July 9, 2012

Photo album exhibition at FOAM

Filed under: Art,Photography by Branko Collin @ 10:29 am

They used to exist, books in which people pasted prints of pictures they had taken.

Now that we’ve landed firmly in the digital age, in which prints appear to be the sole domain of ‘pixel peepers’ and newly-weds, Erik Kessels (him of In Almost Every Picture) has curated an exhibition at FOAM in Amsterdam that puts the photo album in the spotlight once again.

Writes FOAM:

Album Beauty is an ode to the vanishing era of the photo album as told through the collection of Erik Kessels (1966, The Netherlands). Once commonplace in every home, the photo album has been replaced by the digital age where images live online and on hard drives.

Photo albums were once a repository for family history, often representing a manufactured family as edited for display. They speak of birth, death, beauty, sexuality, pride, happiness, youth, competition, exploration, complicity and friendship. Album Beauty is an exhibition about the visual anthropology of the photo album.

Walking through the exhibition will be like leafing through a photo album. Erik Kessels is known for his unorthodox manner of installation and Album Beauty is no exception. On display will be hundreds of photo albums, all telling different but familiar stories. Some albums will be exaggerated in size and exhibited as wallpaper while others will be displayed in their original format. There will be interactive albums to flip through and life size cut outs for the viewer to walk around. Album Beauty features the endless formats of analogue photography many of which are no longer manufactured as well.

The exhibition will run from June 29 to October 14.

(Photo: FOAM)

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June 18, 2012

Photo expo shows 24 hours of Rotterdam

Filed under: Photography by Branko Collin @ 6:10 pm

De Kracht van Rotterdam (‘kracht’ means power, strength) is a photo exhibition and contest in which 12 photographers, one for each neighbourhood of the city, show many facets of the largest port of the Netherlands.

The photographers had to base their pictures on a poem by Jules Deelder and Jana Beranová, and each had to shoot four photos within 24 hours. Click on the photographers’ names to see their works, a short bio, and a map that shows where in Rotterdam the photos were taken.

Starting July 2 there will be an exhibit in the streets of Rotterdam. The exact locations will be announced on the website. On that same day, Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb will award one photo with a prize of 3,500 euro at one of the locations. The exhibit will run until September.

From the website:

We should not just show [the power of Rotterdam] in the media and in museums, but also and especially outside these institutions, in the city itself. The people of Rotterdam can be found on the road more often than in a museum. Show Rotterdammers what their city looks like, what the city can do, what it does and achieves. Show South how North sleeps, show Hilligersberg an afternoon in Charlois, and show that there really isn’t much that separates dreams, ambitions and possibilities.

Shown here is the harbour area of Hoogvliet Pernis, as portrayed by Jet van Schie who graduated in 2005 from the Willem de Kooning academy.

Update 19-6-2012: I had a quick chat with the organiser, and have merged the info she gave me with the article—Branko.

(Link: Trendbeheer)

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June 15, 2012

KLM crowdsources its next destinations calendar

Filed under: Aviation,Photography by Orangemaster @ 3:14 pm

Dutch Daily News says:

Once a year, KLM publishes a popular wall calendar containing beautiful photos of its destinations. KLM will be taking a different approach this year. Photos submitted by social media fans, passengers and employees will play a central role in the 2013 KLM Fan Calendar. It’s going to be a genuinely ‘social’ calendar containing travel photos from people around the globe

Upload your pics for the Fan Calendar Competition.

Or don’t. Some people believe that crowdsourcing is a newfangled way for companies to get things done for free or cheaply, although I cannot imagine KLM not receiving enough good pics for its calendar.

(link: www.dutchdailynews.com, Photo of KLM A330-200 by caribb, some rights reserved)

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May 28, 2012

Suzanne Jongmans packing foam portraits

Filed under: Art,Photography by Branko Collin @ 11:21 am

BoingBoing writes:

Netherlands artist Suzanne Jongmans has created a series of portraits in the style of the Dutch Masters, creating the costumes out of soft packing foam sheets. She needs to team up with the artist who creates 15th century Flemish self-portraits using airplane toilet tissue and seat-covers. Together, they will rule the atemporal world.

