Tonight, 3VOOR12 will announce the best Dutch record of the past year out of 12 nominees. I was again fortunate to work with 6 of them.
I spent the spring months living in New York last year, and while I was there I got a text from my friend Remy telling me to meet up with Annelotte de Graaf. She was over from Utrecht to record a record with a bunch of musicians from cool bands like The Men, Quilt and Real Estate. I came over and we shot some photos and hung out.
Back in NL Remy, who was now her manager, first asked me to shoot her press photos, and later on to design her whole album. We went out for a day of shooting in the summer and another (winter)day in a studio. I had a great time discussing the vibe for the artwork and photos.
The photo that turned out as the cover was actually shot inside Remy’s tiny car as we were driving from one location to the other!
When Bombay approached me to shoot their portraits they had just replaced drummer Linda van Leeuwen with Lisa Soep. Amsterdam post hardcore/punk legend Gijs Loots had just joined the band too. I’d never really seen them perform before and probably only knew one song, but the new songs sounded great. Well written, slightly dark and crazy guitar songs, carrying on the spirit of Voicst’s debut record.
We shot a variety of portraits in one day, using fluorescent tubes as lighting that I would just hold in my other hand while shooting. A very inaccurate and low fi way of working but the results came out great. This particular photo made it out as an inlay in their LP.
I’ve known Maurits through GEM for as long as I’ve known Voicst. One of those Dutch bands who I always followed around with my first camera (here’s a not so bad live photo from GEM in 2007). Art director Robert Adriaansen asked me to come over to an early Bewilder rehearsal in 2013 to shoot some pics. I was stoked to hear all that new material and hang out for a day. And I had no idea that one of those photos would become the cover of their album.
Sef’s new record came with a magazine filled with people and art that inspired him in the writing process. I love that idea and was happily surprised when his management asked me to shoot the portrait to illustrate an interview between Sef and Kees de Koning. Also, we barely made it work as I only had one day between coming back from End Of The Road Festival in the UK and flying to Ethiopia for another project the next day.
Ninja Tune asked me to shoot a few photos of Jameszoo last April a little before the album came out. I’m a big fan of both. We didn’t have much time and it was raining on the shoot day so we only had the location (an old synagogue!) to work with but we shot some interesting portraits anyway. A bag of jazz records that I bought in Amsterdam right before taking the train to Den Bosch broke the ice right away when Mitchel picked me up from the station. I left Den Bosch with a whole new list of records to look out for.
When Weval’s manager approached me for photos it was another cool surprise. I love the way their album sounds. Very tasteful. Warm sounds but not too warm. We talked a lot about DJ/producer duo’s on photographs and how easy it is to look like douchebags and during the whole process we tried to stay as far away from that as possible. This made for some pretty minimalistic portraits. I love these two though. I tore apart cheap 3D glasses and used the filter to create the prism effect to tie it to the album artwork.
I’ll be down at the awards tonight to root for these 6. See you there.
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