This weekend was all about photography for me. Let’s start with the most interesting part: I’ve visited the MAGNUM exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in my hometown Amsterdam. The independent photo agency celebrates its 60th birthday, thus the extra attention. Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David Seymour founded MAGNUM in 1947. They were convinced that photography was the best medium to document world events and raise public awareness. Yet to be able to tell their stories they way they wanted to, they had to be independent. So from the start, the agency was distinguished by its complete independence.

Magnum now is a legendary photo alliance and over the years they’ve published some photos most of you will never forget. The photographers are celebrated for their courage and many of them died during their work. Robert Capa’s D-Day pictures are the best example I can think of, also because this famous photographer died during the first Indochina war.

“If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” Robert Capa

I’ve always been interested in photography. As a kid, I spent hours watching my father’s photography books and now no month goes by without visiting an exhibition. Some photos fascinate me, others are horrifying and there are even pictures that simply seduce me. One of the most striking remarks I’ve ever heard about photography was made by Natalie Portman in the movie Closer. She walks around in an exhibition called ‘Strangers’. When Clive Owen asks what she thinks of the photos, she says:

It’s a lie. It’s a bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully, and… all the glittering assholes who appreciate art say it’s beautiful ’cause that’s what they wanna see. But the people in the photos are sad, and alone… But the pictures make the world seem beautiful, so… the exhibition is reassuring which makes it a lie, and everyone loves a big fat lie.

Since I’ve heard this statement, I look different at photos. I don’t just call them beautiful, I ask myself what the photographer wants to tell me with that capture. The photographers of these three pictures I saw at FOAM actually want to tell us a story, although at first they might look as three photos with popular subjects: murder, sex and money.

NYC’s Crime photographer Weegee , young photographer Ryan McGinley and American street photographer Garry Winogrand

After discussing the world’s best photographers I feel almost too embarrassed to tell you that I also bought a camera this weekend. I felt like I had to since I’m such an admirer of photography. I’ll never shoot such great pictures as the photographers mentioned in this article, yet I just want to see whether I’m able to tell a story by capturing a moment. It also fits perfectly in the trend of content generating users. These days you admire and then try yourself too. My gear will be a Sony Alpha DSLR-A100, a compact, ten megapixel digital SLR with a Minolta lens mount.

I hope to shoot the surroundings of the office. It’s a special industrial-looking area which will soon be history. I can’t wait to capture the bridge, PostCS building and the trains the way I see it.

To conclude this post I gladly refer you to two really talented photographers, Thijs Wassink and Ruben Lundgren. Thijs is studying in Londen at Central Saint Martins, Ruben currently lives in Beijing to study at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. They’ve already published several books, of which Empty Bottles is their latest work. Check out their website by clicking on the picture:

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