Author Archives: jrdijkstra

Jim Naughten – Conflict and Costume, The Herero Tribe of Namibia

by jrdijkstra Posted on February 19, 2013

Merrell, 2013
108 pp, hardback with jacket, 75 illustrations, 70 in colour, 29 x 25 cm.
ISBN: 9781858946009

Merrell spine

It couldn’t have been an easy trip for Jim Naughten (1969), traveling thousands of kilometers through the Namibian desert and constantly having to clean his camera from all the dust and sand. Still, it was the only way to meet and portray as many members of the Herero tribe in the South African country. He needed to tell them what he was planning on doing and that took a lot of preparation, effort and perseverance. The British photographers wanted to capture the tribe members in their flamboyant and colored costumes, which however stem from a troubled past.

‘In the European scramble to colonise Africa, Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany claimed one of the least populated and most hostile environments on the planet. It became Deutsche Sudewest- afrika. Though sparsely populated, it was already home to the San, Nama and Herero people. Rhenish missionaries set about converting and clothing them after European fashion. Over time, this became a Herero tradition, and continuing to dress in this manner was a great source of pride to the wearer’, Naughten explains on his foreword. War broke out between German colonizers and the local tribes in 1904. The Herero tribe was devastated, having lost almost eighty percent of its population. Garments became an important expression of identity during these fragile times. Upon killing a German soldier, a Herero warrior would remove the uniform and adopt it to his personal dress as a symbol of his prowess in battle. Paradoxically, as with the Victorian dresses, the wearing of German uniforms became a tradition that is continued to this day by Namibian men who honour their warrior ancestors during ceremonies, festivals and funerals.’

In four months Naughten produced his broad work for Conflict and Costume, The Herero Tribe of Namibia with the searing heat of the intens Namibian desert as backdrop for marvelous portraits of it’s proud inhabitants. Fully dressed up. Meaning men in paramilitairy uniforms or all suited up, woman in exuberant dresses in Victorian style, all with a hint of Africa and powerful, full of self confidence captured. When you realise that some of these gears take up to ten meters of fabric and the temperature reaches fifty degress Celsius, you understand that posing must have been quite a challenge.

Naughten got invited to weddings, funerals and other ceremonies which proved the perfect occasions to catch the decked Herero’s and portray them in the magnificant Namibian landscape. Some appear suddenly and just fitted perfectly in the light settings, while for others extensive negotiation with the village elders was required.

‘These portraits are not intended to serve as a conventional documentary of Herero culture’, he explains on his website. ‘They do not capture the subject in a snapshot of everyday life nor with objects typical of routine or social station. Subjects are removed from their home and intentionally suspended in a confrontational posture. As such, their identity as Herero tribe members is reified in their garments and their gaze, a colour and vibrancy brought into acute focus by the contrasting setting.’

Respect, honour and pride are therefore important aspects of his work and everything in Conflict and Costume represents that. The low view point is one of the things that make that visible. Fifteen years ago – back then on a motorcycle – Naughten traveled through the country and got fascinated with the clothing style of the Herero’s. Now there is this phenomenal book with monumental images. Luckily, finally.

Read the original review on OnPhotobooks

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Mårten Lange – Another Language

by jrdijkstra Posted on October 1, 2012

Mack, 2012
96 pp, embossed hardcover, 59 tritone plates, 14 x 21 cm.
ISBN: 9781907946301

Marten Lange

The aesthetics of science and nature are recurring themes in the work of Mårten Lange (1984) and his fascination shows again in his latest book Another Language. In his previous four books we saw a particular lot of trees, branches, machines or shots of unexpected events pass through the pages. Ever in his signature abstract form. It’s no surprise therefore that he opens his new work with a quote from the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who declares that ‘the physical boundaries of nature end at a point where the intellect starts and there opens a new world for the mind.‘ And let that be precisely what Lange had perceived and in which he succeeds with his first big overview in which just nature holds a central position. He combines flora, fauna and natural occurrences like eddy currents to intimate still lifes in which he changes off landscapes which images of batts, fishes or a pumpkin.

The subtle storyline – the minuscule black and white photographs are fit with text nor caption – presents itself by slowly exfoliate through the small, thin book. You will discover that his story starts with a meteorite crater, followed by several masses of land and ends with an image of a plant far away. Though this is not what the Swedish photographer actually want to show, for him it’s more important to explain the consistency of nature and the cryptic clues that these behold. By using returning shapes, patterns and textures he want the break the simplicity within the image and mirror that against an enigmatic whole.

