During my military service I worked as a corporate journalist and photographer. There I learned the technique of photography. That was in the days of the analog camera. After my military service, I continued makeing pictures. Now more as a documentary photographer. I made reports in Poland, the Baltic States and the Ukraine. It was the former Eastern bloc countries that had just ‘opened up’. I visited De Krim, Odessa but also the infamous KGB prison in Vilnius. Back in Amsterdam I had several exhibitions after which she slowly faded into oblivion. Now, 30 years later, I have digitized my archive and reprinted a selection of these photos.
Amsterdam Oud West, ’92-’95 Black & White (analog)
“Oud-West” is a neighborhood of Amsterdam, roughly covering the area between the Overtoom, a major thoroughfare west of the city centre, and the parallel De Clercqstraat, a shopping street. The exact boundaries are the Vondelpark and the Singelgracht, Hugo de Grootgracht and Kostverlorenvaart canals….
Oekraïne in 1994, Black & White (analog)
After the Second World War, Ukraine became part of the great Russia that had defeated Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front. This made a large part of Europe an inaccessible area for Westerners. As a westerner you had little to look for. Until it…
Baltic States in 1993, Black & White (analog)
In June 1940, the Red Army occupied the entire territory of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Since then, the name ‘Baltic States’ has been used by the three countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In the late 1980s, the first cracks began to appear in what…
Poland in 1992, Black & White (analog)
In the 1980s, Poland became the first country to openly oppose the communist regime from Moscow. The protests at the Gdańsk shipyards were world news. The trade union leader Lech Wałęsa of the Solidarność union gained pop star status in the west. The first…