Day Trip to Bruges: Quiet Contemplation & Spiritual Reflection

Whenever I'm in Europe, I always try to take a side trip to a nearby country, even if it's just for the day. It's so easy to do given the numerous high speed train lines that connect the various major cities and besides, I love train travel. During a recent visit to Paris, I decided I to take a day trip to Bruges, Belgium, which is just a few hours away. The train ride was beautiful and scenic and in no time at all I arrived in Bruges and started to wander around to explore, discover, etc.
For a Spring day, it became quite sunny and hot by the mid-afternoon so I decided to get some relief by ducking into a church (St. Magdalena/Magdalenakerk) which seemed to be significantly shaded by some extremely tall and beautiful trees. In stark contrast to the flurry of activity on its grounds and even on the doorstep leading inside, the interior of the church was so quiet and peaceful. In fact, it was so quiet that I tried to tread extra quietly so as to minimize the potential of disturbing anyone inside.
As I walked around, I enjoyed the beautiful architecture and the way that the stained glass windows cast such a beautiful glow on everything inside. In the foyer of the church there was a reflecting pool, which apparently is usually adorned with some type of art display created by some of the local artists. On this day, the reflecting pool was perfect in its simplicity, free from any obstruction. Given that I'm such a sucker for interesting images of reflections, I composed this shot. For a moment I thought about not doing it because I was afraid that the sound of my shutter would be too loud, but I'm glad I did.

Reflection Within a Reflection

Shot in Venice, Italy. Buildings on opposite side of Grand Canal reflecting in a mirror in a store window display.

I Like What I See In Your Rear View

During my visit to Paris last year I had made it a point to make time to shoot the sculpture at the Palais Royale-Musee du Louvre Metro station, known as Le Kiosque des Noctambules (created by the artist Jean-Michel Othoniel). The entire bouche de metro is enveloped by two huge crown-shaped sculptures made of aluminum and colored glass. While it’s a bit odd-looking it’s incredibly cool at the very same time.

When I finally got there I encountered huge masses of people gathered around to watch a group of street performers. I made numerous attempts to maneuver around the crowd for quite some time in the hopes of getting a clear shot of the sculpture but it became pretty obvious that it just wasn’t going to happen.

As I walked away from the crowd to head across the street for a coffee break, I had to pass by a row of scooters and motor bikes which were parked along the curb. I caught a glimpse of part of the sculpture reflecting in the rear view mirror of one of the parked scooters and I decided to take the shot so that’s what you see in this image.

Aside from being a fun experience it was a learning lesson too because it taught me that there is more than one way to get the shot you want, you just have to be creative, patient and persistent. As it turns out, this is one of my favorite images and each time I look at it, I remember the circumstances that led me to be able to capture it.