4 even hier door Fred Brommet Dominique Berretty, Sem Presser en Eddy van der Veen Photojournalism Photography

4 even hier door Fred Brommet Dominique Berretty, Sem Presser en Eddy van der Veen Andere auteurs: Graphic Design StudioHBM De Geillustreerde Pers

Dominique R. Berretty was born in Indonesia in 1915, then under Dutch occupation. His father and namesake ran a legendary press agency called Aneta, which went bankrupt in 1934 after his death in a plane crash. In 1943 Berretty became a prisoner in Germany. Dominica Berretty began a career as a freelance photographer from 1953, when he moved to Paris. He joined the Rapho agency and worked for Life magazine from 1958 to 1968, taking photographs and making news reports on De Gaulle, Churchill's funeral, the war in Algeria, and then Vietnam. In 1969 a photo story on the "Birth of the Bikini appeared in Look magazine by Berretty. Berretty took many photographs of celebrities, from starlets to national leaders, including Brigit Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier, General Charles De Gaulle, Winston Churchill, etc. Berretty, who died in 1981 at age 65, was one of the great photojournalists of his time, whose work unfortunately remains largely unknown. A retrospective of his Algerian photographs was shown at the 2002 International Festival of Photojournalism (Visa Pour L'Image).

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Fred Brommet (1924-2008) begon zijn opleiding in 1942 aan de Nieuwe Kunstschool in Amsterdam bij Alexander Bodon. Daarna koos hij voor de opleiding binnenhuisarchitectuur bij het Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs van Mart Stam in Amsterdam. Na de oorlog reisde hij naar Parijs om het fotografenvak te leren. In 1953 trouwde hij met een Parisienne. Samen zetten zij de inmiddels bloeiende fotografenpraktijk in vooral mode, ballet en reclame voort. Tussen de bedrijven door fotografeerde hij de stad en de mensen. In mei 1968 deden zij de studio in de Rue Fontaine (met André Breton als buurman) van de hand en keerden zij terug naar Nederland nadat Brommet eerst de ravages in de straten van Parijs met zijn camera vereeuwigde. Over deze Parijse fotografie verscheen in 1997 de publicatie  Tableaux Parisiens bij het Maria Austria Instituut.

Sem Presser life-story is rather incredible. He was born into a Jewish family of diamonds merchants in Amsterdam in 1917, when the Nazi’s invaded Holland in 1940 Presser joined the Dutch underground and used his artistic talents to forge documents to help the resistance and to assist the members of the Jewish community escape from Holland (Holland’s Jews were being systematically deported to Nazi concentration camps), at the same time Presser illustrated children’s books! (all while he was hiding from the Nazi’s) Sem Presser lost his parents in the flames of Auschwitz in 1945.

After the war Presser became one of Holland’s most important photo-journalists, serving as head of the Dutch Association of Photojournalists more than once. Presser traveled extensively, he shot images at the first Cannes Film Festival in 1946, covered theAlgerian War, he also documented the rebuilding of Germany after the war for the global press. Presser was an official photographer at Grace Kelley’s and Prince Prince Rainier of Monaco wedding, he traveled to the USA where his images were published in Life Magazine. Presser loved France and lived for years in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, (the village Le Corbusier built his famous cabana). Presser died in 1986.

On Presser’s official site you will find the most wonderful archive of images (flash required) – I spent a few hours looking it over and enjoyed the images so much – funny, serious, beautiful and full of heart – in my opinion Sem Presser is a major player in the history of photojournalism and well worth knowing about.

Van Der Veen was a freelance photographer for LIFE and Time Life Books and won first prize for photo stories in the World Press Photo contest in 1963.