A BoingBoing commenter points to the portrait work of Hendrik Kerstens, which in turn reminded me of the still lifes of Richard Kuiper.

(Photo: Suzanne Jongmans)

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May 4, 2012

Site sells legal news photos for use on social media

Filed under: Online,Photography by Orangemaster @ 1:59 pm

The Netherlands’ two biggest photo agencies, ANP and Hollandse Hoogte, have set up the website Eerlijke Foto (‘Fair Photo’) allowing people to legally download their news photos for use on social media sites at reasonable prices.

The idea behind the site is a lot like the one behind music sites like Spotify and iTunes: if people can pay a fair price (a couple of euro) as opposed to an exuberant one, they’d be more inclined to buy than to steal. Yes, even though many of us collectively post pictures we have no legal right or permission to use on the Internet, it’s legally and technically stealing, whether you get caught or not.

It’s one thing and a lot of hard work to try and sue all the people that use your photos illegally both agencies say, so they are making their photo database available to others all while stepping up the nailing of anyone who uses their photos illegally. In fact, as 24oranges found out once, they are even baddies (copyright trolls) who will try and represent copyright owners illegally, try to sue you and scare you into giving them large sums of cash.

(Link: www.z24)

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April 14, 2012

Journalistic portraits of photojournalists

Filed under: Bicycles,Photography by Branko Collin @ 9:26 am

Hebbediekiek is a web site of six photojournalists in The Hague (the seat of government of the Netherlands) that publish action shots taken of their colleagues. It’s basically them zooming out a little so that you don’t just see the ‘actors’ of politics, but also the ‘crew’.

The site drew some national attention when it recorded a photographer tumbling (see screenshot, top right) when he was trying to get a shot of Prime Minister Rutte trying to make his getaway on a bicycle. Krapuul.nl suggests that Rutte is driven by a chauffeured limo to these sort of affairs, and he only bikes the last few hundred metres.

Hebbedekiek—‘hebbe die kiek’ with the spaces in all the right places—means either ‘get that shot’ or ‘gimme that shot’, ‘kiek’ being the Dutch word for ‘snapshot’ and usually used in the diminutive, ‘kiekje’.

(Illustration: screenshot of hebbediekiek.nl. Link tip: Jeroen Mirck.)

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March 4, 2012

Internet lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet says “Limit copyright on images”

Filed under: Photography,Technology by Branko Collin @ 3:19 pm

Engelfriet writes on his blog:

An [Internet trend] I had not seen before, Pinterest, is a service that lets you publicly bookmark images, a sort of virtual notice board. […] Is this legal, can anybody just make a collection of images from everywhere without the rights holders’ permission?

No, this is not legal. […] If I were older and more cynical, I would now announce the bankruptcy of copyright law for images. Everybody, and I mean everybody, thinks it is normal that you take images off Google for your mood boards, blogs, and Facebook accounts. And this is happening on a grand scale. The uploaders are difficult to track, middlemen are not accountable, and notice-and-take-downs are a lost battle.

[…] If half of the country breaks the law, it is time to start wondering if the law should not be changed.

In the comments Engelfriet (who incidentally has helped us in the past and who regularly comments here too) gives several examples of road rules that have been adapted following civil disobedience: on one hand, cyclists can now turn right on a red light in certain situations, but on the other, they are still obliged to use bike lights when it’s dark outside. Compliance with the latter rule has, however, been increased with safety campaigns and stricter policing.

(Illustration: pinterest.com)

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February 29, 2012

Acquired by Facebook while not even a member

Filed under: IT,Online,Photography by Orangemaster @ 11:07 am

Today, Dutchman Dirk Stoop is the Product Manager at Facebook in charge of photos, as photos are the main reason people use Facebook. When Facebook first started allowing users to tag each other in photos in 2006, suddenly 70% of users came back every day, while 85% came back every week.

