Weather in The Hague

If you’ve lived by the sea for any period of time, the weather we’re having here in The Hague is neither new nor surprising. The sea has phenomenal power, and can quickly go from placid to perilous.

Here are a couple of pictures taken from my hotel room — once the day I arrived, before the storm blew in, and once just a few minutes ago after the storm has had a day or so to wind itself back down a notch.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And for good measure, here’s a shot my friend Erno took of me standing down on the beach.

The thing about these pictures is that they COMPLETELY FAIL to capture ANY of the majesty and power that I experience being this close to the North Atlantic. COMPLETELY. Even this shot of me leaning into the wind — you can’t see the sand whipping against my face, and I don’t have hair or a cape to be whipped behind me in the wind. Oh well.

–Howard

8 thoughts on “Weather in The Hague”

  1. It’s not showing me the pictures…

    … but if you don’t have a cape, you have only yourself to blame. I mean, really, how can you expect to be cool if you don’t have a cape?

    By the way, when’s Elf getting some regular legs back? those feet must be murder when it comes to sleeping; they’ll need individual bunks for each one.

  2. Capturing majesty and power is extremely difficult in a photograph. It took me two years to come up with this picture of Frank DellaPenna, of Cast in Bronze, and while I’m happy with it, I’m not quite sure it conveys all of the passion of his playing.

    The problem is that the stuff you see as majesty and power of a storm is inherent in its motion, and that’s the one thing a photograph cannot convey directly. Showing it indirectly is one of the hardest aspects of a photographer’s art.

    One suggestion I will make: a little punching up of the contrast in the second picture will bring out the clouds and waves.

  3. I live about 800 yards from the Pacific. And not the nice, calm Pacific that you get in LA. I’m pretty sure that the power it puts out is a major part of the reason that I’m scared of very few physical things. They just really don’t compare to a grumpy ocean.

    1. Howard, howard, howard…

      Really, isn’t it a rule that all bald, bearded men have a black trenchcoat? 🙂

      And by the way, I don’t know jack about Novell but I know s-f and I know comedy and Schlock Mercinary rules with quality and the occasionaly truly evil pun! Keep it up!

  4. Hey, from where you’re standing, if you looked hard [and the curviture of the earth wasn’t in the way] you could see my old home town !

    Grew up on Britain’s North-east coast, on a chunk of land sticking out into the North sea. I know all about what the ocean can do, as there was bugger all between us and the north pole except a few seals and an oil-rig or two.

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