Welcome to my Blog!
I hope to share here my irrepressible thoughts on news, music, books, arts, history, cultural events and such like.
In general these will be items, events and issues which I feel have no place on my website (which focusses on aviation history and my travel photography).

The item immediately below this would be the latest posting.

"Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself. - Charles Baudelaire
Esse est percipi (To be is to be perceived)" ¬Bishop George Berkeley

"Not even I understand everything I am" ¬Aurelius Augustinus of Hippo

"I'm only myself in front of my typewriter" ¬Joan Didion (I'd replace 'typewriter' by 'desktop PC'..)

In 2013 I started a series of photo albums on Blurb.com, named '36Exp' (a subject adressed in 36 exposures, a reference to the exposures on most common rolls of 35 mm film: 12, 24 & 36.) back in the day.
The books can be ordered directly from the Blurb.com or Amazon.
www.blurb.com/user/ruudleeuw

CURRENT BLOG

With the publication of 'Eve Arnold' by Janine di Giovanni on 21Apr2015, Magnum Foundation launched a new series of illustrated biographies about the lives of Magnum photographers between and around their photographs.
This first book traces Eve Arnold’s life and achievements through the prism of her extensive archives.
"No photographer better represents the link between the founding generation of Magnum Photos and the present than Eve," said Susan Meiselas, President of the Magnum Foundation. "She started alongside Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson in the fifties and was active until she was eighty-five."

Eve Arnold, OBE (honorary), FRPS (honorary) (née Cohen; b.21Apr1912 – d.04Jan2012) was an American photojournalist, long-resident in the UK. She joined Magnum Photos agency in 1951, and became a full member in 1957. She was the first woman to join the agency. She frequently photographed Marilyn Monroe, including candid-style photos on the set of The Misfits (1961).

Eve Arnold was born in Philadelphia, the fifth of nine children of immigrant Russian-Jewish parents, William Cohen (born Velvel Sklarski), a rabbi, and his wife, Bessie (Bosya Laschiner). Both of Arnold's parents grudgingly accepted her choice to abandon medicine to study photography.
She produced a collection of photos from Harlem's vivid fashion show scene. The collection was published the series in the London Illustrated Picture Post in 1951. Although the series launched her career, she later wrote in a diary entry that the editor of the magazine changed her captions and reversed the message of her photographs to fit a racist narrative. She then became interested in African American migrant workers suffering housing discrimination in Long Island.
She befriended Monroe, Joan Crawford, and many other subjects in order to write about them and photograph them better.
She also photographed famous figures such as Queen Elizabeth II, Malcolm X, Marlene Dietrich, and Joan Crawford, and traveled around the world, photographing in China, Russia, South Africa and Afghanistan.[8] Arnold left the United States and moved permanently to England in the early 1970s with her son, Francis Arnold.
In 1960, Arnold did a series of portraits of American First Ladies including Jackie Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, and Pat Nixon.
One of her last photos is of her grandson when he came to visit her for a photography lesson in 1994.

Reading this book (it's more an illustrated biography, not a photobook, and not too critical as it's written on behalf of her employer) several characteristics of Eve Arnold came out clearly to me: fiercely privat (most of what's known became apparent from her archive after her death containing letters and notes), extremely focussed & disciplined with a dogged determination all through her career as a photographer with a great sense of empathy for her subjects in photography.
Fascinating read and am determined to obtain more of these in the Magnum Legacy series!

en.wikipedia.org:_Eve_Arnold
www.facebook.com/magnumfoundation
www.magnumfoundation.org/

Low season at the museum (February 10th - March 28th 2024) meaning the historic buildings in the museum are closed and the tram does not run. The museum is only open as a walking park during this period, only a few houses were open to enter.

Interesting history on Tuberculosis cabin. Patients could stay here for long periods of time for treatment, the cabin itself could be turned manually facing the sun.
This region was famous for manufacturing wheels. The shop with 4 weavers were in full swing.

www.flickr.com/photos/ - scroll left and right from this photo (part of 'Gelderland album')

Andy Summers, best known as the guitarist of The Police, is also a successful photographer.
In his 5th (!) photo book, he shows for the first time a collection of his best in all of its diversity: nude photography, portraits and reports of man and nature, objects, sceneries that (almost) identify identification, events such as Carnival, et cetera.
The book reflects 40 years of photography, in which he visited a variety of cultures.
With his camera, Summers captured places such as India, Morocco, Japan, Nepal, Bali, Bhutan and Brazil in a poetic and layered way.

It's a hefty tome, numbering 360+ photographs in different sizes and grouped in different ways, mostly B&W and some in colour. The price, currently ca.€80, was too hefty for me but the book I acquired I got at a distinct discount for the top of the back was somewhat adamaged: now I am very pleased with it!

www.goodreads.com/review/
en.wikipedia.org:_/Andy_Summers

Richard Koek's 'Tokyo Tokyo' is a new photobook by the Dutch photographer Richard Koek about the Japanese capital Tokyo, published on 13Feb2024 by Terra.

Richard Koek is a Dutch-Argentine photographer who lives in New York City with his wife and kid.
His photos have been exhibited at Photoville in New York and the renowned Photo Festival in Naarden.
He gained name and fame with his photos of New York, the photo book 'New York New York', which was published in 2021, and contains the best photos of the city.
'Tokyo Tokyo' was delayed by Corona pandemic, which prevented him from travelling to Japan for a number of years.

This a superb book by the Dutch photographer about one of the world's largest metropolises, Tokyo. With over 40 million citizens, twice as many as New York City.
Anyone who visits this megacity in Japan will see lots of neon and plastic, but also traditional kimonos and cherry blossoms. Fashion and advertising are at least as important as etiquette and tidiness.

In 'Tokyo Tokyo', Koek reveals the true face of a city where tradition and innovation go hand in hand. Of course there are stereotypes, but Koek always puts his own photographic spin on them.
His colorful images are raw, realistic and extremely striking.
It even made me swap my Canon gear for the Sony A7IV and Sony lenses!

