my padlock would not fit the latch on the chest – I’ve played RPG games and the idea of leaving my things unattended in a chest for someone to pillage for loot was not comforting. As I ascended to my nest, I’d realised that I’d left something down in the chest below, so heavily sighing I began to climb down only to misjudge a foothold on the metal ladder of the frame and fall flat on my arse in the middle of the floor. My lower bunk neighbour looked up from his book and asked if I was okay, once he’d ascertained the conviction of my health went back to his book and no more words were said.

I had decided that food was in order, but as I was too late for the hostel restaurant (21:00 closing) I was treated to the class and comfort of a KFC burger meal for one, just a short walk away from my room. Once back in my room it was definitely time to call it on the day, so gathering the necessary items it was on to the shower. There are several things that I think are underrated in bathrooms – one is hooks and the other is space to sit and/or get dry without your feet getting wet again. There was neither in this room and it was a mental hook punch to the jaw that was received with a low, earthly grumble from within. Somehow the shower curtain had had the bottom half-foot, or so, of it cut off and there was nothing to stop the run-off from happily filling out the floor and with this storey’s colour scheme, it was hard not to imagine an homage to ‘Psycho’. Once I had finished washing, carefully dried myself and removed the clothes I had balanced on the door handle, it was back to the room that was filled with the silence of strangers that share a space of convenience rather than a space of joy and after multiple failed attempts to connect to the wifi gave up and let sleep claim me.

Day 2 – Footwork and Photography

I am never sure of what conditions other people have lived in, but I would stretch to imagine that they have curtains that are usually closed during their rambling of dreamscapes in their REM cycles; yet no-one in our room had deemed it suitable to close all of the curtains along the windowed wall. As much as I love 5:30am wake-ups, the several hours of wrestling to defeat the consciousness afterwards is a feat that I have yet to fully master. The saving grace of my stay here was the buffet-style breakfast that offered white/brown bread and rolls; cheap turkey or ham slices; cereal, juices and hot drinks. Ignoring the adage of ‘most important meal of the day’ this meal was important to my day as making sure to stuff my face here meant that I wouldn’t need to snack or buy a heavy lunch to survive a day spent in the city centre.

Curious as to what may lie on the other floors inside the hostel building I took a walk up to the green gallery (aptly placed inside the hostel’s green-coloured storey) and discovered that the hostel also hosted art studios and even a few exhibits from local artists – no real surprise that an artist would feel at home inside WOW, with the large room space and cheap accommodation, it may have even been a Godsend to them. There was an interesting exhibit in support of undocumented migrants named the In Limbo Embassy but during my stay I saw no-one using or helping with the exhibit/service. Before departing, I also made sure to check a huge circular stand of offer/discount business cards and made an objective list for my adventuring that day.

The Imprisonment of Heaven – not sure who made this, but it was safely tucked well-behind a wire fence on the way to the bus stop.

Heading out into the world outside the hostel, I searched the nearby stores for any signs of a plug adaptor, but once again disappointment had its hand firmly upon my shoulder. Once I had found the nearby bus stop at Bos en Lommerweg it was time to catch the number 21 bus into the city centre and owing to the short length of my stay I didn’t think that buying a travel card was worth the investment, so I opted for an hour-long ticket to cover my single journey that cost 2,90 Euros (yes, in Amsterdam even the buses charge you a time limit for the pleasure of riding them.) Once sitting comfortably it was just a case of staring out the window and awaiting my arrival at the Central Station.

Houses are tall, narrow, slanted and ever so slightly comical to observe.

The first destination on my objective list was Dam Square to receive a free walking tour of the city from a group named 360 Amsterdam that offered tours of the city and had numerous speakers and languages available to tourists. We even got adorable little Dutch gift bags to mark us as being part of the tour group.

Don’t you wish your gift bag was cute, like me??

