Guide to Unique Photography

Sommaire

• Portraits of pain, portraits of love

  At first glance one might describe the works of Koos Breukel as ‘classical’, even ‘old-fashioned’. Almost everything looks ‘classic’ in his photography: the genre he chooses to work in, portrait photography; his cameras, ranging from old-fashioned to very old-fashioned; and the traditional way in which his beautiful prints are produced.

  par Han Schoonhoven
• Koos Breukel
• Ode to Delacroix

  She has been exposed to the work of Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) since she was a child. Charlotte Dumas’ (Vlaardingen, 1977) favourite is the painting entitled Cheval attaqué par une lionne. A shining example. A longing for the past as well. Battles and battlefields. And animals. The latter make Dumas’ work timeless because animals never change. Symbolically, perhaps, but never physically.

• Morad Bouchakour

  His first camera was the very first Canon autofocus, which he bought with a student grant overpayment. A blunder by the government. At the University of Amsterdam, Morad Bouchakour (Brussels, 1965) switched from economics to art history – the study that really awakened his love for photography and blossomed when he lived in New York and found a job assisting Dutch photographer Dana Lixenberg.

• Young at heart

  Hellen van Meene (1972, Alkmaar) focuses her photographic skills on girls in the transition from childhood to maturity. Hellen’s photos portray future adolescents who are both self-confident and insecure in front of the camera.

• Staging of the everyday

  In order to create new works for the Prix de Rome, the oldest (since 1807) Dutch art prize for artists up to age 35, Viviane Sassen (1972, Amsterdam) travelled to Ghana in early March for a five-week stay in that country.

• Africa

  Viviane Sassen has a modest studio in the centre of Amsterdam, in the Jordaan to be precise. Despite her busy schedule, she is very relaxed. The new winner of the 2007 Prix de Rome can’t complain about a lack of publicity for her and her work.

  par Peter Bas Mensink
• Forgotten techniques

  Following his earlier disillusionment with Fotospeed, photographer Gregor Servais mustered all his courage to try his luck at another workshop.

  par Gregor Servais
• Deconstruction

  De Bijlmer was planned in the mid-sixties as a modern suburb in the south-east of Amsterdam. It was meant to be an ideal housing alternative for the old city districts, with lots of green, separated opposing lanes of traffic and spacious apartments.