This beautifully produced photobook, numbering 256 pages with large size photographs, is exactly the image I have of Tokyo - which I visited in 2018 (LINK).
It's impossible so select only a few photos in representation of this tome, it's splendid in its entirety!
Oh I would love to retrace my steps to Japan, that is what this book does to you too..

www.roelants.nl/ - /tokyo-tokyo-richard-koek
www.richardkoek.com
www.thefolksmagazine.com/interviews/richard-koek
photo31.nl/portfolio/richard-koek

Sakir Khader was born in Vlaanderen (1990) and is an Palestenian-Dutch documentaire photographer & filmmaker. He esppecially has his focus on conflict area in the Middle East.
In 2022 he won a Siver Camera prize in the Portrait competition, a photo taken in Afghanistan of a kid who had a kidney sold for money to buy food.
He shoots in B&W, he will consider colour photography when the Palestenians are set free.

www.zilverencamera.nl
www.zilverencamera.nl/75-jaar-winnaars-zilveren-camera
sakirkhader.com

Today we had a look at the flea market (NL: vlooienmarkt) in Sporthal de Dumpel (in Velp). We both came away with a small purchase.

Sunday Feb.3rd we went to the parade at Angerlo (Gelderland).
Best day weather-wise we had all year, even the next day was back to overcast, drizzle and morning fog...
Colours came out good!
Angerlo is the village in the Dutch province of Gelderland where this yearly event is held, a joyful procession indeed. Public figures and 'highlights' in the media are made fun of.
Mid-Lent is the 4th Sunday of Lent. Three weeks later, it's Easter.
Not much to do with fasting or religion anymore I don't think.
And... my first results with my new camera, Sony A7 IV ☺

In 2003 the coffee brand Douwe Egberts celebrated its 250th anniversary and decided to celebrate it with publishing nine unique books, for reading has a lot to do with coffee (and tea)!
This book has a very uplifting content, chapters include (M.I.L.K.): 'Moments', 'Intimacy', 'Laughter',
'Kinship' - as some of these choice photos may show.
In the back there's an index of contributing photographers with a brief biography, chairman of the committee selecting the photographs was Elliott Erwitt.

Published by Van Holkema & Warendorf, 143 pages.

'The Silence of the Sea' (original title Brakið, 2011)

A yacht arrives at the port of Reykjavik with no passengers on board. What happened to the crew and family who were on the ship when it left Lisbon?
Lawyer Thóra Guðmundsdóttir delves into the case.

"Mommy's dead." The child's high-pitched voice was uncomfortably clear. "Daddy's dead." It got worse. "Adda is dead. Bygga is dead." The child sighed deeply and clenched around her grandmother's leg. "All dead."
Everybody seems either destitute, hurt, missing or dead.

I've rarely read such a dark, 'noir', narrative and the ending isn't much better.

'Stuurloos' was translated by Erica Feberwee from English, titled 'The Silence of the Sea' (original title Brakið, 2011).

Vilborg Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (b. 1963) is an Icelandic writer of both crime novels and children's fiction. She has been writing since 1998.
The central character in her crime novels so far is Thóra Gudmundsdóttir (Þóra Guðmundsdóttir), a lawyer.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yrsa_Sigurdardóttir

'The Moving Camera: Protest and Propaganda Through Photographs', by Jan Coppens.
Published in 1982 in Amsterdam by Meulenhoff/Landshoff.

A very interesting book, detailing the history of photography and pictures for their value of (social) documentation or propaganda. A very actual subject, esspecially with AI being introduced into the mainstream media.
One of the very first photos, page 13, is by Jan Coppens and shows the barracks of Dachau, taken in 1963. He notes how his photo was 'stolen' for use to illustrate badly built houses. So to what purpose are the photos used...
But his writing goes further back into history, to (a.o.) photographers such as Louis Ghémar from Brussels and Thomas Annan showing Glasgow (c.1860s). Both showed stinking sanitation and crowded housing and they helped escalating change.
Dr. Barnardo distributed photos of children, street orphans he housed, before and after he took care of them. It was a form of propanda but wasneeded to deal with the care and costs. In 1877 he started even a magazine, 'Night and Day' to distribute his cause in a wider area. Dr Barnardo used his own photo studio.
His 'Streetlife in London' now stems as a valuable social document.

Photographers such as Roger Fenton (a lawyer and amateur photographer; b.28 Mar1819 – d.08Aug 1869) went to the Crimean War but due to the heavy equipment which required long exposure times photographs showed scenes behind the front and the fighting. Fighting was shown and published through lithographs.
Fenton's photographs ((c.1855) are considered the first war report by camera. Fenton was a failed painter and one of the founder of the Royal Photographic Society!

Even in the 1870s photos were editted for a specific use and Jan Coppens details examples in France by one E. Appert. These were used for offical publications.
I was glad to see a seperate chapter on Jacob Riis, who did a lot to change the fate of the poor in New York City. He photographed the crowded housing in dismal conditions by the poor and destitute, though change was slow to be embraced. He had bought his own camera in 1888 and had to use flahpowder for his indoor photography.

Various other photographers who captured poverty are detailed in this book, with photographs by their hand, including housing in primitive dwellings in the east of The Netherlands where people lived in small, damp dug outs with sods for roofing and walls by used wood and piled up sand... No sunlight entering the dwelling.
Photos show their situation in the 1910-1920s. City councils were slow to act on legislation by the government for moving them to better housing created housing problems for others.

There's als a seperate chapter on Lewis Hine, who dealt with the fate of young children working in factories. These were all valid socioligists.
World War One is detailed in a chapter, involving how photography was used for posters showing propaganda.

