During our recent trip to Nigeria, where Saskia and I were on assignment for RTL Nieuws and VPRO Bureau Buitenland, we coincidentally were in Lagos when the delayed presidential elections took place. Saskia and I worked on a story about the dangerous impact of fake news on Nigeria’s elections. If you can read Dutch, you can check out the whole story (and see some of my pictures) here.
I partnered up with New York based advertising and new media agency Hero Group, the company behind the all-new travel app Hero Traveler! As one of their ‘Contributors’, I have created three travel stories about Uganda, Petra (Jordan) and Zeeland (The Netherlands).
You can check out the stories, pictures and videos through the desktop version of Hero Traveler, but I advise you to download Hero Traveler as the story looks way cooler in the app itself.
You might’ve noticed that there’s a new tab on my website, called ‘Countries’! On this page, I have highlighted some of my favorite pictures taken in several countries. I’m very active on Instagram, but due to that activity, most of my pictures are buried under new content and so it can take some scrolls before you’ll see them. On the new ‘Countries’ page, you can now also see older work.
Some of the featured countries are Iran, Senegal, Mali, Uganda, India and Kenya.
Check out the ‘Countries’ page here.
Yesterday and the day before yesterday, terrorist organization al-Shabaab carried out a large-scale terror attack on the DusitD2 hotel and business complex in Nairobi, Kenya. At least 21 people were killed when Somali militants stormed the compound.
RTL correspondent Saskia Houttuin and I could hear the explosions from where we were, about two kilometers away from the Dusit complex. While the attack was still ongoing further down the road, we reported from behind the security cordon.
The following day, security forces and terrorists were still fighting. Saskia and I visited the August 7th Memorial Park in Nairobi’s CBD, where the Kenyan Red Cross collected donated blood for the victims of the attack. Later on, we also visited the city’s mortuarium and talked to Moureen, who had been inside the complex during the attack for over 13 hours.
Above, you can see some of the pictures I took over the last two days. Below, you can find publications of Saskia and me.
Saskia reported for BNR Nieuwsradio on the second day of the attack;
On Twitter, Saskia and I reported over the course of the last few days, tweeting updates in a thread about the attack;
De Telegraaf newspaper interviewed me on the evening of the attack. The article also features 8 of my pictures and videos;
Here, you can watch our Facebook Live report on the RTL Nieuws page, about the blood transfusions for the victims of the attack;
In the broadcast of RTL Nieuws on the evening of the attack, we made a small report from behind the police cordon, filmed with an iPhone;
For the 7.30pm RTL Nieuws broadcast of the next day, we filmed a reportage about the aftermath of the attack. You can watch the whole broadcast here, or see the video below.
“Portraying the Untranslatable and a Different Post Colonialism” is the title of Anandita Thakur’s interview with yours truly! The editor of The Curator Mag from India asked me some questions about working as a photographer in Africa. It’s interesting to see that she chose to focus on the aspect of me being a white, western photographer in a post colonial region.
I’m humbled by Anandita’s words, as she describes the moments captured in my photographs “touched with a certain porous, all-encompassing purity, so incidental that they are never addressed in conversations but also marked by a self-sustained fullness”.
If you’d like to read the whole interview, you can click on this link.
As you might’ve seen on the ‘Books’ tab of this website, I’ve worked on several ‘Streets Of’ books for the photo book creators of MENDO and German publisher teNeues! I was responsible for the editorial coordination of Streets of Paris, Streets of Amsterdam and Streets of New York, which means that I have selected all photographers and the photos they have taken. I also wrote the foreword, the captions and the interviews with four selected photographers.
You can now get your hands on all four books at once, by checking out this product page on the award-winning web store of MENDO! By buying the whole collection at once, you’ll get one book for free. Check out this link to find out more. Here you can read more about the books I worked on for MENDO, and the photo books that boast my pictures.
Happy 2019! This whole year, I’ll be one of Nikon & GUP Magazine’s ‘New Dutch Photography Talents’! The photo exhibition at Melkweg Amsterdam has unfortunately come to an end, but the pictures of all talents are still visible in the recently published photo book ‘NEW 2019’! You can get your hands on a copy at the online web store of GUP Magazine.
