SXM Unpolished (1)

Colebay, Sint Maarten DWI

In July 2008, after having read several blogs regularly, I decided to start my own. I longed to 'meet' fellow artists, to have a place to show my creativity and I wanted to be a real part of the blogosphere. One thing more I decided at that time, was to be positive about the island we live, which is not always easy! But I felt that if I emphasized to look at the beauty, I could better cope with the ugliness and poverty that you meet inevitably too. It took me about four years to get used to certain streets, vistas, circumstances and by now it feels more or less like home to me. Being positive and showing the beauty of this island certainly helped, at least it helped me. In most of my banners the word Caribbean is part of a sub-title. I show pictures of beautiful beaches and places I go. Mostly I work on these a little in Photo-Shop, some boosting (thanks to the actions of Pioneer Woman)and some cropping, thus leaving out the ugliness and yes: emphasizing the beauty. But in essence these places are and look like Paradise (whatever and wherever that may be...)
During this almost 2 year period of time, I now and then wondered if this showing only the beauty was all right. When you arrive on this island and the taxi takes you to your hotel, you come across these places that have nothing in common with the beauty, still they also belong to Sint Maarten! They even might cause an unexpected culture shock! I have been thinking about this dilemma a lot lately and have come to this solution: why not start a category of pure pictures, SOOC (straight out of the camera), not PhotoShopped, cropped or whatever. Sint Maarten and St. Martin as can be seen from the car, en route to a stay in 'Paradise'! So I will show a picture every Monday from now on, unpolished and pure, without words, without judgment, see for yourself, just with the name of the neighborhood:

SXM Unpolished