Sunday Stamps: Photography

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Photography'.

Photos are used often on stamps, but photography as an art in itself seems to be rarely used in the tiny traveling postage pictures.
Fortunately I found stamps dedicated to three Dutch photographers. Who, by the way, have been traveling all-over the world to take their pictures.

Charlotte Dumas (Vlaardingen, 1977) is one of my favourite Dutch photographers, because of her photos of animals, portrayed in a personal way. I had never heard of her, neither seen her work, until PostNL issued this stamp sheet of 'animals with a story' in 2015. In the selvages you can find the names of the animals, and read some more info (in Dutch).



In 2014 the five 'children's welfare stamps' ('Kinderpostzegels') stamp sheet shows pieces of art, depicting children. The artwork is part of the collection of the Rijksmuseum (the National Museum). Four stamps show paintings, and the fifth one, twice as much larger than the other four, show this photo:



The photographer is Maya Pejić (The Hague, 1935). The boy pictured is making some amazing manoeuvre on his skateboard in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam.
Some more information (in Dutch) about the photographer you can find on the website of the IISG (International Institute of Social History), and many more pictures you can find via google.

An other stamp sheet, completely dedicated to a photographer, is this sheet, issued last year in honour of Ed van der Elsken (Amsterdam, 1926 - Edam, 1990).
Personally I wasn't that interested in these stamps, due to the photos and the tiny size of these, but reading something more about the background (alas in Dutch only ,too) they became interesting for me though.




See more stamps on the theme 'photography' on today's Sunday Stamps blog and via the links mentioned there.

Sunday Stamps: Horses

Two days ago my 'Horse' chaincard arrived back home. In an almost two months journey, via Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia my card gathered beautiful horse stamps.

And this Sunday Stamps theme happens to be 'Horses'! A good opportunity to share this chaincard with you:



The photos on the Dutch stamps top left have been made by Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas. These stamps are part of a ten stamps sheet named 'portraits'. On her website you can see more wonderful animal photos, and some background information about the horse on the left stamp, and about the white horse.

Of course I used stamps from this sheet also for the other chaincard participants. I scanned the other person's cards before forwarding to the next participant. And you can see some similar stamps and some different one:







Mail companies from many countries have issued horse stamps. Since a year I found myself collecting horse stamps. By 'collecting' I mean I keep them when found, even if they are folded, like this one from Germany:



In the past decennia Dutch Post has issued more stamps showing horses:

Former queen Beatrix and her late, sympathetic husband Claus riding a horse:


(their minor granddaughters were pictured without a head protection cap, too, by which they were not giving a good example to other horse riding kids)

A 'personalized stamp', created by Arnold Voordewind from natuurlijkefoto.nl and issued by PostNL, showing a Konik pony, the only type of horse living in the wild in the Netherlands:



A Dutch traditional character is Sinterklaas, aka Sint/Saint Nicolaas. On his white friendly horse Amerigo he even rides on roofs. You can see them often along with their companion Piet/Pete:



An other 'Sinterklaas' and Amerigo, pictured by late Dutch illustrator Max Velthuijs:



An other white horse, carrying Prince Siddhartha, is shown on this stamp from Sri Lanka:



Horses have inspired many artists and craftsmen:
A horse shaped flute from Latvia:



Stylised horses, also from Latvia:



A double headed, winged horse from Kazachstan:



A horse shown on an inkpot on a Ukrainian stamp:



Horses at work:

From Canada:



Horses helping delivering the mail, from the United Kingdom:




The chess horse stamps I've found I will keep for an other theme :-)

See more wonderful horses on stamps on this Sunday Stamps blog post and follow the linke mentioned there!

Sunday Stamps: Canines

This Sunday Stamps' theme is 'canines', which I would freely translate into 'dogs'.

I happen to have joined a 'dogs' themed chaincard project recently. Four people (including me) sent a postcard in February 2016, with stamps matching to the theme.
The four postcards made the same journey, be it that each started in a different country: from (and to) the Netherlands, Taiwan, Japan and Russia. All cards arrived home, in the four countries respectively, provided with stamps and postmarks from all countries.

I scanned the other participants' cards, too, when they passed my home. So I am happy to be able to show you the dog stamps I had in my hands for while. Hope you won't mind there are some doubles, however the combination with the other stamps and the postmarks make each stamp unique.

The first card to arrive at my place (and to be sent the next day) I received on the 3rd of March, from the Russian participant (click image to enlarge):



The Dutch stamps I added are from a ten stamp sheet, dedicated to the photography of Charlotte Dumas.

On the 26th of March the postcard arrived, which has started its journey in Japan:



The same day also the postcard from Taiwan arrived, with two Taiwanese, one Japanese and seven Russian dogs united:






All of the cards above I've forwarded, to have them finally arrive at the first senders' places.
And the 29th of April my postcard returned, with this variety of dog stamps:

(left side)
(right side)

See more canine stamps at today's Sunday Stamps blog post and by clicking the links mentioned there.



[Front side of my postcard, collage made for postcrossing years ago. Luckily for me many postcrossers don't want handmade cards, so I could keep this postcard, which finally made a long journey and now is retiring at my place.]