Cultural Corner
Director/Photographer Michael Hall’s Travels to Europe
By Marla E. Schwartz
Michael Hall, former Artistic Director of the Caldwell Theatre Company in Boca Raton recently returned from a trip to Europe where he documented his experiences with his first-rate photography skills. Michael, the master at his craft in his former life, where he racked up seventy-three regional Carbonell Awards during his tenure of thirty-six years for his outstanding contribution to the theater community in Palm Beach County. He has now taken his theatrical eye and exchanged it for a photographer’s eye.
He spoke briefly about his recent excursion to Belgium and The Netherlands. “The trip to Belgium and The Netherlands was a Rick Steves tour beginning in Brussels and visiting Ghent, Bruges, Delft, the Keukenhof Gardens, the Enkhuizen village that’s been preserved as it has been for hundreds of year, plus the flood district and the great ‘arms’ that protect the region from disaster, then Amsterdam,” Michael said. “The trip was wonderful because there are several nights each in Brussels, Bruges, Delft and Amsterdam. I stayed two extra days to add Haarlem and then flew home from Brussels.”
A variety of some of Michael’s images can be seen in the collage images below.
MICHAEL HALL 1st European Collage Photo Description
Beginning from the top left hand corner, wrapping itself around: Bruges around the corner; Brussels grey day; Brussels sunny day; Brussels statues in the park; Brussels man blowing bubbles; Bruges view from hotel window; Bruges another view from hotel window; Brussels Building Façade; Brussels Building Façade.
MICHAEL HALL 2nd European Collage Photo Description
Top Row Across: Delft on a building and Delft reflections in canal.
Second Row Across: Delft Reflections and Delft.
MICHAEL HALL 3rd European Collage Photo Description
Top Row Down: Lilies first day on view and Amsterdam; Willet-Holthuysen Garden.
Middle Row Down: Haarlem Market Square; Rembrandt Huis Amsterdam; The Red Umbrella.
Third Row Down: Waterfall and swan; Pot of Tulips by the water; Acres of flowers; Haarlem boat floats Grote Church.
Rick Steves is an American authority on European travel. He is the host of Rick Steves’ Europe on American Public Television, has a public radio travel show, Travel with Rick Steves and is the author of excellent guidebooks that one can read to prepare them for one of his tours. For more information, go to: www.ricksteves.com.
A Toledo, OH native, a graduate of Kent State, Marla E. Schwartz is a Senior Writer for Miami Living Magazine, a freelance writer for Lighthouse Point Magazine and the a cultural arts columnist for AroundWellington.com. Her photographs have appeared in these publications, in many Ohio periodicals, as well as in The Miami Herald, The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post. She has had numerous plays published and produced around the country. Her short play, America’s Working? was produced in Los Angeles at both the First Stage and the Lone Star Ensemble theater companies, in Florida at Lynn University and at an Off-Broadway playhouse in NYC. Her piece, The Lunch Time Café, was a finalist for the Heideman Award, Actors Theatre of Louisville. Please check out the re-prints of her interviews with authors Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson and Dexter novelist Jeff Lindsay in the October 2010 issue #2 and Chris Bohjalian in the April 2011 issue #3 of Duff Brenna’s ServingHouse: A Journal of Literary Arts at www.servinghousejournal.com. You can contact her at marlaschwartz@att.net.