We visited Willemstad during our stay in Curaçao, a city mostly known for the colourful houses along the quay. But I wanted to do something different with photographing this city, and the light was pretty special the morning we were there. In the photo above you can see the famous lineup of houses together with the Queen Emma pontoon bridge. I decided to go for black and white, as I liked how the houses were illuminated by the sun, and this way there is more emphasis on the light. The different colors of the houses work also well in black and white, as they provide rich grey-tones.

I did another photo of the pontoon bridge as well:

Although I am still not really comfortable doing street photography, I thought I’d give it another try. So here are a couple of photos of people working (or chilling, as it is the Caribbean 😉 ) in Willemstad.

There is a floating market in Willemstad, and I imagine these guys are discussing the catch of the day or negotiating prices.

The pontoon bridge shown above opens every now and then to let big ships through (such as cruise ships), at these moments the ferry below takes pedestrians from Punda to Ottrabanda (‘the other side’ in papiamento). I guess the rest of the time the crew just waits on the quay…

There is another famous bridge in Willemstad, the Queen Juliana bridge, which is the highest bridge in the Caribbean. Of course I had to give it a try to come up with something original here. So I decided to take on a very low shooting angle. I am not sure if it works really well, I think the composition could have been better. But I do like the different textures I get from this angle, the street, the water and the sky. Again black and white works for me here because there is less distraction from the textures.

Finally a more touristy photo, my man walking towards the Atlantic, and of course the typical Caribbean palm tree.