Another interesting chapter is 'Worker's photography in Germany and Belgium'!
It had a lot to do with a social movement embracing change in Russian society, moving to communism.
Many n Europe sympathized with a growing importance of the common people in Soviet Russia. Photos showed growing industrial importance in Russia, both equipment as well as factory workers working with heavy equipment.
This also caused the founding of societies with workers grouping together for photography. E.g. in Gent a Circle of Photographers stared 'Vooruit' ('Forward') in 1922 and a 2nd (socialist) circle of photographers was started in 1925, named Excelsior in Borgerhout. Many followed, enthusiasme spread an early magazines were started too.
The magazine 'Focus' to which I presently subscribe, was started in the early 1930s! Techical information was shared as well as on composition.
There's also a chapter about worker's photography in The Netherlands. An early society was based in Amsterdam and thus appeared film of heavy handed police actions on the Leidseplein.
There was also a lot of propaganda by the Soviet Union shared in the Netherlands, here were a lot of socalled Soviet Friends.

An early Dutch name in social photography is Cas Oorthuys, who travelled internationally for his photography. While photojournalisme was in it infancy, police brutality was closely followed and documented. Other names of Dutchmen: Jo Voskuil, Van Lakerveld, Mark Kolthoff.

It wasn't just propaganda that originated in Russia, photography by Aleksandr Rodchenko was lauded for his change in framing his photos. He was a founding member of Russian Constructivism.

Closing chapters include Martien Coppens (father of the author!), Nick Hedges, Koen Wessing and W. Eugene Smith.

en.wikipedia.org:_Roger_Fenton
en.wikipedia.org:_Jacob_Riis
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hine
www.artnet.com/artists/alexander-rodchenko
en.wikipedia.org:_Cas_Oorthuys
NL.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martien_Coppens

Ammersoyen Castle (Dutch: Kasteel Ammersoyen) is located in Ammerzoden in the Bommelerwaard region in the province of Gelderland, the Netherlands. When the original construction of the castle occurred is unclear; some sources claim it was as early as the 12th century. However, the consensus among historians is that the Van Herlaer family completed the castle in the 1350s. At the time of its construction, the castle was built along a branch of the river Maas. Just a few years after the construction of the castle was completed, the river was rerouted leaving the castle to be surrounded by a moat.

Except for a brief period in the early 20th century, the castle has always been completely surrounded by the moat.
When the moat was reopened a huge amount of artifacts were found, esspecially pottery; they still have many crates of shards to sort and try to complete them; visitors are invited to join in the puzzle!

The castle was built using a fixed plan, something that was quite uncommon for medieval castles. A fixed plan means that the entire castle was built as a whole, as opposed to multiple phases, which was often the case with other medieval castles.

Dirk Van Herlaer, of the Van Herlaer family, built the castle in the 1350s. Upon Dirk's death in 1354, the castle was passed onto his eldest son, Gerhard. Over the next 30 years the castle passed hands numerous times within the family.

In the late 14th century, Duke William of Gelder's and Julich controlled Gelderland. Arent Hoeman was one of the most trusted friends of Duke William. In 1386 a war broke out due to a land dispute between Gelderland and the Duchy of Brabant. The Burgundians were aggressively trying to expand their territory at this time, and tried to take over parts of Gelderland.
Following the end of the war, Duke Williams gave the castle to his illegitimate son in 1405. His son did not hold the castle for long, as he sold it to Johan Van Broeckhuysen, lord of the Waardenburg, in 1424. The castle only changed hands by marriage for the next 400 years.

The castle was also occupied for a short time again in 1572, when the Spanish invaded the Netherlands. However, the castle was not held long by the Spanish, as Prince Willem Van Oranje and his troops were able to drive the Spanish troops out.

By 1590 castle was fully repaired and it was once again almost destroyed, this time by a fire. But the lord of the castle at the time, Joris Van Arkel, died from injuries that he sustained during the fire.
It took a long time before the family had sufficient funds for repairs. It was modified to a new layout. In general, the renovations of the castle reduced the size of the rooms and made them shorter. Numerous fireplaces and other more modern amenities were included in the restorations. One of the few changes to the exterior of the castle was adding more windows.

By 1876, the castle was transformed into a convent for use by the Poor Clares. The castle thus became the second Clarisse Convent in the Netherlands. The moat was filled in, but the castle was severely damaged by bombs in WW2.

In 1957, the Friends of Gelderland Castles Foundation (GLK) bought the castle and made extensive repairs.
Over the course of the next 16 years, they were able to restore the castle to its original medieval construction. This meant undoing many of the structural changes that have taken place over the centuries.
It's one of the best retored castles I've ever visited in The Netherlands!

en.wikipedia.org:_Ammersoyen_Castle
www.glk.nl/ammersoyen/kasteel-ammersoyen

Christopher Horace Steele-Perkins (b.28Jul1947 - ) is a British photographer and member of Magnum Photos, best known for his depictions of Africa, Afghanistan, England, Northern Ireland, and Japan.

He has produced some of the most iconic images of British society in the last half-century, exploring youth subcultures, poverty and community with artful sensitivity.
His more than 45-year career has seen him travel widely, making significant bodies of work in his home country of Myanmar, as well as Japan, Africa and Afghanistan, all of which have received critical acclaim.

After marrying his second wife, Miyako Yamada, he embarked on a long-term photographic exploration of Japan, publishing Fuji in 2000. A highly personal diary of 2001, Echoes, was published in 2003, and the second of his Japanese books, Tokyo Love Hello, in March 2007.
His documentation of rural life in County Durham, which was published as Northern Exposures in 2007.

In 2009, he published a collection of work from 40 years of photographing England – England, My England.
His book on British centenarians, Fading Light, was published in 2012 and his latest book A Place in the Country, a year in the life of a great English Country Estate was published by Dewi Lewis in 2014.

Steele-Perkins has worked on commission for many high-profile publications including The Sunday Times magazine and The Guardian and selected commercial clients include Nissan, Purina and Spencer Hart.
He continues to work in Britain and abroad.
His recent project, documenting diversity and migration in London, was published as a book The New Londoners, in summer 2019, while a book on his work in Japan will be published at the end of 2019.
Steele Perkins became a member of Magnum Photos in 1979.

www.magnumphotos.com/ - /chris-steele-perkins
en.wikipedia.org:_Chris_Steele-Perkins
Photobooks_by_Steele-Perkins

As an eight-year-old, Jelle Brandt Corstius was fascinated by the 'Grote Bosatlas', the atlas inseperable with our early schooldays. I too marked my intended destinations, but my fantasy navigated west where Jelle navigated east.
His fascination targeted the map of Siberia especially, for it is almost empty.
What would it be like to live there? What are they doing there? And when can he go there?
On the same map, he sees that a railway line is being built through that void, with the magical name 'Baikal-Amur Magistrale'. The BAM.
We all know the Trans-Siberian Railway, but Stalin figured it was too close to the border with China and decided on a more northerly train route. Indeed, the Baikal–Amur Mainline a.k.a. the BAM.