We were told that tours usually lasted for 2-2.5 hours but due to the number of questions and noisy interruptions, ours lasted 3 hours, but was definitely worth the time. I learnt about the history of Amsterdam’s founding (or the alleged story of) and got to see a fair number of attractions that I would have struggled to find under my own effort. We were told that we didn’t have to tip our guide at the end of the tour, but I found it in my heart to offer 20 Euros for the time I had been given (not an Earth-shattering amount, but frugal was the word of my trip.) The 360 office was also located in Dam Square, just above a cafe named Dam Good Coffee and their tourist information and ability to act as a base for tourists (with toilets, wifi, refreshments and information) helped a huge amount.

Our tour guide, named Rik.

Adjacent to the 360 office was the New Church (Nieuwe Kerk) that was hosting the 2015 World Press Photo Exhibit and it was extremely intriguing – pretty much every part of it from the building itself to the photos, videos and even an interactive video documentary. Another 3 hours were lost inside this wonder for an entry price of 10 Euros and I will talk about it in more detail, here.

Hoping to meet a friend I headed back to the Central Station, where I was treated to the sound of amateur pianists playing at the public piano inside the station – a great idea to help break the monotony of public transport, but apparently an accommodation nightmare and a failing on timetabling meant that meeting my friend would be the following day. Determined to stay undeterred I bought a huge bag of chips (fries, if you aren’t from the UK) and headed to Dam Good Coffee to make use of a coupon I had received from 360 Amsterdam. Energised and wanting to walk some more I decide to trek the 5km, or so, past Westerpark and back to the WOW Hostel.

De Bloem on Nieuwpoortkade

I may have still been without a travel adaptor, but today had been a good day, all things considered.

Day 3 – Delayed Expectations and Coffee Shop Conversation

 Making sure that I took care of curtain duty the night before, enabled me to ignore the majority of the early morning sunlight (though the sledgehammer slam of the closing door helped to replace it in terms of unwanted sensory stimulation.) Now knowing of the possible shower swamp conditions I made sure to be the second one in the bathroom and hastily packed up my things and headed to breakfast for another, final face-stuffing. Leaving my large rucksack in the lobby storage room and just making the 11am checkout, I headed out for a shorter day in the city before my pilgrimage back to London.

Dam Square was full of people, despite the cold and grey weather, and the entertainment ranged from scruffy-looking men feeding pigeons seeds and then letting themselves be coated with the bodies of these flying rats, to a group of beatboxers who had been in the country for a competition. Taking pictures of the former and then sitting to watch the latter, time passed impressively quickly. The performers certainly knew how to draw a crowd, much to the glee one drug-addled man who was happily dancing around and unintelligibly warbling along (too many a time did he misjudge his seating and fall backwards, beer can in hand.) As with all usual public performances that don’t agree with some council ogre somewhere or other, the police came to break up the group, marking the end of the impromptu show.

Pigeons make for an interesting shooting opportunity.

A beatboxing crowd pleaser.

Still waiting on news of my friend I took on of the free ferries behind Central Station towards the Eye Museum – a very modern-looking building that hosted international films and photo exhibits. Having no time for a scheduled movie and not wanting to use the very upmarket restaurant inside I simply stood using the ample free wifi and waited for the arrival of a friendly face.

The Eye Museum with its sharp design.

Only a short 4 hours late I managed to meet with my friend Nadia who had just been kicked out of university for a shockingly horrendous attendance record and we wandered around until we found the coffee shop ‘Abraxas’. Talking away and experiencing the local culture, I then had to say my goodbyes and get the bus back to Bos en Lommerweg, grab my bags from WOW and then make haste to Sloterdijk Station to make the bus back to bonnie Britain. With a mouth that felt full of cotton wool and an empty pack of caramel wafer cookies that Nadia had given to me, it was time to settle on the back seat and get ready to embrace the journey ahead.

Overall?

