Huize Marseilles

To get more insight into photography I visited a photography museum called Huize Marseilles in Amsterdam. There were two exhibitions at the museum, The Imperial Court by Dana Lixenberg and Metropolis by Martin Roemers.

The Imperial Court is a project evolving around the life in a poor district in Los Angeles. Dana visited the place called the Imperial Court in 1993 to take pictures of the local residents and then came back again in 2015, to take pictures of the same residents and their family.

The power of this exhibition was in the context. Some of the people who were alive in 1993 were dead because of criminal activity. And the picture of a girl in 1993 the daughter of that girl 2015 at the same age proved how little had changed over the years. Knowing these facts and seeing their portraits was a powerful combination.

Although I initially came for the work of Dana Lixenberg, I learned a lot from Martin Roemers as well. Where Dana focused on people, Martin focused on the environment and how it interacts with it's population. From his pictures I learned what makes an environment natural.

In the world of Concept Art everything in the picture is designed and is placed with s specific reason in mind. In the photo's of Roemers there was no such luxury. Any composition made, was made from the world already there. Creating a much more natural and complex image. To convey the idea behind the photo camera angles and techniques were used.