The BAM departs from the Trans-Siberian railway at Tayshet, then crosses the Angara River at Bratsk and the Lena River at Ust-Kut, proceeds past Severobaikalsk at the northern tip of Lake Baikal, past Tynda and Khani, crosses the Amur River at Komsomolsk-on-Amur and finally reaches the Pacific Ocean at Sovetskaya Gavan.
There are 21 tunnels along the line, with a total length of 47 km (29 mi). There are also more than 4,200 bridges, with a total length of over 400 kilometres (250 mi).

After some 30 years Jelle finds two travel companions who want to jump on the BAM with him: artist/charmer Aldo and graphic designer/stoic Fabian – three weird Dutchmen who are here for fun,
not a single Russian who understands them.

Together, they cover 4287 kilometers through a much-changed – and ice-cold – Russia.
As the train rumbles through the taiga and the time zones, the trio talks to Putin-haters and lovers and to a man who fires his stove with the collected works of Lenin...

Jelle Brandt Corstius has a very pleasant, tongue-in-cheek style of writing. Travelling in Russia requires a stoic attitude, where the daily adversities can only be dealt with shrugging ones shoulders: keep calm and carry on. I couldn't do it!

en.wikipedia.org:_Baikal-Amur_Mainline

Highlighting Burt Glinn’s versatility and talent for picturing the most iconic and everyday scenes of the second half of the 20th century, this is the first monograph covering the breadth of Glinn’s storied career.

As Magnum pgotographers go, perhaps Burton Samuel Glinn (b.23Jul1925 – d.09Apr2008) is not the most iconic photographer compared to the likes of Cartier Bresson, Elliott Erwitt, Capa, e cetera - but he did get around and this photobook is indeed a worthy retrospective of his successful career.

With rarely seen and acclaimed images, 'Burt Glinn. Half a Century as a Magnum Photographer' celebrates the elegant and always expressive ways Glinn experienced the world through photography.

Along with Eve Arnold and Dennis Stock, he was among the first Americans to join Magnum Photos,
when he became an associate member in 1951.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Glinn served in the U.S. Army, attended Harvard, and worked for Life magazine before joining Magnum.

Glinn became famous for his color pictures of the South Seas, Japan, Russia, Mexico, and California.
At a New Year's party in 1958, Glinn was notified that Fidel Castro had taken over Cuba. By dawn the next day he was covering the revolution in Cuba, making photographs "as everybody got whatever weapon they could get their hands on," he once said.

Documenting conflict, leisure, medicine, and more, Burt Glinn (1925–2008) received many awards for his editorial and corporate photography.

www.kehrerverlag.com/en/burt-glinn-half-a-century-as-a-magnum-photographer
en.wikipedia.org:_Burt_Glinn

Yesterday visited this museum for the first time, even the first time I've been to Enschede if I am not mistaken. So we set this right and enjoyed the museum with the exhibition THE INTERNATIONAL LANDSCAPES tremendously

Forests, mountains, winters, meadows and sea. From 17 February to 9 June (2024), Rijksmuseum Twenthe is taking part in the exhibition 'The International Landscape.
Painting in the open air in the 19th century' takes you back to a time when artists worldwide embraced nature, crossed their own country and went in search of the special and the spectacular around them..

The journey begins in the 19th century, a period in which artists developed a new perspective on landscape painting.
They draw and paint recognizable places.
Go outside, walk until you find a scenic spot or are surprised by a thunderstorm. Because, as the Dutch artist Willem Roelofs (1822-1897 says), "with angry weather, nature [...] him preferably."
Artists consciously choose their own landscape – that which they see all around them. This development can be seen worldwide in work from that period.

The exhibition shows the worldwide rise of artists' colonies, such as the Barbizon School, the Hague School and the Hudson River School. Artists wandered through their own landscape, inspired by the unique, the individual and the undiscovered in their environment. In the former Russian Empire, artists from the group 'The Wanderers' (Peredvizhniki) travel through the country to paint their own forest and meadow landscape, and in Japan artists travel along the Tokaido, a road that connects Tokyo to Kyoto.

It wasn't just male artists who went outside. In the second half of the 19th century, there was also a striking rise in female landscape painters.
These women are committed to more freedom and join artists' colonies, giving them access to painting education and being able to go outside together. Marie Bilders-van Bosse draws in the dunes near Scheveningen and paints in Oosterbeek.
Betzy Akersloot-Berg, a pupil of Hendrik Willem Mesdag, works on Vlieland, among other places.
In the United States, Susie Barstow and Julie Hart Beers join the Hudson River School. They too do not receive any formal art training, but stand out for their contributions to the arts and their pursuit of freedom and equality.
Discover the work of these forward-thinking women in this exhibition, alongside that of their male colleagues!

'Painting in the open air in the 19th century', one will find more than 70 works from all over the world displayed in a thematic format, in which winter landscapes, seascapes and forest landscapes from different countries are shown side by side.
For this ambitious exhibition, Rijksmuseum Twenthe collaborates with the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki and the National Museum of Estonia in Tallinn.

www.rijksmuseumtwenthe.nl/ - /het-internationale-landschap
See also /www.flickr.com/photos/

Philip Jones Griffiths’ superb retrospective, Dark Odyssey, traces his  40-year journey through a chaotic world, from his native Wales to the ravaged villages of war-torn Vietnam, through Europe, Africa, and Asia in more than one hundred black-and-white photographs.