This was my second visit to Amsterdam and I still had yet to visit the Anne Frank or Van Gogh museums; to fully appreciate Amsterdam I feel that I would need at least a week, plenty of advanced ticket bookings for the major attractions and a wad of money to help make it more comfortable. Despite all this, even with a tiny budget there is more than enough to keep you entertained and with the right attraction you can happily lose hours to being informed and amazed. It was a tough few days compared to my time in Belgium, but in no way do I regret going it alone and entering semi-blind with regards to what would happen. Wayfaring is certainly a little harder when every step of a journey is planned to the tiniest detail, that’s for sure.

iDBUS – A journey to the Netherlands and Back

This post is on the journey I experienced travelling from London to Belgium and then on to Amsterdam and then back to London, using a coach service provided by iDBUS. My departure from London was in the morning; then a few days later it was an afternoon departure from Belgium, leaving my final journey to be a night bus from Amsterdam.

The estimated times and ticket costs for my bookings were:

London -> Brussels, 7hrs 30mins, £28 (actual time 7hrs 15mins) 7:00am, Friday departure

Brussels -> Amsterdam, 3hrs, £20.62 15:45, Sunday departure

Amsterdam -> London, 9hrs 45mins, £31 (actual time 8hrs 30mins) 20:00, Tuesday departure

The times on the tickets were zone-dependant, which was more than fine travelling from London (GMT) to Brussels/Amsterdam (GMT+1), however, for travelling from Amsterdam to London the ticket used GMT+1 for both the departure and arrival times, which helped to add to the general boddily-harm of the night journey. For this post, I will use the timezone for the country I was in at that point of the journey.

First off, I chose iDBUS as I didn’t want the hassle of flying and personally if I can get away with a cheap method of travelling that puts me in a position where I don’t have to worry much at all, I’m going to take it. Also, as a general tip for passengers, when you book online make sure that you change your seating position as it seemed that if you did not, the first positions to fill were the ones near the toilets – perhaps you don’t mind the smell of transport toilet in the morning, but bear it in mind. Moreover, drivers aren’t always bi-lingual so you may have to talk to other passengers to find out exactly what is going on or to ask questions if you have any. The most common thing I was left wondering about was how long exactly we had at each destination we stopped at (the general rule being 15mins). Additionally, I would take the opportunity on either side of the Channel crossing to grab a proper toilet break and a snack before you load yourself back onto the coach.

Part 1 – London to Belgium

My adventure from London began after an unfathomably early start that would see the coach leaving London Victoria Coach Station at 7am. Groggy and wanting the world to burn I had my passport and booking checked by the driver, dropped my bag into the hold and took my seat. This journey was apparently not a popular one, as there were no more than a dozen passengers and the quality of the seats did not put me quite in high spirits. But, the air conditioning and free wi-fi were able to at least detract from the grim residue lacing the upholstery.

I really hope those were caused by water…. These were two of the better seats that I saw.

Shortly after departing there was an announcement in multiple languages on the monitor screens onboard detailing the usual safety, seat adjustment and behavioural advice you’d expect on a public, shared method of transport. With great joy I slid my seat as far sideways into the aisle as I could and settled for the long haul.

After about  two hours, the coach pulled in at Folkestone just after 9am and so began the rigmarole of the impending crossing. I was told that iDBUS were a lot faster in getting across the Channel as this provider used the Eurostar tunnel rather than any ferry crossing, but it still didn’t quite prepare me for the amount of time spent on either side, waiting to cross.

Exiting the coach, we were corralled through a passport check that lead to a service station and then it was back to the coach to sit and wait, then a second passport check, some more waiting and finally at about 10:40am we were loaded into the train cars and ready to roll on to the continent.

Being my first time crossing in the Eurostar, I was honestly shocked by the sheer amount of steel and movement that was around. The tunnel definitely isn’t one for the claustrophobic.

