An Afternoon in Haarlem

Johannes Vermeer's The Little Street, which hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which is on the left, was on my mind after I had looked at it at the museum. So when I spent the afternoon of my last day in the Netherlands in Haarlem, which is 15 mins away from Amsterdam by train, and I stopped outside an ice cream palour, I remembered it. I resisted the icecreams, considered asking the girl behind the counter for a portait, decided the light was against me and then settled on this photograph of elder and younger, mother and son perhaps, eating fresh bought ices in the sun. There is perhaps some thing Dutch about this, a simple quiet street or it is just an illusion, but I enjoyed the momentary comparision between a great master's eye, and my own messing around.

Enlarge it, by clicking on it, and see it large on flickr -- there lots of interesting details.