Bint photoBooks on INTernet

zaterdag 12 januari 2008

Dutch Eyes Krijn Taconis & Magnum Photo Agency

Kryn Taconis (Rotterdam, 1918) was the only Dutchman who was member of the legendary Magnum photo agency.

He made his first photographs during the Second World War, in the course of producing false documents for the resistance. He also worked for the Underground Camera, a group of Dutch photographers who secretly recorded the German occupation.

After the war Taconis became a freelance photographer and correspondent for Time-Life in the Benelux. After joining Magnum in 1950, he want to Algeria in 1957 to photograph the activities of the FLN (Front de Liberation National) there. For two weeks the recorded the guerrilla war that the Algerian resistance movement conducted from the woods against the French colonialists.

The FLN fought with weapons captured from the French. Good contacts in the countryside provided for sufficient food and clothing. During the time he was with them, the resistance group attacked a French convoy. According to the French radio eight guerrillas were killed in the action, while in reality no one was even wounded.

Taconis continued as a member of Magnum until 1960. The year before that he had emigrated to Canada, where he remained a freelance photographer for Canadian magazines. In the 1960s he also produced and directed a number of films for the Canadian government.

For fear of French reprisals, Kryn Taconis's trip to Algeria was clandestine. For the same reason the photographs he made there were only published after his death in 1979.

Dutch Eyes Krijn Taconis & Magnum Photo Agency

Kryn Taconis (Rotterdam, 1918) was the only Dutchman who was member of the legendary Magnum photo agency.

For fear of French reprisals, Kryn Taconis's trip to Algeria was clandestine. For the same reason the photographs he made there were only published after his death in 1979.

vrijdag 11 januari 2008

Empty Bottles WassinkLundgren winner of the 2007 Arles Contemporary Book Award Photography

'Empty Bottles', 2005, WassinkLundgren, winner of the 2007 Arles Contemporary Book Award

The Arles Contemporary Book Award is one of the undisputed highlights of the festival. The sum of 8,000 euros is awarded to a book that involves a specific creative project chosen from a number of entrants by five notables in the photographic industry, together with Francois Barre the President of Rencontres d'Arles. This year, Dutch duo WassinkLundgren won the coveted prize, for their book 'Empty Bottles'.

In 2005, conceptual documentary photographer Thijs Groot Wassink and artist Ruben Lundgren spent time in China, the product of which is 'Empty Bottles'. The photographs chart the daily rituals of 24 refuse collectors as they go about their business. Each picture captures the extraordinary combination of roles played out by the men and women - part scavenger, part collector and part cleaner. What is especially striking about the images is the clinical tidiness of the landscapes; it's as if the refuse collectors have picked up the last piece of rubbish each time with a furtive urgency to keep public spaces immaculate at all times.

Set against the backdrops of Beijing and Shanghai there's a significant lack of deprivation to the characters and a profound sense of purpose to their business. As a collection the book offers an insight into China's rudimentary social services, which otherwise don't exist or go unchronicled.

Click here to see pages from the 'Empty Bottles'.

Lees meer... & Empty Bottles, een klein concept voor een grote achtergrond...

Empty Bottles WassinkLundgren winner of the 2007 Arles Contemporary Book Award Photography

'Empty Bottles', 2005, WassinkLundgren, winner of the 2007 Arles Contemporary Book Award

Click here to see pages from the 'Empty Bottles'.

Lees meer... & Empty Bottles, een klein concept voor een grote achtergrond...

donderdag 10 januari 2008

De Familie van Bennekom Family Photography

Bennekom, Kors van (1933)
Kors van Bennekom's first photo book, De Familie van Bennekom, appeared in 1990, followed by Twee planken en een hartstocht. 35 Jaar theaterfotografie (Two boards and a passion: 35 years of theatre photography) in 1993; Kors van Bennekom. Amsterdam van restauratie naar revolte 1956-1966 appeared in November, 2002. These publications reflect the three components which comprise Van Bennekom's work: the family, theatre and journalistic photography.

The first book tells the unembellished story of his family growing up, a process that the photographer followed with his camera for almost fifty years. He has an apparently guileless manner of photographing that results in relaxed photographs, with no taboos.

His second book provides an image of Amsterdam's changing artistic life between 1956 and 1991. In those years Van Bennekom worked for the communist daily De Waarheid (1956-1965), was a co-founder of the Uitkrant voor Amsterdammers (a culture and entertainment periodical) for which he would photograph until 1992, and also served as house photographer for various theatre companies, orchestras and museums.The standpoint from which he regards theatre is innovative. He feels himself at one with the actors on the stage and depicts the play through their eyes, so that in his photographs the public can see what it is in essence all about.

The third book gives a picture of Van Bennekom's street photography. The images afford a good insight into the other side of the postwar Reconstruction and the consequences of the Cold War. Together with Freek Aal, Dolf Kruger and others, Kors van Bennekom photographed the actions of the Dutch Communist Party for adequate housing, against nuclear weapons, against evictions and against the release of Nazi war criminals, but also recorded Dutch soldiers embarking for New Guinea and meetings of the Dutch Women's Movement and the General Dutch Youth Association, both allied to the Dutch Communist Party. He repeatedly did portraits of a number of prominent leaders such as Paul de Groot and Marcus Bakker, or photographed them in the company of other Party elite.

In addition, for De Waarheid and the cultural periodical Uilenspiegel (also allied to the Party) Van Bennekom photographed performances of Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf and Louis Armstrong, for instance, and Dutch artists such as Max Tailleur, Johan Kaart and Wim Sonneveld.

Kors van Bennekom developed his own unique, dynamic visual vocabulary in which movement plays an important role. His idealistic view of the world led to an accessible, 'open' sort of photography. He goes to work purposefully, and in photographing takes into account the readers of the paper, whether that be De Waarheid or the Uitkrant. In his family photographs too he strives for a clear and well-defined image through which the subject comes across unambiguously. Van Bennekom is able to extract the maximum from people and situations with a minimum of means. Mutual respect is the key. His passion for photography is great. He always has one or more cameras at hand.Kors van Bennekom renders his love for Amsterdam and its residents without beating around the bush. In his theatre photographs he testifies to his respect for everyone who creates a three-dimensional presentation from a script. And at home he finds the serenity to express his ideas about family life in romantic photographs. With the private photographs Van Bennekom perhaps creates the security that he earlier lacked. This work represents a unique value by international standards. Year in and year out, in an inimitable way he represented the cycle of human life. His photographs bear witness to a sincere, engaged vision of humankind, and of his wife Ine in particular.

Read more Snapshot & family Photography...