Hotels Photography

Het Steen, or Antwerp Castle, as it is often referred to, is a Disney-like medieval fortification, which visitors to Antwerp can find down by the city’s busy docks. Steen actually means ‘stone’, which was the main material used to build this structure back in the thirteenth century. Het Steen is undoubtedly a photogenic structure, but time and thought is certainly needed if you are going to capture a unique and inspiring image of this castle.

Interesting perspectives can be captured at night when the castle is bathed in light, giving it an almost ghostly appearance. Alternatively, water at the rear of the castle offers mirror image reflections of Het Steen that work particularly well in the hour leading up to sunset or on a bright winter’s morning. The castle has more than half a dozen towers/turrets, many with flags fluttering above them, although the entrance bridge with its slightly bizarre statue of a giant and two humans is perhaps of more interest to the casual visitor. The main entrance to the castle is only a few metres away from the Scheldt river, from where it is possible to combine images of this medieval structure with the ultra modern skyline of Antwerp behind it.

Antwerp owes much of its wealth to the diamond trade. Today, the Belgian port is regarded as being the premier destination on the planet for buying and selling the world’s most precious gemstone. The Antwerp Diamond District is home to four diamond bourses and visual evidence of the great wealth generated by the gemstone industry is clear for all to see as you stroll around the narrow streets, which, due to their estimated annual turnover of 20 billion dollars, were purposely designed to be well-protected and inter connected.

Diamonds have been traded in this city for more than 500 years and presently an incredible 2,000 or so dealers can be found in the square kilometre that encompasses the Diamond District. Lavish shops, centuries-old historical buildings, Old World cafés and magnificent Jewish synagogues combine to give surreal like qualities to photographic imagery.

With 15,000 Haredi Jews and an ever growing Indian population, one of the defining and enduring images of this city must be of a bearded Haredim, dressed in a dark suit and wide-brimmed hat, dashing past you only to disappear once again down a narrow nearby street or briskly through the front door of an adjacent dealer’s shop.

Antwerp Zoo is one of the oldest zoos in the entire world and offers a treasure trove of photographic opportunities to the visitor. Today, this 160-year-old zoo is home to 6,000 animals, with around a thousand different species in total. But as well as the endless unique images of bears, zebras and American flamingo, Antwerp Zoo is also known for its rich architecture. The spectacular entrance gate to Antwerp Zoo, with its unforgettably powerful image of a lion, surrounded in gold and elements of Art Nouveau, dates back to when the zoo was first opened in 1843.

Other notable buildings and architectural eccentricities in the zoo include the nineteenth century Winter Garden, a100-year-old Aquarium and the turn of the twentieth century Reptile House, which rather resembles a Greek temple. The colourful hieroglyphs and pillars of the Egyptian Temple are typical of the exotic architectural imagery that was selected in the nineteenth century to add an extra layer of mystique to Antwerp Zoo.

Huddles of King Penguins, towering Baringo giraffes and the photogenic Siberian tiger are best snapped outside of feeding hours due to the high number of tourists that come to witness the animals being fed each day.

Boerentoren was Europe’s first ever skyscraper when it was completed in 1932. Even today the farmers’ tower is still the tallest building in Antwerp and dominates much of this Belgian city’s skyline. The Art Deco KBC Tower, as it is most often referred to nowadays, is reminiscent of many of the skyscrapers of New York, such as the Chrysler Building, many of which were built around the same time during the skyscraper-mad 1930s. The building has a strong sense of line and an interesting illusion of pillars. The Art Deco style evolved from many different styles, many of them taken from the ancient cultures of the Aztecs and Maya, and the Boerentoren has that same trademark terraced pyramid effect, by which each of its 24 storeys becomes progressively smaller than the previous ones below them. The adjacent Gothic cathedral and attractive low rise residential areas accentuate the height of this structure, while the modern twenty first century glass high rises stretch into the sky on the opposite bank of the river, a couple of kilometres away.

Antwerp’s Central Train Station – Antwerpen Centraal – is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful train stations in the world, and certainly the most attractive in Belgium. Newsweek famously ranked it fourth in the world behind London’s St. Pancras, New York’s Grand Central, and Mumbai’s colonial Chhatrapati Shivaji Station.

The main train station building has a large ornate central dome and is decorated in places with marble. Many locals refer to it as the ‘Railway Cathedral’, a fitting description for this amazing ensemble of architectural styles and ideas. Most of the interior is lavishly decorated, while the platforms and a number of the diamond shops are covered by a huge arched vault. Extensive restoration work was recently completed on the station, which lasted more than ten years, but fortunately it has not destroyed the unique beauty and ambience of this Old World train station.

Any amateur photographer worth their salt will find something worthy of their undivided attention in Antwerp Central Station, particularly as the light reaching the interior from the central dome continually creates new and contrasting effects throughout the day.

Sarajevo’s streets are buzzing. It’s not as if everybody is walking around with beaming smiles but there is definitely a positive vibe in the air. The young people seem especially optimistic about the future. The centre of Sarajevo is a combination of Old School and the modern. There are just people everywhere strolling around. A lot of them don’t seem to be shopping, just walking around taking it all in, occasionally stopping for a coffee or one of those local pastries they are crazy about in Sarajevo.

Some of the avenues are really grand and a lot of the apartments have got amazing balconies, not that most of them look safe enough to stand on. Other parts of the city look like they are falling apart. There are bullet holes in lots of buildings and I think a lot of them haven’t been repaired since the war here. One of the buildings had a Bosnian flag hung up outside and a yellow tram flashed by. I felt like I’d travelled back in time as I stood there. Another place had these giant statues outside holding up what looks like globes. You see stuff like that all over the city. It’s like a living museum.

I am not sure what the local fascination with Guinness is all about but, strangely, it made me feel more at home. I spotted two walls graffitied with references to Guinness – one of them simply read: ‘Guinness Boys’. Maybe they are a local gang or just some blokes who like Guinness.

It wasn’t long after that that I found the ‘Guinness Pub’! I am not sure if the graffiti and the pub are connected, but it was a good excuse to investigate by checking out the pub. Never did find out the answer, and after a pint of the black stuff I switched to the local beer Sarajevsko.

Seems silly to come all this way and not try the local beer, which was pretty good and a lot cheaper than the imported beers. The pub was really friendly and I didn’t feel like a Billy-no- mates foreigner sat in there. But, to be fair, Sarajevo is a pretty friendly place in general. I think the locals are happy that foreigners are starting to discover the city. It is probably a sign that things are finally moving on here. Nice to visit before the tourists discover this brilliant city.

There are some brilliant pieces of architecture in the centre of the city. I think a lot of it dates back to the Austro-Hungarian empire and well before World War One. The buildings are like museum pieces. One of them had a huge poster of a guy wearing glasses hung up across the main facade. Seemed a bit odd. I have no idea who he was. There was no way to ask anyone. You realise you are just a stranger in a strange land and it’s maybe not polite to ask. I guess half the point of travelling is just observing and taking it all in. You piece it all together in the end and make your own impression of a place which sticks in your head. Sometimes, in my opinion, tourists rely too much on what they read in guide books instead of making up their own minds. Near this was the place where Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914. Not long after that World War I began. Crazy to think that one act like that lead to millions being killed, and that you are standing on that exact spot.

Took a day trip to visit the graves and the war memorials in Sarajevo. The whole experience was humbling and a little upsetting, to be honest, but I am really pleased I did it. You can’t really get your head around what went went on here during the Siege of Sarajevo. So many innocent civilians were killed, a lot of them by sniper fire or mortar shells. People were afraid to leave their homes just to go for some bread. I can’t imagine what that must be like.