Author: marceleverts

A Dutch Master

marceleverts

Inspired by the works of old Dutch Masters and the Italian Renaissance, Hendrik Kerstens‘ photography shows an interesting series of his daughter Paula. Important moments in her life were captured by the crisp sharp image-making of Hendrik Kerstens. The techniques he uses bears a great resemblance to the old Dutch masters.

By the use of photography, the new master gives us a mix of the greatness of the paintings from Johannes Vermeer and the likes, and the modern interpretation of this art form. By using classical poses and techniques combined with modern objects the photos send out an appropriation of the Dutch golden age of painting and the rising acknowledgment in art photography.

Read More

Travel through Paper

marceleverts

Travel all the way from the Sun to Pluto. Mishka Henner gives us this opportunity in his work “Astronomical“. Twelve books. Each book has 506 pages that illustrates the vastness of our solar system. This scale model brings us one million kilometers per page. This means that most pages are black. As black as space. Page one shows the Sun. Page 6000 shows Pluto. And in-between the blackness of space and of course the other planets.

Read More

Junk Development

marceleverts

To develop an image one can use different techniques. Especially when photographing analog. And usually the end result is presented on paper. But Brazilian artist Vicente Jose de Oliveria Muniz, also known as Vik Muniz, takes a different approach. In his series “Pictures of Garbage” he uses, well its in the name, garbage.

In this series he is portraying the garbage pickers of Jardim Gramacho, a 321-acre open-air dump just outside Rio that is one of the largest landfills in Latin America. In the wonderful documentary “Waste Land” we follow him during this project. In it we see the lives of the portrayed garbage pickers. We see what it means to have a job at such a landfill. We see how proud people are for the work that they do. And Vik Muniz brings it all together in those wonderful portraits. The story, the people and the proudness. Luckily for us, Vic did also developed the portraits on paper. It makes the exposure for this project some what easier.

Read More

Windows

marceleverts 2 Comments

German photographer Michael Wolf shows us people and windows in his series Transparent City. He came upon the idea to shoot close-ups of people in a window when he was flipped off by a person in another series he made. Inspired by Edward Hopper’s work, he finds it interesting to combine the  voyeuristic nature plus the architectural details in this subject.

When I look at the pictures it gives a strange feeling of doing something wrong. Spying in on somebody who has absolutely no clue of  your presence. But it is also an interesting look into office spaces of different floors in a building. Small worlds so close to each other, yet are so far away. The feeling I always get when I walk around in a major city, all so close, yet so far away.

Read More

Minds of our own

marceleverts

We all know the feeling. Walking down the street, or driving the car, the same route every day. During such times the mind can wander off. And sometimes you snap out of this daydream and realize you can’t remember the last couple of minutes of driving.

The series “Heads” of American photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia shows us that moment in time, when our minds wander off. Dreaming about that winning lottery ticket. Or quitting your job. Maybe just about nothing at all. Just a brief escape into your own world. But also in his older works we can feel that sense of wander. It leaves us, the viewer, clueless of what is happening. The story of what we see is the story what we want to see. A same cluelessness what we get when looking at the work of photographer Gregory Crewdson and painter Edward Hopper.

Read More

Documenting the ordinary

marceleverts 1 Comment

Magnum photographer Martin Parr documents the ordinary and extraordinary. He considers himself to be a documentary photographer. And documenting he does. The way we ‘normally’ would label documentary photography is when the subject is that of war, hunger or poverty. Martin Parr gives us quite the opposite. He directs his camera upon the rich western social life.

His work looks like point and shoot photography. Of the normal things we encounter day by day. Like supermarkets, fast food and our fashion style at the beach. But the way he constructs an image makes us giggle and laugh at the weirdness that we all can relate to. He manages to come very close to the subject, almost always using a wide-angle lens. And by using the flash (often a ring flash) his photographs get that signature look. The look of something very colorful that shows us a raw or weird view of the way some of us behave or dresses at for example the beach. When I look at his work I get a cheap feeling of the richness we all enjoy in the west.

Read More

Classical aesthetics with contemporary expressions

marceleverts

The experiences Dutchmen Krijn van Noordwijk gained in his previous life as a creative and art directer really transfers seemlesly into his photography. He is able to turn a blank slate into a visually and creative portrait with regards of the person in question. His photography focusses on the person. With funny, quirky and sometimes just simple gestures of the subject, Krijn is able to create visually inspiring portraits. On his Linkedin profile he talks about who inspires him. Among the long list of truly great persons, Donald Duck is not forgotten, are Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer. The way Krijn uses light does remind me of paintings made by the mentioned Dutch Masters.

Read More