The Eurostar tunnel is pretty much 30 minutes or so of being inside a very mundane 4D simulator, designed to look like a semi-futuristic airlock. Staring at the white walls on the inside of the carriage and gently rocking with the sensation of movement despite no visual points of reference; the whole experience is what I imagine sex in a loveless relationship to be akin to – something exhilarating and excited turned into an inconsequential role that you just wish would be over before too long.

Once free of the tunnel, however, it was time to fly and the coach propelled itself through the French countryside and before too long it was time for a quick stop to pick up/drop off passengers.

After a pretty non-eventful journey, Brussels Midi/Zuid Station was finally reached at 15:15 and that was the end of my first leg of this foray into Europe.

Part 2 – Belgium to Amsterdam

Once I had completed a few days exploring caves and staying with a friend, it was then onto Amsterdam to meet another friend and pretend I was cultured. The seats this time were much nicer and I got the general impression that the previous coach was a veteran of the company.

 

A little bit more reassuring than my first experience, for sure.

At 18:45 the coach arrived to receive a nice downpour in Amsterdam, just a short walk from Sloterdijik Station, then it was down to me to navigate to my hostel, tend to my bedraggled state and end the second leg of my travelling.

A road south of the station – the iDBUS shown wasn’t the one that I took, but if you are looking for the bus stop by the station this pretty much means you are on the right path.

Part 3 – Amsterdam to London

Now this last leg was the most painful night journey I have ever taken, for quite some time. It wasn’t full of people, had no altercations, or left me in hospital, but it incessantly interrupted any sleep cycle someone could wish to attain, with impressive efficiency.

Leaving Amsterdam’s Sloterdijik Station at 20:00, it was another uneventful journey to Brussels. We arrived at 22:55 for a 20minute break which was thankfully enough time for me to run inside the station and grab a couple of bottles of water from a vending machine before I pruned-out.

The next wake-up was 2:00am at Coquelle to begin the timeless rigmarole of crossing the Channel tunnel. After queueing and having our passports checked, there was a luggage scan that looked like a line for auditions as extras in The Walking Dead. Luckily, there was a nice travel services station awaiting our arrival, however, due to the god-awful timing of our arrival, the service station was basically as desolate as a set from The Walking Dead. After some more water and a juice drink from the only counter that was open, our 20 minute break was over. One more passport check followed for the reassurance of some paperwork being stored in a dusty office somewhere. Yet more waiting was to be had and finally, we were able to enter a tunnel car for our 3:25am departure.

After all that had come before, the most painful wait was now yet to come. Trusting entirely in the times on my ticket I was lulled into a false sense of security – no, the arrival time would not be 5:45am GMT that I assumed it would actually be, but it was 4:30am GMT! But why would you hate arriving over a whole hour early you ask?? Well, after walking to London Victoria tube station, I still had an hour of doing nothing with all of my luggage in tow before the underground would even open. If you ever want to have a small appreciation of what being homeless is like, perhaps you need not look much further.

Normally waiting by myself is a well-practised talent that I can pride myself on, but owing to my ability to attract weird and wonderful people I was stuck talking to an economics student who was a little bit special and whom argued that there was too much immigration into the UK because realistically London should only have about 50,000 people in it. Being British and too polite for my own good, I gave myself no option but to abide by his logic and answer his questions in some emulation of a conversation that can only best be had before 6am in the morning.

I’ve never been so relieved to see a shutter open, or later on, to see a bed that I could collapse upon and bid farewell to the conscious world. In essence – long night journey was long.

If you’ve managed to reach this far, congratulations! I hope my tales of travel and struggle have enlightened or at least entertained you and my closing opinions are as follows:

iDBUS pros:

Air-con, wi-fi and European plug sockets

Relatively comfortable seats

Fair prices most of the time (seemingly I went during an off-special pricing period)

Quicker than relying upon ferry crossings

iDBUS cons:

Night journeys are akin to dining with Satan

Having to ask/chase information from others

limited departure times for the longer journeys