“NEW 2019 is the 8th title in the New Dutch Photography Talent series, produced by GUP Magazine. NEW is a book, but functions as a catalogue, a style-guide annually featuring the best 100 emerging photographers from The Netherlands. NEW is a production of GUP Magazine and is powered by Nikon. It is a platform bringing Dutch-based photography talents to the attention of galleries, museums, commercial and photography agencies, media companies and institutions that work with imagery. With its 420 pages it is a Bible to art directors, curators, collectors, photography lovers, and fellow photographers. NEW makes sure emerging photographers get the attention and platform they deserve.”
Here you can read more about the books I worked on for the photo book creators at MENDO and the photo books that boast my pictures, like ‘Depart’ and ‘They Call It Africa, We Call It Home’.
Happy 2019, and thanks a lot for reading my blogs! If you’d like to find out some more about what I’m doing in East Africa, you can now also follow me on Facebook. By liking this page, any update will automatically find its way into your feed. See you there!
Depart, one of the first books I worked on for MENDO, is now available in Germany! I love how the book makes the leap from the online medium of Instagram, to the offline world of photo books. The wanderlust-inducing book boasts over 25 talented, young and ‘new’ photographers, that offer a new perspective on contemporary photography.
For ‘Depart’, which is published in Germany by the renowned publishing house Dumont, I’m responsible for every word that’s in the book, including the introduction text. There is also an eight page chapter in Depart, that features photos I took on a trip to Israel, Jordan and Palestine.
To buy the German edition of Depart, you can visit the Dumont Reise Webshop. The international edition of the book is on sale at MENDO. A while back, Hypebeast featured Depart on their website - click here to read the piece!
Check out the ‘Books’ tab of this website to read more about the books I made for MENDO.
As a New Dutch Photography Talent, I’m very proud to share that my work is on display at the legendary music venue ‘De Melkweg’ in Amsterdam! Together with the other ‘New Dutch’ talents, my work is beautifully printed by Fotolab Kiekie and exhibited at the ‘EXPO’ part of De Melkweg. Browse through the pictures above (from left to right) to see more of the exhibition.
Read more about the New Dutch Photography project, set up by GUP Magazine & Nikon, in my previous blogpost.
I couldn’t be more proud of Saskia, who has won a prestigious Dutch award for talented journalists, the ‘Philip Bloemendal Prijs’! The jurors praised her ability to convey difficult stories through “clear texts and powerful imagery”. Saskia works as an Africa correspondent for Dutch media, like TV broadcaster RTL Nieuws, radio program Bureau Buitenland and newspaper Trouw. To read the whole jury report, click here! To check out her great appearance in TV show RTL Late Night, click here.
Last month, my pictures of my girlfriend Saskia and another Dutch Saskia, writer Saskia Noort, were published in several online / print media. Radio station NPO Radio 1 and newspapers NRC Handelsblad and Trouw published my portrait of Saskia Houttuin, which was also included in several press statements. Some of my photographs of Saskia Noort’s trip to Tanzania were shown in this NPO Radio 1 video segment and were used by De Nieuws BV and NPO online.
In the month of November, I took over the photo blog of German book publisher Hatje Cantz! The international publishing house is specialised in photography, art, architecture and design books. On invitation of Nadine Barth, Hatje Cantz’s Consulting Editor for photography art books, I wrote several blogs about photography-related issues. You can check out the blog to read features of talented (African) photographers like Sam Vox, Fredrik Lerneryd, Prince Gyasi, Yagazie Emezi and Brian Otieno. Other blogs are focussed on model consent forms, the New Dutch Photography Talent project and the Eye for All Auction!
In less than three days, auction site catawiki.com and NGO WarChild will set up a photo auction, called ‘Eye For All’. From 9 to 16 November, you'll be able to get your hands on fine art prints of “some of the best photographers of The Netherlands”. I’ve also been asked to donate a picture!
All yields will go to WarChild's 'Safe Spaces' project, which creates safe environments where children can process their negative experience, often caused by war. Children who haven't gone to school for a longer period of time, are getting further training, focused on catching up and entering the regular education system again.
The Eye for All photo auction is an initiative of Annet de Graaf, commissioned by Catawiki. For this project, Annet approached 75 Dutch photographers, such as Kadir van Lohuizen, Elspeth Diederix, Corbino, Nick van Tiem, Eddy van Wessel, Raymond Rutting, Jimmy Nelson and Brooks Kraft. She also asked me to donate one of my pictures (see below), which will also be for sale - the starting price for this print will be 250 euros.
To find out more about the photo auction, check out this Facebook page, this WarChild web page or the event page of venue Melkweg Amsterdam. For more of the photography that’ll be on sale, check out my blog at the Hatje Cantz Fotoblog!
