Challenge Your Professional Life: new work for MENDO & Rebel Group

Occasionally, photography book publisher MENDO also creates books for corporate agencies as Rebel Group. Rebel, a consulting firm that is based in Amsterdam (but also has offices in major world cities like Nairobi), asked MENDO to create a book about their view on the world.

For ‘Challenge Your Professional Life’ I extensively interviewed sixteen Rebel Group employees about their past and their out-of-the-box ideas, but I especially wanted to initiate a conversation about their ‘rebellious’ perspective on the world and their role in it.

The results are now visible in their coffee table table book, which can be bought through MENDO’s award-winning web store. To read more about the book, check out this interview with Rebel’s Lenny van Klink and Wout Korving.

MENDO Books I have worked on as their Editorial Coordinator

The Amsterdam flagship store of MENDO has highlighted all the 33 photography books that MENDO has initiated and created through the years. From 2016 onwards, I have been on board as their (freelance) Editorial Coordinator, working on 11 of the books that were published since. In this blog post, you can find all the photo books that boast my name in the colophon:

• Starring Amsterdam. Created all texts and links to online documentation;

• Depart. All texts, including introduction and interviews. Also includes a chapter with pictures I took in Jordan, Palestine and Israel;

• Carli Hermès. Interviews with Narda van ‘t Veer and Fokke de Jong;

• The Workshop. Editorial Coordination and redirecting;

• Living in Style Amsterdam. Editorial Coordination and texts;

• Sportret. Editorial Coordination and texts;

• This is Not a F*cking Street Style Book. Editorial Coordination and redirecting;

• Streets of New York, Streets of Amsterdam & Streets of Paris. Selecting and reaching out to all photographers, selecting photography & Editorial Coordination;

• Martin Garrix: Life = Crazy. Interviews with Martin Garrix’s team members, managers, parents and friends;

If you’d like to find out more about the books that I have worked on, including some non-MENDO books, you can check out the Books tab of this website.

The Curator Mag interview

“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.

Buy the 'Streets Of' Collection by MENDO & teNeues

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.

Out now: New Dutch Photography Talent 2019, the book

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’.

Jetzt verfügbar: Depart!

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.

Photo blog takeover: Hatje Cantz

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!

I'm a New Dutch Photography Talent!

GUP Magazine selected my photography work for the 2019 edition of their New Dutch Photography Talent book! Every year, the magazine publishes a photo book annex catalogue that “celebrates the best emerging Dutch photography talents of the year”. The hardcover publication will be launched later this year and is launched simultaneously with a big exhibition showcasing the work of all selected photographers.

The book, which will contain four of my pictures, has a print run of 3.000 copies and will be globally distributed to galleries, museums, commercial and photography agencies, media companies and institutions that work with imagery. The awe-inspiring collection of pictures is selected by a jury consisting of Roy Kahmann and Willemijn van der Zwaan of Kahmann Gallery, photographer Bastiaan Woudt and the GUP magazine team.

You can get your hands on the book later this year via the GUP magazine store, or check out the 2018 version via this link.

Jimmy Nelson on 'Before They Pass Away 2': 'Homage to Humanity'

For MENDO’s Journal, I extensively interviewed Jimmy Nelson! The renowned photographer and I chatted about his new book, which is the sequel to bestseller ‘Before They Pass Away’. For ‘Homage to Humanity’, Jimmy ventured to new, harder to get to places, to portray people from all kinds of different culture groups.

We also talked about the criticism he received on his first book, and how the Jimmy Nelson Foundation fits in the bigger goal behind his work. For the aforementioned foundation, Jimmy travelled to Kenya with the other company I worked for, Charlie’s Travels. You can read the interview, and the travelogue Jimmy wrote about his Charlie’s Travels trip, through the link below.

Streets of New York in Süddeutsche Zeitung

Streets of New York keeps on getting positive attention in the world press - German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung has written an article about the MENDO book in the Saturday edition of their newspaper. The article in one of Germany's biggest newspapers focuses on my editorial journey to find new angles and perspectives on The Big Apple. You can read the article about MENDO's and teNeues' 'Bildband' through this link, or check out the plain text below. The headline, 'Der Reiz des Neuen' translates to 'The Charm of the New'.

Der Reiz des Neuen

Typische New-York-Momente, die man so aber noch nicht gesehen hat - wie soll das gehen? Ein Band versammelt die Werke von 40 zumeist jungen Fotografen, die zeigen, dass das sehr wohl möglich ist.

Kein Ort der Welt ist so schwierig einzufangen mit der Kamera wie New York: "Jeder Zentimeter", schreibt Joost Bastmeijer in der Einleitung zu dem Bildband "Streets of New York", ist "schon dokumentiert worden". Andererseits verändert sich die Stadt viel schneller als andere, bietet also stets neue Motive. Und jeder Neuankömmling, jeder Besucher sucht nach einer eigenen Perspektive.