The artistic images that are always presented in a centered way seem to be uninformative at times, just like the subjects can be vague and unclear. But it’s the complete picture that forms the key to his work. Hence the alternations between the elusive – lightning, the stars – and that what is so everyday and common, like ducks and stones. These subjects Lange pulls apart from their background and isolates them. He spend one and a half years working on Another Language and of the hundreds of images he shot only 59 made it into the book. Though most of the situation just happened by pure coincidence, he did have a list of subjects which he wanted to portray. With that list he set of, like a gatherer. Notwithstanding the fact that he didn’t find everything he was looking for, he is happy with the result. And so are the critics.

Read the original review on OnPhotobooks

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Alex MacLean – Up on the Roof

by jrdijkstra Posted on May 9, 2012

Princeton Architectural Press, 2012
240 pp, hardcover, 200 color illustrations, 9 x 12”
ISBN: 9781616890506

Up_on_the_Roof_cover_4

Put the American photographer Alex MacLean (1947) in a small airplane with his camera and you know that only marvelous images can be the result. Whether it be landscapes, cities or natural phenomenons, Maclean seems to capture them all with ease. Time and time again he finds that subject which appeals to him and knows how to portray this in his megalomanic fashion. Next to primarily American landscape he focused specifically on just a city before: with Las Vegas and Venice.

For his latest release Up on the Roof he again decided to take it from a higher viewpoint, but exchanged his aircraft for a helicopter. Probably worked a lot easier when swirling above the Big Apple, because he focussed all his attention on the roofs of the building in New York. Apartments, companies and skyscrapers; no building was to high for MacLean to not see what was happening on top of it. A roof terrace has always been a luxury in this ever busy city, one of which only the happy few can dream. For the normal New Yorker therefore always raises the question: ‘What’s up there?’ MacLean give us in his latest release an answer to this question, because even though the gates at street level remained closed for him as well he was unstoppable from the sky.

In total he captured 183 roof terraces, some of which were transformed to lush gardens (like the miniature forest of singer Bette Midler’s huge apartment in the Upper East Side), personal training facilities or even landing strips, like at 77 Water Street, where a model of a British fighter plane from the First World War can be found. Unimaginable that on top of most of these building, next to the famous water tanks, playgrounds, of course a lot of pools and even messages for extraterrestrial life have been created. A world on top of another. All of this makes the book full of surprises, almost like a revelation.

While most inhabitants didn’t seem to be hime when MacLean passed over their private Garden of Eden’s – or simply didn’t care he was intruding on their privacy from this unorthodox position – other wave at him or hold up their beer. Let there be no doubt about the fact that the roof terraces of New York are actually just as busy as the street many levels below. Some of the building are highlighted, while the photographer in Chelsea captured whole blocks at ones. This way we also get a good overview of how these roofs are being used, which form an astonishing one third of unreachable spaces in Manhattan. Next to that Up on the Roof gives us a good image of the geometric city planning for which New York is so famous. Of all the images MacLean makes notice of the location in the book as well, so when you visit the city that never sleeps next time you can try to find them all. From the street that is.

Read the original review on OnPhotobooks

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Papa is geen Rolling Stone meer

by jrdijkstra Posted on March 30, 2012

Ouder wordende rockers zien er op het eerste gezicht vaak wat belachelijk uit, maar het is natuurlijk de normaalste zaak ter wereld. Met dat proces komt veelal ook een ander aspect kijken: kinderen. In The Other F Word neemt de Amerikaanse documentairemaakster Andrea Blaugrund Nevins dit fenomeen onder de loep en dat zorgt voor zowel onthullende als lachwekkende situaties. Koters leren niet te schelden, zich te gedragen en normaal de kleden klinkt toch een stuk vreemder uit de mond van een ooit schreeuwende en volgetatoeëerde punker in gescheurd shirt.

Hoewel de documentaire voornamelijk gefocust is op Pennywise leadzanger Jim Lindberg is er ook plaats voor de overdenkingen van meer dan twintig andere muzikanten. Zo komen ook Mark Hoppus van Blink 182, Fat Mike van NOFX en voorbeelden uit andere subculturen als skateboarder Tony Hawk langs. Ooit verzette zij zich tegen ´het systeem´, nu proberen ze zelf autoriteit uit te stralen voor hun kinderen. Een transitie met een vreemde contradictie tot gevolg, waarin we telkens zien dat de verantwoordelijkheden van het vaderschap toch de overhand nemen.

