A beautiful old city: Leiden, a gorgeous Autumn sunny day, a quiet morning with fresh air, more than 10,000 daily steps and a 10 km walk with a wonderful company, a stop for a delicious capuccino, an open air photo festival along the way with talented local and international photographers: that’s what I call a perfect Saturday morning. The International Photo Festival Leiden is open since mid September until end October. No big venue and no huge crowds, no QR code required but instead small scale exhibits in the open, in the parks, along the spectacular singelpark surrounding the medieval part of Leiden. We discover the work of diverse talented [mainly female] artists like Eelkje Colmjon and her portraits of young Iranian women, Patricia Nauta who followed writer Marteen Biesheuvel in the intimacy of his home before his passing in 2020 and gives us a marvellously humane portrait of another artist, Katharina Pöhlmann and the still lives as “it is” around her room, Franky de Schampheleer and his funky universe of Flandronië, Daniëlle Cellie who makes the portrait of a vanishing town, we meet the hilarious supers of Craig Tuffin, or we follow Rachel Mounsey all the way to Australia, in the eyes of the storm, and many others. Broad choice of genres and formats, some likeable, some not, some triggering indifference, laughters, disgust or joy, but always worth stopping by and enjoying. When all the stars align and one recognises his/her good fortune, the world looks different.