The collision of culture and ideology is often the basis of Griffiths’ work, sometimes in simple pairings of figures, other times in a dizzying throng of life.
Love, death, frivolity, politics, violence; the images in Dark Odyssey (the first collection since Griffiths’ acclaimed Vietnam Inc. in 1971) comment on virtually every aspect of human life, offering a gripping and unforgettable view of both the beauty and devastation of our era, with an in-depth profile of the photographer by the New Yorker writer, Murray Sayle.

In each of his pictures, Griffiths creates stuff sometimes in a simple pairing of figures, sometimes in a dizzying throng of life: the arresting, straightforward gazes of a Vietnamese child and her war-disfigured mother; the dazed face of a woman lost among the multitude of graves at a cemetery in Hiroshima; the wicked glee of a boy about to hurl a boulder into a grand piano, outside under an ominously dark sky. Griffiths’s retrospective offers virtually every aspect of human life, offering a gripping view of both the devastations and the beauties of our era.

Philip Jones Griffiths (b.18Feb1936 – d.19Mar2008) was a Welsh photojournalist known for his
coverage of the Vietnam War.
Jones Griffiths was born in Rhuddlan in Denbighshire, North Wales, to Joseph Griffiths, who supervised the local trucking service of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, and Catherine Jones, Rhuddlan's district nurse, who ran a small maternity clinic at home. The couple had three sons, of whom Philip was the eldest.
His family names comprises his mother's mainden namen, Jones, and his father's, Griffiths. To set him apart from all the other Jonesies and Griffiths's.

Griffiths started work as a full-time freelance photographer in 1961 for The Observer, travelling to Algeria in 1962.
He arrived in Vietnam in 1966, working for the Magnum agency.
Magnum found his images difficult to sell to American magazines, as they concentrated on the suffering
of the Vietnamese people and reflected his view of the war as an episode in the continuing decolonisation of former European possessions.
However, he was eventually able to get a scoop that the American outlets liked: photographs of Jackie Kennedy holidaying with a male friend in Cambodia. The proceeds from these photos enabled him to continue his coverage of Vietnam and to publish Vietnam Inc. in 1971.

Jones Griffiths never married, saying it was a bourgeois notion, but that he had had "significant" relationships.
Survived by Fanella Ferrato and Katherine Holden, his daughters from long-term relationships with Donna Ferrato and Heather Holden, he died from cancer on 19 March 2008.

www.magnumphotos.com/ - - - /philip-jones-griffiths-dark-odyssey
philipjonesgriffiths.org
en.wikipedia.org:_Philip_Jones_Griffiths

First book of a trilogy

A historical saga about a motley crew of English fighters making life miserable for the French during the early days of the Hundred Years’ War.
Ten strong when they land in Normandy in 1346, the Essex Dogs, as the crew is called, are led by Loveday FitzTalbot, a faded veteran struggling with deep personal losses.
A colorful and contrary mix of English, Welsh, and Scots, the Dogs range from the temperamental (mental!) Father, whose days of preaching were already long past when he suffers brain damage from a falling roof tile... Romford is a young, cocksure archer who has a habit of getting in trouble; he plunders apothecaries for drugs to soften his mind but pays a price.
The others are equally characters, all have their mind set on plunder and battle.

Their job in Normandy is to first find the enemy, but the French avoid the invading forces and tire them, even sacrifying civilian populations like in Caen.

Allegedly Jones' well-researched and entertaining (?) fiction debut (following nonfiction books including Crusaders, 2019) is hailed by many, but while indeed warfare and travelling armed forces may well be realistilyc depicted, I found the richly peppered narrative with so many expletives rather disturbing and off-putting.

For some this maybe "an enjoyable romp through the darkest of ages", I rather prefer the writing of Ken Follet's Kingsbridge series!

www.kirkusreviews.com/ - /dan-jones/essex-dogs/

Carnival is originally a Christianized pagan folk festival.
It falls within the Christian tradition on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday immediately preceding the 40-day Lent.
In the Netherlands, it is originally only celebrated by Catholics, mainly in the south and parts of the east.
Such as here in Velp, Gelderland today.

C.V. De Narrenkap and C.V. De Blaospiepers took care of the floats while a few dressed up walkers joined the parade. These grey days could do with a bit of colour, really nice!

My streetphotography in colour
My streetphotography in B&W Page 2 (+Page 1)

'En Route' is the 7th volume in a series of photo books that the Nederlands Fotomuseum has been publishing together with Lecturis since 2019.
The book shows the development of Ad van Denderen as a documentary photographer from the 1960s to the present day.
In his career, he has worked on major and topical social issues such as apartheid, migration and geopolitical conflict. Typical of Ad van Denderen's work is the intensity with which he empathizes with others in difficult situations.

His project 'Go No Go' was acquired by the Nederlands Fotomuseum in the past and the inclusion of his archive in the Collection is in the offing.

With a foreword by the museum's director Birgit Donker, an essay by journalist/filmmaker Bianca Stigter about Van Denderen's work, a contribution by photo editor/curator Jenny Smets about his working method, an interpretation by curator Frits Gierstberg of Ad van Denderen's oeuvre in an international context and stories from the photographer himself about encounters he had during his many travels.
An amazing book and I treasure its inclusion in my collection of photobooks. My visit to the exhibition is reported further down this page.

www.nederlandsfotomuseum.nl/en/
NL.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_van_Denderen (NL)
Ad ven Denderen talking at his Slot Zeist Retrospective on MyBlog-2024Q4

Throughout his career, Rob Hornstra has focused on creating a human image of his own time by photographing people in their everyday situations with a focus on Russia and Europe.
Everywhere he goes, he goes in search of everyday scenes, such as the butcher behind the chopping block, the civil servant behind his desk and the young people on the street.

The exhibition (see further down) and book explores his working method and shows how it, consciously or unconsciously, forges connections between people who reach far beyond national borders.
With a keen eye for everyday life, Hornstra places himself in the rich tradition of great humanist photographers such as August Sander, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, and Ed van der Elsken.