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Sympathie voor beruchte Dr. Death

by jrdijkstra Posted on March 25, 2012

Het lijkt erop dat het Al Pacino helemaal niets uitmaakt welke rol hij speelt. De inmiddels 71-jarige acteur speelt net zo makkelijk een gangster als een detective of koning. Twee jaar geleden deinsde hij er niet voor terug de rol van Jack Kevorkian, beter bekend als Dr. Death, te vertolken in de televisiefilm You Don’t Know Jack. Gebaseerd op zijn autobiografie vertelt de interessante documentaire over het leven en baanbrekende werk dat hij deed in zijn strijd voor euthanasie en pijnloze zelfmoord in uitzichtloze situaties.

Natuurlijk was het werk dat Kevorkian deed geruchtmakend in de Verenigde Staten. Niet voor niet werd de man die als motto ‘dying is not a crime’ had, in 1999 veroordeeld acht jaar cel wegens moord. Toch wekt het aangrijpende verhaal, mede door het uitmuntende acteerwerk van Pacino, veel sympathie op voor deze ‘dokter’ die meer dan honderd terminale patiënten geholpen heeft te sterven. Download de film en oordeel zelf of zijn werk goed was; Jack overleed zelf juni vorig jaar.

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Franse criminelen deinzen niet terug

by jrdijkstra Posted on March 23, 2012

De beste Franse misdaadfilm ooit gemaakt wordt A Gang Story ook wel genoemd. Of die benaming niet iets teveel van het goede is laten we aan jullie eigen beoordeling over – download de film dan wel even met ondertiteling en als Les Lyonnais – maar dat je honderd minuten op het puntje van je stoel zal zitten is zeker. Vergeet Al Capone of de watjes van De Bende van Oss; deze jongens uit Lyon waren niet voor niets de meest notoire gangster uit de jaren zeventig.

Van overvallen op geldwagens met grof geweld, bankovervallen en andere lucratieve roven was de Bende van Lyon zeker niet vies. In de opwindende bewerking van de autobiografische roman van hoofdrolspeler Edmond Vidal, alias Momon, komen we erachter dat de groep mannen een hechte familie vormden, met loyaliteit zonder grenzen. Ook zijn band met jeugdvriend Serge Suttel, met wie hij samen in de gevangenis zat voor het stelen van een kratje kersen, wordt onder de loep genomen. Dit vormde het begin van hun ‘glansrijke’ criminele carrière, met onverwachte afloop.

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Angels verbleken bij Sons of Anarchy

by jrdijkstra Posted on March 20, 2012

Nu hun honk is opgedoekt hebben de Amsterdamse Hells Angels helaas geen plek meer om samen te naar Sons of Anarchy te kijken. De serie wordt vanaf 2010 op RTL 7 uitgezonden, maar het is makkelijker de eerste vier seizoenen in een keer te downloaden. Dat het er bij de Nederlandse motorclub een stuk rustiger aan toe ging dan bij SAMCRO – acroniem voor Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original – moge duidelijk zijn, want overdadig (grof) geweld en intimidatie zijn daar de orde van de dag.

Het eerste seizoen van SoA ging al in 2008 in première, maar het duurde tot het derde seizoen voordat de avonturen van de motorclub en hun rivalen beter bekeken werden dan The Shield en Nip/Tuck. Even doorbijten dus, maar dan weet je dat je voor in ieder geval zes seizoenen goed zit. Het verhaal vormt zich met name rondom de familie Teller-Morrow en hun invloed op het leven van de inwoners in de fictieve stad Charming in Californië. Rustig is het daar met SAMCRO in ieder geval geen moment.

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Advocatenserie die tenminste wel boeit

by jrdijkstra Posted on March 19, 2012

Alsof er nog niet genoeg rechtbankseries op televisie waren, is daar in 2007 Damages bijgekomen. Waarin deze dan verschilt van alle andere en waar je de eerste vier seizoenen zou moeten downloaden? Omdat Damages naast de beste acteurs ook veel meeslepender is dan bijvoorbeeld het oubollige Law & Order. En niet een zaak per aflevering, maar deze gewoon uitsmeren over een heel seizoen. Als je er eenmaal inzit, wil (lees: moet) je dan ook weten hoe het afloopt.

De makers van Damages hadden er oorspronkelijk niet voor gekozen de tweestrijd tussen de hoofdrolspeelster Petty Hewes – meedogenloos gespeeld door Glenn Close – en haar protegé Ellen Parsons – Rose Byrne – neer te zetten in een advocatenkantoor. Maar de twee krachtige vrouwen komen nu wel uitstekend uit de verf in het fictieve Hewes & Associates uit New York. Hoewel de zaak waarin ze verwikkeld zijn je meesleept in het verhaal, zijn het de botsingen en confrontaties van de twee karakters die iedere aflevering weer spannend maken.

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