Bastmeijer hat sich durch unzählige Online-Portfolios und Instagram-Accounts geklickt auf der Suche nach Fotografen, die tatsächlich neue, eigene Bilder-Geschichten finden. Er ist tatsächlich - zwischen Unmengen immer gleicher Aufnahmen - fündig geworden. 40 Fotografen sind mit ihren Werken in "Streets of New York" vertreten, nicht alle Szenen sind wirklich originell. Viele aber doch. Deren Stärke ist, dass sie sich nicht im Absonderlichen verlieren. Es sei, so Bastmeijer, immer darum gegangen, dass der Betrachter jedes Mal einen typischen New-York-Moment erkennt. Casey Tang, der mit Bildern in dem Band vertreten ist, bemerkt dazu: "Gute Fotografie wahrt eine Balance zwischen Vertrautheit und Neuem." Drei größere Linien fallen auf: Manhattan wird nicht mehr so sehr von unten, sondern zumeist von oben fotografiert. Das unterirdische New York übt offenbar einen starken Reiz aus. Und viele Künstler fotografieren durch ein Motiv im Vordergrund hindurch etwas Dahinterliegendes - Sinnbild für die ständige Überschreibung des Stadtbildes.

'This Is Not A F*cking Streetstyle Book' is here!

I'm proud to be a part of the newest lovechild of MENDO, Adam Katz Sinding and teNeues Publishing: 'This Is Not A Fucking Streetstyle Book'. The book features the amazing and fashionable pictures of Adam, aka 'Le 21eme'. My colleague Mikel was in charge of the texts and interviewed Adam Katz Sinding and Virgil Abloh. The editorial coordination was my responsibility.

As I'm writing this, Adam is flying over the world to launch the book in the following (insanely cool) stores: The Broken Arm (Paris),  KM20 (Moscow), STORY (Tel Aviv), The Room By Basmatée (Prague), Boonteshop (Seoul), GR8 (Tokyo), JUICE (Hong Kong), Harrolds (Sydney), 424 (Los Angeles), STORM (Copenhagen), SMETS (Luxembourg), BASTIEN (Madrid), THE STORE, Soho House (Berlin), VIER (Antwerp), KITH (New York City) and of course MENDO & Olaf Hussein (Amsterdam). 

The book is for sale at the above listed stores and online, in the award winning MENDO webshop. Check out this article by VICE to read more about the book and the tour.

I made a photo book called 'Streets of New York'

With MENDO and teNeues, we made a photo book about New York City! 'Streets of New York' boasts over 250 pages of pictures taken by 40 contemporary photographers, selected by me and my MENDO colleagues Roy and Joost. I have written everything from the foreword, to the interviews, to the captions and the back cover blurp. I'm extremely proud of this first book in the 'Streets Of'-series and it's therefor extra cool that I'll be the Editorial Coordinator for two more books in the same series, featuring Amsterdam and Paris! 

"More than 60 million people visit New York City each year. Every single traveler experiences the city in a unique way. There is no such thing as one New York. Streets of New York is a New York photo book that celebrates the Big Apple's tremendous diversity by bringing together over 40 contemporary photographers and their multiple perspectives on this unique metropolis. Often drawing on a strong social media presence, each photographer offers her or his personal take on New York's unparalleled vibrancy, impact, and allure, creating both a rich collection of city photography and street style, and a visual catalogue of New York travel inspirations. Photographs of world-renowned New York landmarks and attractions like the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, and World Trade Center Transportation Hub are interspersed with pictures of New York's hidden treasures, tucked-away Manhattan charms, and lesser known, but equally interesting New York City districts-all captured with a present-day attention to detail and a wide-eyed love for the City that Never Sleeps."

You can read some more about the contemporary city portrait on MENDO's blog, where I featured four 'Streets of New York' photographers. The book is for sale worldwide: you can get your hands on a copy via the Amazon, Bol, MENDO and teNeues websites. See the 'Books' page to read about other photo books I have worked on previously. 

My page in the @visiterlafrique Africa book

When I traveled through Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal a bit more than a year ago, Diane Audrey Ngako asked me to take over her @visiterlafrique Instagram account, which "documents rare, hidden hotspots on the continent and disrupts tourism", according to Quartz Africa. Later on, she asked me if she could feature one of the posted photos in the book she made: 'They call it Africa, we call it home'. You can see the result of our collaboration on the pictures and video above! I haven't gotten my hands on my copy yet, so I have stolen some pictures photographer Yasmine Ferdjani uploaded to her Instagram story. I took this photo on Gorée Island, near Senegal's capital Dakar. I uploaded the picture with the following caption on Instagram:

The easygoing island vibe, the friendly people spending their day outside, the crumbling down, colored colonial buildings - Île de Gorée is easily one of the prettiest places we've visited during our trip. This nice island has a gruesome history, though. Because the European colons were initially afraid of attacks and diseases on Africa's main land, they used the islands near the coasts as their bases. That's how Île de Gorée, 3 kilometers from Dakar, eventually became an important center for the slave trade. You can still visit the infamous and impressive 'Maison des Esclaves', where you can learn that also the Dutch have occupied the island, and that they're responsible for Gorée's name: they once named it after the Dutch island of Goeree, which stands for 'Goede Reede' ('Good Port').

You'll find more features, collaborations and assignments on the 'Features' page.