Hornstra's projects are based on a categorical approach.
For 20 years he has been working with a self-defined list of categories, such as 'work', 'government', 'youth', 'transport', and 'religion'.
He uses this list as a signpost in the production of new work. He himself says about this: "Working in categories arose when I went to Russia for my graduation project in 2003. I had never worked abroad before.
Beforehand, he started visualizing that trip in a very practical way, from the moment he would get off the plane...
He asked himself: " I want to make a photo book - how?". "I want to make portraits - who do I talk to and where do I find them?".
That's when those categories came into being.
Hornstra's inspiration for this is the German photographer August Sander (1876-1964), who at the beginning of the last century captured the German people within certain 'types' and compiled them in his book 'Antlitzt der Zeit' (1929). Hornstra's approach is less rigid, he is more guided by what he finds on location. Yet these categories run like a thread through all his projects.

The book offers interesting texts, in Dutch and English. Lynn Berger starts off with an essay titled 'An
(extra)ordinary medium'. Hornstra explains how 'working in categories'. There's 'In conversation with Jörg Colberg'. Hornstra explains how a daunting visit to a disco resulted in the photo of Masha dancing, 'Behind the image, Friday night in the Cement Factory'. Willemijn van der Zwaan has an essay titled 'Grasping time', with more on August Sander's 'Antlitz der Zeit' ('Face of Our Time').
In the back the book has explanatory captions to the photos.
A true window to the world for the armchair traveller with a wide interest into who lives beyond the horizon.

www.robhornstra.com/about

Édouard Boubat (b.13Sep1923 – d.30June1999) was a French photojournalist and art photographer.
He was born in Montmartre, Paris.
He studied typography and graphic arts at the École Estienne and worked for a printing company before becoming a photographer.
In 1943, he was subjected to service du travail obligatoire, forced labour of French people in Nazi Germany, and witnessed some of the horrors of World War II.
Boubat took his first photograph after the war in 1946 and was awarded the Kodak Prize the following year.
He travelled internationally for the French magazine Réalités, where his colleague was Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, and later worked as a freelance photographer.
French poet Jacques Prévert called him a "peace correspondent" as he was humanist, apolitical and photographed uplifting subjects.
His son Bernard Boubat is also a photographer.

"A city that works doesn't know where it's going, it's always on the bridge of time, present and mysterious. To be alive in Paris gives rise to the suspicion in our hearts that she too loves us."
-Édouard Boubat, Paris (Nov.1992)

en.wikipedia.org:_Édouard_Boubat

Pulchri Studio is an artists' association and gallery that has been founded in 1847, but is still young at heart. The name Pulchri is derived from Latin and means as much as ´out of love for the arts´. Whilst Studio means workplace, Pulchri is not and has not a physical workroom but is a place where ideas are born and showcased, art is traded, acquittances are made and friendships are forged.

On average there are 60 different exhibitions per year, so there is always something new to see with every visit!
Pulchri Studio has a club annex café-restaurant where you are welcome from Tuesday to Sunday from
12 noon (I wasn't so lucky as there was a privat venue in progress).
Admission is free.

Daniel Schinasi, the founder of the Neofuturism movement, born 17May1933 in Alexandria of Egypt.
He died 12Apr2021 in Nice, France.
The Italian artist and founder of the neo-futurist movement, Daniel Schinasi ould have turned 90 this year, 60 years of which are dedicated to painting.
His large murals describe his message of neo-futuristic humanism with various subjects.
The large-scale works on the theme of movement are therefore the common thread in this exhibition.
Like the ten-meter panel dedicated to the city of Nice!

I would have loved to include biography details here of Jacobien de Korte, I admire her work, but her website is protected against copying her text (for her photos of course). And she hasn't made it to Wikipedia yet

jacobien.exto.org/
www.pulchri.nl/nl/english/
danielschinasi.com/about/biography/
www.flickr.com/photos

In the retrospective exhibition Ordinary People, the Fotomuseum Den Haag offers a fresh look at the work of Dutch photographer Rob Hornstra (b.1975).
Over the last 20 years, Hornstra has created a human portrait of his own time by photographing people in their everyday situations, with a focus on Russia and Europe. Everywhere he goes, he looks for everyday scenes, such as a butcher at his block, an official at his desk or children on the street.
Ordinary People highlights the categories that underpin Hornstra’s series, an approach that has faded into the background in his previous publications and exhibitions.
This exhibition explores his working method and shows how he, consciously or unconsciously, forges connections between people that extend far beyond national borders.
Hornstra's Ordinary People runs from 09Dec23 - 17Mar2024. Date of visit 27Jan24.

Hornstra works within the rich tradition of great humanist photographers such as August Sander, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange and Ed van der Elsken.
His projects are based on a self-defined list of categories, including work, government, youth, transport and religion. He uses this list as a guide when producing new work: ‘Working in categories came about when I went to Russia in 2003 for my final exam project. I had never worked abroad before. Before I left, I visualised in very practical terms how my journey would unfold from the moment I stepped off the plane. I want to make a photo book. How do I do that? I want to make portraits. Who do I approach and where do I find those people? The categories emerged at that time.’

This approach was inspired by the German photographer August Sander (1876-1964), who portrayed the German population in the early 20th century according to certain 'types' and collected them in his book Antlitz der Zeit (The Face of Our Time, 1929).
Hornstra’s approach is less rigid – he allows himself to be guided more by what he finds on location – but these categories are nonetheless a common thread running through all his projects. ‘Working in categories and typologies: that defines my approach as a photographer. Whenever I arrive somewhere, whether it's the Black Country in England or a remote village in Russia, my number one priority is to photograph a butcher in a butcher’s shop, a chef in his kitchen, a football player on the pitch, an old veteran with medals – I can’t get enough of them.’

