Love-hate Helmut Newton

Yves Saint Laurent, French Vogue, Rue Aubriot, Paris 1975, ©Helmut Newton / Helmut Newton Estate

Helmut Newton, you either love his work or you don't. FOAM currently has a major exhibition on the renowned photographer Helmut Newton, who was originally German but fled his country because of the rapid rise of national socialism in 1938.
With a few girl friends of mine I went to see this retrospective which took over the whole museum and showed a wide variety of his work. We loved his fashion photography, there is often lots of humor and interaction between the people in the photos. Also, the images were very stylish like the photo above and gave a good impression of the fashion of bygone periods like the seventies.

Self portrait with wife and models, Vogue Studio, Paris 1981, ©Helmut Newton / Helmut Newton Estate

We were not too keen though on some of his other work which portrays barely clothed women with perfect bodies on high heels. To us, they were distant, somewhat cold women without personalities nor hearts. Perhaps you feel differently about it, but these photos seemed to be made for men and we as female lookers were not able to relate with any of these beauties. And indeed, according to this article he wasn't interested in people, he was not interested in soul. On the other hand, I am interested in people. I would like to see a spark, a glimpse of their characters or souls even if it is just very subtle.
The exhibition is running until 4 September 2016.
BewarenBewaren

Photograph of the Board

photograph by Maurice Timmermans

Last Tuesday a man that I know through work as a consultant and came over at our Faculty in a totally different role namely as a photographer to take a photo of the Board. He came with lamps, tripod and a big Canon and set up our Board room for the photograph. He wanted  to take a kind of 'action' photo, so after he was all set up we came in with our meeting papers and iPads and pretended to be in a proper meeting. The light was difficult: it is winter, the sky was completely overcast, there are windows on one side of the room (the left side for the viewer) and of course there was the traditional office lighting from above. Not an easy task, because the lights kept reflecting in one the glasses of portraits on the wall.
We are all quiet enthusiastic about this picture: the light is soft, the atmosphere relaxed, it looks just like a modern version of an old-fashioned painting. Of course we women arranged for colour synchronization beforehand, the blue looks good on us both and it adds a splash of colour in the whole image.

The photographer is studying at an international Art School and he is passionate about photography. He especially likes to photograph people. Check out his website: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mauricetimmermans

Exhibition: Vivian Maier - Street Photographer

Vivian Maier, four portraits, New York, NY, 1953-56

This afternoon a friend of mine and I went to the exhibition of "Vivian Maier, Street Photographer" in FOAM over here in Amsterdam. I've wanted to see it for a while and since I am having two weeks off it is the perfect opportunity to go ahead and see it.

Vivian Maier, self portrait, undated

The entrance of the exhibition itself was a bit unfortunate: it started in this long and small corridor with on one side a lot of photos and on the opposite wall a long text with an introduction, storyline and resume. It was quite crowded before I got to the end of the corridor and I was standing in everybody's way.

entrance of exhibition: Vivian Maier, Street Photographer

The exhibited photos were wonderful though. She left behind a ton of work of about 120.000 photos on which people from all walks of life are photographed. You can see the curiosity for the people around her in the photographs. Her photographs are also quite direct: people are looking at her whether they like it to have their photograph taken or not.

two women looking at photographs of Vivian Maier

9 self portraits of Vivian Maier

For some reason she took a lot of self portraits, shown above are nine of them. In most of them she looks quite stern, unsmiling and eyes looking elsewhere. All self portraits are reflections in anything that she found on the street and indoors, some of them very ingenious.

my friend C. looking at Vivian Maier's photos

self portrait of Vivian Maier, undated: shadow and reflection in a ball

In the seventies she switched from black & white photography to colour and you can see the change in her work immediately: colour takes a prominent place in her photographs.

three people in yellow, Chicago, IL, 1975

The following pictures are two of my favorites of the exhibition, they took my breath away:

Vivian Maier: untitled, Chicago, IL, April 20, 1956

Vivian Maier: untitled, New York, NY, not dated

In both photographs I love the subtle light, the patterns and the lines. She clearly had an eye for the everyday.
The exhibition as a whole is well worth seeing: Vivian's images are straight forward, subtle, raw, funny and endearing. It is on in Amsterdam until 1 February, 2015. 
All photos are taken with an iPod touch.

Three pictures of my teacher

Like I said in Friday's blogpost, I wanted to buy three pictures of my Miksang teacher HèlenA. Vink at the Bewust Markt (Conscious Market) in Haarlem. I just chose three that attracted me on the spot and after I got home and had a good look at them, I realized all three of them depicted pattern. Pattern and a little more than that. 

I bought three aluminum frames at HEMA that I could either hang on the wall or place on a cupboard.

Although they fit good together they are placed in different parts of my apartment (I don't have much wall space because of slanted walls) I am very happy with them and I enjoy it every time I look at them.

The picture above is taken in Zandvoort, a beach town in the Netherlands. The objects in front of the picture are found on beaches in various towns in the Netherlands.

Vivian Maier

You've all probably heard about her and the discovery of her work. I recently bought the book Vivian Maier, the street photographer, and I'm quite in awe with her work.
Apparently she leaves a treasure of about 100,000 photos as a legacy to the world. Nobody knew she was taking pictures of the world around her. I like that she took pictures of people from all walks of life: the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the pretty and the ugly, men and women, children and elderly, black and white, they are all there on her negatives. Bit by bit the negatives are printed and published.

"Vivian Maier represents an extreme instance of posthumous discovery; of someone who exists mainly in terms of what she saw. not only was she entirely unknown to the photographic world, hardly anyone seemed to know that she even took pictures."

Geoff Dyer

More information on Vivian:

http://www.vivianmaier.com, the official website

http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com, a blog by John Maloof

Here are some of her pictures in the book that I like:

All pictures by Vivian Maier.

Exhibition foam II: Edward Steichen

The second exhibition we visited was about photographer Edward Steichen (1879-1973) 'In High Fashion, the Condé Nast years, 1923-1937'. During those years he worked as a fashion photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair and he had hundreds of famous models, actors, actresses and authors in front of his camera.

There was an overwhelming number of photographs displayed; some people are still known nowadays for their looks or abilities, others are forgotten over time.

Below are some of my favorite pictures that were on display:

Actress Carlotta Monterey, 1924.

Actor Gary Cooper, 1930.

Actress Mary Heberden, 1935.

Actress Greta Garbo, 1928.

Actress Gloria Swanson, 1924

Actress Loretta Young, 1932.

Actress Marlene Dietrich, 1934.

Princess Nathalie Paley wearing sandals by Shoecraft, 1934.

Of course this has nothing to do with Contemplative photography: this has nothing to do with fresh perceptions, everything is posed. But I do like his lines and lighting, and his sometimes dramatic use of shadows.

All photographs by Edward Steichen.

Exhibition foam I: Tim Hetherington

Yesterday my friend C. and I went to the foam (Photography museum Amsterdam) to see two exhibitions: the first one was called 'Infidel' by British photographer Tim Hetherington (1970-2011). It showed several of his pictures from his series called 'Sleeping soldiers', 'Infidel' and 'Diary'. His work shows the war experience from the perspective of the individual. We see young boys sent to Afghanistan, not exactly knowing what to expect. Hetherington gives us an intimate view into their daily lives through portraits and captured moments in combat, in waiting or asleep.

I loved the closeness, it almost felt I was there. I also experienced the close bond of these men amongst each other. A lot of the pictures were taken when the guys were relaxed, not posing. And to get so close, the photographer sometimes used this cell phone, like the guys did themselves.

All photographs by Tim Hetherington.