In July 2011 Stoop starting working for Facebook when his software company Sofa B.V. was acquired, with the goal of having Stoop work for Facebook.

The funny part is that Stoop himself only joined Facebook in April 2011 and is now in charge of what makes Facebook a huge success. Yes, you could file this posting under ‘Zoek de Nederlander’ (’Find the Dutch person’).

(Link: www.businessinsider.com, Photo of Facebook friends by Dan Taylor, some rights reserved.

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November 8, 2011

My name is Cohen at Jewish Historical Museum

Filed under: History,Photography by Orangemaster @ 12:46 pm
annefrankstatue1.jpg

Starting on 25 November 2011, Amsterdam’s Jewish Historical Museum will feature the exhibition ‘Mijn naam is Cohen’ (‘My name is Cohen’), a series of portraits made by Amsterdam photographer Daniel Cohen with texts by unrelated Editor-in-Chief of magazine Vrij Nederland, Mischa Cohen.

They got together and found 25 people with the same last name, but of different generations, backgrounds, gender, views, Jewish and non-Jewish. Former mayor and politician Job Cohen is mentioned as is journalist Jisca Cohen thanks in part to whom I got to meet Daniel Cohen (unrelated to each other) and found out about his project first hand. I also know he plays a good game of football.

The quick and dirty version is that Amsterdam (aka Mokum, its Jewish name still very much in use by everyone) had lots of Jews and today for Holocaust reasons has very few.

(The picture of Anne Frank, the most ‘popular’ Jewish figure of Amsterdam who was German and not Dutch.)

(Link: www.jhm.nl)

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October 8, 2011

Erwin Olaf’s painting-like photos of the liberation of Leiden (1574)

Filed under: History,Photography by Branko Collin @ 12:22 pm

Look at these great photos Erwin Olaf made in celebration of the liberation of Leiden from an 11 month siege by Spanish forces in 2011.

The city still celebrates the liberation each year. Olaf made nine photos on request of Leiden University (the oldest in the Netherlands) and Museum De Lakenhal, some of them portraits, other still lifes. The largest, a historical ‘painting’, is on permanent display in De Lakenhal, the other eight are exhibited until January 8 in the university library. The photos are inspired by paintings of the time.

You can also view the photos at a digital exhibit of the University of Leiden:

The historical piece was shot on July 6, 7 and 8 in Peter’s Church in Leiden. The equipment had been installed on the fifth. On that same day Olaf took a test photo using stand-in models. He had picked the camera angle during an earlier visit to the church. […] The photo was shot in three parts, spread out over the three shooting days. First the right hand side, then the middle, and finally the left hand side.

NRC has a short ‘making of’ picture gallery.

Erwin Olaf is a former journalism student who quickly turned to art and commercial photography. He gained fame and notoriety with his portraits of fat people and midgets in bondage outfits. On October 13 he will receive the Johannes Vermeerprijs, a state award founded in 2008 to “honour and further stimulate remarkable talent”. The award consists of 100,000 euro.

Leiden was liberated in 1574 by the terrorists of Willem van Oranje, the so-called geuzen or gueux. The French word means beggars, a name given to the Dutch nobles that wanted to separate from Charles V’s European empire. The geuzen breached dikes around the city, after which the Spanish army fled. A young orphan called Cornelis Joppenszoon left the city on October 3 and went to a Spanish army camp, which he found deserted. There he also found a kettle containing hutspot (mashed potatoes, carrots and onions). He then alerted the citizens. In the early morning the geuzen entered the city bringing herring and white bread.

Using water as a defense was seen as a viable way to maintain Amsterdam as a national redoubt until the invention of the tank. The floodable area was called Fortress Holland.

Not unrelated: Modern still lifes by Richard Kuiper.

(Photos: Erwin Olaf, 2011, Leidens beleg en ontzet (1574). Link: Historiek.net. Link tip: the Digital Diva.)

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