Hornstra studied Social and Legal Services at Utrecht University, of Applied Sciences, from 1994 to 1998; for a year from summer 1996, he interned and then worked as a probation officer.
From September 1998, he worked for over 8 years as a host and bartender at Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht.
From 1999 to 2004, he studied photographic design at Utrecht School of the Arts. For his graduation project he spent one month in Russia photographing the lives of the first generation of young people growing up after the fall of communism.
In the same year that he graduated he published this series as his first book, Communism and Cowgirls.

www.fotomuseumdenhaag.nl/EN/exhibitions/ordinary-people
RobHornstra.com/stories
en.wikipedia.org:_Rob_Hornstra
More images on Flickr.com/photos

I am a fan of Indridason's crime fiction, I esspecially enjoyed his books on Police Detective Erlendur (and assistent Sigurður Óli, his colleague Elínborg as well his mentor Marion Briem).
After he was finished with Erlendur as the protagonist he also wrote a (growing) series of the retired policeman Konrad. I have to admit that I found his latest translation to Dutch (there doesn't see to be an English title yet for Kyrrþey) in this series less compelling, as the character Konráð is distinctly unsympathetic...
This is the 5th in the Konráð series.

Narrative: A widow finds a dilapidated pistol among her deceased husband's belongings. Not sure what to do with it, she decides to hand it in to the police, who then discover that it turns out to be the murder weapon in a 1955, unsolved case.
When the retired policeman Konráð hears about this, his curiosity is aroused. His father, nicknamed Seppi, once owned a weapon (a German manufactured Luger, a handgun which was popular as a souvenir after WW2) very similar to this one.
Konráð quest takes him back to the past and reveals more than he could have ever imagined.

The book is set in an onbvious 'noir' setting: it is winter, daylight is short, there are blizzard conditions and Konráð even damages his car when he ends up in a snowy ditch.
His mind is raging and his father's genes are playing up, there are violent tendencies (in the previous title we already noticed he cares not for bending some legal rules if that gets him a result).
We see some familiar characters returning. There is Marta, a police inspector who objects to Konráð's involvement in the investigation of the Luger gun and a cold case murder. The memory of his wife Erna.
Beta, Konráð's sister, is attacked in her house as a result of a revenge on Konráð's angry actions - but he dares not admit it to Beta. Eýglo, a medium, is plagued by a recurring apparition of two elderly sisters but Konráð does not give her the time of day. Eýglo is approached as a medium to help a mothers'search for the disappearance of her son, Skafti; again Konráð brusquely refuses involvement.

Konráð fears his father Seppi, a small time crook, may have had something to do with the WW2 gun now found, perhaps even with the murder back in 1955. He thinks back of his younger police years when he was involved with Léo and Oliver, also police, in some smuggling from the US base and contacts (harasses!) people who may be able to shed some light on the murder in the now demolished Múlaquarters of the poor near Reykjavik. Konráð has Léo's men beat up Beta's attackers, but does not share it with anyone (though Marta has her suspicions).
Konráð stumbles on a gay scene, which was highly illegal and obscure in those days. The very first chapter, of a gay man with a secret living in Florida for the past 35 years, is vital for the closing chapters!
And ultimately Konráð seems to discover who knifed and killed his father...

'Razende Storm' (EN=Raging Storm is a translation, not sure if that will be the English title) is the 5th installment in the Konráð series.

en.wikipedia.org:_Arnaldur_Indridason

Paul Strand (b.16Oct1890 – d.31Mar1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century.
In 1936, he helped found the Photo League, a cooperative of photographers who banded together around a range of common social and creative causes.
His diverse body of work, spanning 6 decades, covers numerous genres and subjects throughout the Americas, Europe, and Africa.

For Paul Strand, the great pioneer of Modernism, the summers of 1926 and 1930-1932 were a return to experimentation and periods of great artistic growth.
The Southwest period brought not only artistic renewal, but also personal turmoil.

As a youth, he studied under Lewis Hine (Wikipedia). Hine (b.26Sep1874 – d.03Nov1940) was an American sociologist and muckraker photographer. His photographs were instrumental in bringing about the passage of the first child labor laws in the United States.

For Paul Strand the summers of 1926 and 1930-1932 were a return to experimentation and periods of great artistic growth.
He worked in makeshift darkrooms: one in a hotel basement and another above the Taos movie theater. During the Southwest period his political and social ideas were shifting, and his relationship with the two most important people in his life, his wife Rebecca and his mentor Alfred Stieglitz, were disintegrating.

Aperture.org/books/southwest/
en.wikipedia.org:_Paul_Strand

The retrospective exhibition "Ad van Denderen: En Route" (NL: Onderweg) shows the development of documentary photographer Ad van Denderen.
In the period 1965-2019, he addressed topics such as apartheid, migration and the geopolitical conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Topics that are still relevant today.
In this major retrospective, the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam highlights the highlights of his career, which spans almost 6 decades.

After graduating from the Utrecht School of Graphic Arts, where he was taught by photographer Ata Kandó, he traveled through Asia and the Middle East. In the years that followed, he photographed in Chechnya, Iran, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, South Africa and Southern Europe.
But he also made iconic photographs in the Netherlands, such as those of his first major documentary project Huizen van bewaring (1978-1979), for which he had himself locked up in the prisons at the Kleine Gartmanplantsoen and the Havenstraat in Amsterdam.

For his photographs, both free work and commissioned, Van Denderen was on the road a lot. But he didn't stand still figuratively either.
Van Denderen continued to search for new ways of making images. Around the year 2000 he exchanged his narrative black-and-white photography for a more conceptual visual language. Reflection and imagination became more important than registration.

During his many travels, Van Denderen kept diaries, in which he wrote down what he saw and experienced. Based on these notes, he wrote short stories about events that touch on the theme of his work. He has recorded a number of stories especially for this exhibition.

www.nederlandsfotomuseum.nl/en/
NL.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_van_Denderen (NL)
More photos www.flickr.com/photos
Ad ven Denderen talking at his Slot Zeist Retrospective on MyBlog-2024Q4

'Face to Face', by editors Vincent Vlasblom & Suzan Kleijn.
Large size photobook (192 pages) with photos by: Paul Huf, Ed van der Elsken, Martine Stig, Sem Presser and many others of international fame: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Nico Koster, Sebastiao Salgado, Eva Besnyö, and many others.

