Guide to Unique Photography

€‘Dutch Masters’ is a term that goes well with photography in the Netherlands. Because whether we like it or not, painting and photography are inextricably linked. So it is not surprising that we make comparisons with painters from the 17th century. That flat landscape! That Rembrandtesque tension between light and dark!

Chantal Spieard (1974) photographs people in their own environment with familiar Dutch daylight and compositions that touch a nerve. When Chantal is working, she follows her feelings, as her intimate photographic language illustrates. Since 2002 she has been working on a series about the residents of her old working-class neighbourhood, the Soesterkwartier in Amersfoort.

People are the main focus in the work of Willeke Duijvekam. In her portrait and reportage photography she handles her protagonists with grace. She makes them feel at ease by photographing them in places where they feel good, without any further direction. What you see is all there is.

Photographs by Hendrik Kerstens (1956) bring to mind the paintings of Johannes Vermeer (1632- 1675). Both portray women in everyday settings. Measured, dedicated, serene.

She photographes interiors from which the people disappeared only a minute ago. These interiors range from hotel rooms where guests just left to interiors of people who shut the door behind them to go to work. She uses no lighting or assistants and does not rebuild or move anything at the location.

Football is a sport of wide open spaces. With this thought in mind, Hans van der Meer started photographing football matches in the lowest ranks of international amateur football. A patch of green grass, 22 players and hardly any spectators on the sideline.

Tiengemeten is an island that developed from a dry sandbank in the broad Haringvliet estuary. On the 700 hectares island, the Dutch nature reserve foundation Natuurmonumenten started its largest nature development project in the Netherlands in the 1990s: Tiengemeten was to become a natural island, with no room for farming. Recently the last farmers have been bought out.