I picked up this secondhand edition for the iconic photographers as well as those I had not previously heard of.

In 1975 'Frimangron' was published by De Arbeiderspers. This first photo book by Willem Diepraam was the result of a stay in Suriname, just before the country would become independent. Almost half a century later, he publishes The 1970s, with an essay by Ian Buruma.

This book aims to give a vivid picture of the most eventful decade of the last century in about a hundred photographs (from the Simplisties Verbond -Wim de Bie & Kees van Kooten- to the coronation riots in April 1980).

'Each and every one of them is horribly beautiful,' wrote Cyrille Offermans about the photographs that Diepraam began to take from the early 1970s onwards.

Willem Diepraam (b.Amsterdam 1944-) started his career as a photographer in 1971 with Vrij Nederland magazine. Later he photographed often and a lot abroad, first in Surinam and the Dutch Antilles, afterwards also in Africa and other places.

After the death of his wife, son and newborn child in the Tenerife plane crash on 27 March 1977, Diepraam's photo book 'The Dutch Caribbean' was published in 1978, a selection of the photos taken between 1973 and 1978 during his various trips to Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles.
For his entire work Diepraam was awarded in 2010 the Piet Zwart Award.
Excellent work.

www.singeluitgeverijen.nl/de-arbeiderspers/boek/de-jaren-70
NL.wikipedia.org:_Willem_Diepraam

On Sunday 7 January, the 'Sonderlinge Lieden' populate Hernen Castle.
The whole day is dedicated to the Middle Ages and the castle will once again be inhabited by these people. Among other things, they will be engaged in pewtering, weaving and leatherworking.

www.glk.nl/seven-castles-and-houses

Another superb Bernie Gunther novel but his last outing, alas. This posthumously published novel sees the world-weary Berlin cop join the murder squad on the eve of the Nazi rise to power, set in 1928.

Philip Kerr’s untimely death in 2018, at the age of 62, meant one of my favourite authors produces no more fascinating novels. Fortunately there are book titles that have eluded me thusfar.
His creation Bernie Gunther was not only a sardonic cop and private investigator in Nazi Berlin and post-war years, which captured the imagination of fans across the world. His well researched fiction also provided a looking glass into the Weimar period in Germany, Berlin in WW2 and the post-war years.

Gunther first appeared in 1989’s March Violets, as an ex-policeman specialising in what Dashiell Hammett called “wandering daughter jobs” around the time of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
The original Berlin trilogy took us to the end of the war; after that Kerr had fun plunging readers forward into Gunther’s postwar career in Cuba and back into the Nazi era.

Bernie Gunther always reminds me of Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's protagonist.
Raymond Thornton Chandler (b.23Jul1888 – d.26Mar1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter.
Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett (Sam Spade), James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers.

www.theguardian.com/books/2019/ - /metropolis-philip-kerr-review
en.wikipedia.org:_Philip_Kerr
en.wikipedia.org:_Raymond_Chandler

Sabine Weiss (née Weber; b.23Jan1924 – d.28Dec2021) was a Swiss-French photographer active in the French humanist photography movement, along with Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Édouard Boubat, and Izis. She was born in Switzerland and became a naturalised French citizen in 1995.

I love her photography, people play an important part in her work. Often in the street, but she did portraits as well (esspecially during the time when she raised a daughter).
In 1949, she traveled to Italy and met the American painter Hugh Weiss, whom she married on September 23, 1950. The couple adopted a daughter, Marion. And she opened her own studio.

Amongst colleagues Doisneau, Boubat, Brihat, Dieuzaide, Brandt,Ken Heyman, Izis, Kertész, Karsh, Lartigue, Ronis, Savitry, and Elkoury, the only other woman at the Rapho agency was Janine Niépce. Nevertheless, the fact that Weiss was one of so few women then forging an independent career in photography was not a problem.
Through her career she travelled extensively, this book shows images of Italy, Spain, Malta, UK, Denmark, Portugal, Greece, Germany, USSR, Israel, USA (New York, Washington,DC & Philadelphia), Myanmar, Egypt, Hungary, Poland, Réunion Island (FR), Czechoslovakia, Taiwan, Japan, Bulgaria...

A few years ago I bought my first book of her work in Paris, probably of an exhibition in Jeu de Paume which had ceased before I went there. This book I bought in Venice, shortly after an exhibition in Casa dei Tre Oci of her work had ended.

Weiss's street photography, of children playing in the wasteland of her neighbourhood, Porte de Saint-Cloud and of Paris and its daily life, was produced independently of her magazine work, for love, and embraces the philosophy of humanist photography.
At 28 she was recognised by Edward Steichen's inclusion of her in his "Post-War European Photography" at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

A quote from the essay 'Sabine Weiss, a photographer's life' (by Virginie Chardin, in Italian and
English) :
"Sabine Weiss does not construct her images like a painting or a scenic device, nor in a metaphorical sense, to defend a point of view or convey a meaning in the form of a gesture.
Her shots are part of an intimate experience, a spontaneous and intuitive impulse towards the subject.
Frequently, she selects from het contact sheets only a part of the image, focussing on a character or a scene that alone interests her."
I can relate to that very well.

en.wikipedia.org:_Sabine_Weiss_(photographer)

Eva Posthuma de Boer is the writing daughter of Eddy Posthuma de Boer. The other daughter, Tessa, took on a career in photography like her father.
Together Eva and her father had a column in the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant: a photo of him and a text of her. She wrote a column and he dug up a photo from his archive.
In this book 'Muggen en Olifanten' (=Mosquitoes and Elephants; Ambo|Anthos, 2020) these (50+) are compiled.

Eva says about her father's work: "Eddy is in each of his own photographs. His humour, his sense of justice, his passion, his love.
I'm only now beginning to understand how he does that, now that we're working together, and I get to take a look at his creative brain and his incredibly good memory for every column."

Bought the little book for his photography but gradually the book gained importance to me for Eva's columns!
Photos by Eddy Posthuma de Boer were displayed in Fotomuseum The Hague, which I visited and is discussed on MyBlog-2022Q3.