rineke dykstraon how to take a photo

8/14/2019 Rineke Dykstraon How to Take a Photo

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RinekeDykstraonhow to take a photoJasonOddy

VONDELPARKOn a sunny and unseasonably hot Sundayafternoon, Vondelpark - Amsterdam'sprincipal green space - is teeming. Touristsvie with locals, and pedestrians with cyclists,for the last bit of October sunshine. 'Forfuck's sake! What are you doing?' an Englishteenager screams as her inability to masterDutch brakes causes her to crash intoanother bicycle. 'Can't you fucking see I'mout of control?'

Icycle swiftly past, towards the cafdwhere I'm meeting the woman who isarguably Holland's best-known living artist,Rineke Dijkstra. When I arrive it seems thathalf the park is there too. After a few minutesof scanning faces, I see her pedalling coollythrough the throng. 'Shall we go somewhereelse?' she says. 'Somewhere a bit less crazy.'We leave the park, pausing at anothercaf6 en route to her studio. By the time wereach the functional, airy atelier on the upperfloor of a former hospital, it is already filledwith autumnal evening light.PORTRAITI had wanted to take her picture at the endof the interview, but we decide to proceedstraight away before the day disappearsaltogether. My camera, a big, black, heavymetal affair with a plate-glass viewfinder, justhappens to be the exact same type with whichshe makes her sumptuous portraits. An d whenwe find out that we use identical film as well,I start wondering what the consequences ofthese coincidences might be.

A bit of me is tempted to try and do aDijkstra on Dijkstra, to find an unobtrusivebackground and concentrate totally on her assubject. But, apart from a non-descript patchof bare wall, her workspace doesn't really lenditself to this approach. With the light fading, Iopt for the traditional 'artist in studio' picture.I'm just about to take the first shot when sheasks, surprised, 'Don't you use a loupe?' 'No', Ishrug, never having done so before. 'Won't thepictures be out of focus?' she continues.

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'I tried without a loupe once and none of themwere sharp. Let me see if I can find mine.' Shecan't and I have to continue loupeless, andeven though I know she is just being helpful,I feel a little chastened for deviating from theDijkstra standard.THE UNATTENDED MOMENT'When I left art school I started workingon commission. Iwas photographing theboards of directors of big Dutch companies,and Ifound it really difficult to get behindthe mask. I had to make these portraits atnine in the morning and I'd only have fiveminutes. I never found a way of making themmore natural. It was only when I'd changemy films that they'd relax. And I thought I'dlike to photograph them like that. Much later,when Iwas working on my own projects, myown subjects, I discovered that there arethese unattended moments when peopleare not really aware that they are posing.

And somehow this is much more interest-ing than when people strike a pose. I beganwondering how a portrait would look if youweren't thinking about it, and whether in thissort of unconscious state you get a sense ofsomething more real. So I started by makinga self-portrait that Igot my assistant to takeat the swimming pool. After 30 laps Iwalkedto the shower and stood there. Imade thepicture just at that moment when you are tootired to pose.'

think ofaworkbyRineke Dijkstra andyou will probablythink ofa teenagerstanding,back tothe sea, on a beach

YOUTHThink of a work by Rineke Dijkstra and youwill probably think of a teenager standing,back to the sea, on a beach. The power of hercelebrated beach pictures derives from thejuxtaposition of their classical compositionand the raw, sometimes gawky appearanceof their subjects. Wearing no more than theirswimsuits, the young bathers stand alonebefore the camera, vulnerable and opento our slow scrutiny. Nothing in the scenedistracts us from taking in every least detailof these figures - a tensely clenched fist, anuncertain look, a chin that juts out with just alittle too much self-assurance.If these adolescents are supported bythe ground and their heads are framed bythe sky, then water is the middle element.Forever in motion, it corresponds to thewelling, still changing part of Dijkstra'ssubjects as they pass from the boundlessspace of childhood to the more solid param-eters of adult life.

In other series she has turned hercamera on Israeli teenagers before and afterthey begin their military service, on young,blooded Portuguese toreros, on teenagersin nightclubs in Liverpool and Holland, andon pubescent fairytale children in Berlin'sTiergarten. This fascination with youth is adriving force behind her work. 'With youngpeople everything is much more on thesurface - all the emotions,' she explains.'When you get older you know how to hidethings, but when you're young it's all veryvisible and also very new. Somehow everyexperience is a new experience and this hasa very positive energy.'

Even when her sitters try to put on afront, Dijkstra often manages to pinpointsomething within. Olivier Silva, a new recruitto the French Foreign Legion whom shephotographed seven times between 2000and 2003, gives little away. But look closelyand from picture to picture you see the lightfade imperceptibly from his eyes, the hopedisappear gradually from his lips.RECOGNITION'I always liked to watch people, Iwas kind ofan observer. I used to be pretty shy,' confidesDijkstra. Her quiet reticence persists, andmakes me think of an observation thewriter Joan Didion made about how herown awkward shyness often led people shemet to divulge extraordinary things aboutthemselves, just to fill in the silence.

At her keenest, Dijkstra succeeds inopening up her subjects. An avowed admirer

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Facing,pageTiergarten,BeGermany,JulCOLLECTIONTEDAMSTERDAM.OURMUSEUM,MSTERGOODMAN ALLEYORK NDGALERIHETZLER,ERLINLeftRineke Dijkstrastudio, AmstePHOTO: JASONODBelowSelf-portraitMarnixtad,AThe NetherlaJune 19, 1991COURTESY ARANGALLERY,EW ORGALERIE AX ETZ

of Diane Arbus, she instinctively findsherself drawn to people who, perhaps likeher, 'are a bit different from the mass, whostand on the outside a little'. If there is aninitial empathic identification, then onceshe has her already receptive candidatesin place, it is simply a question of waiting.'When I make portraits of these people, Ilook at them, I observe them. But it's reallya question of choosing the right moment. Ithas to do with a kind of recognition whichdoesn't really happen very consciously. Ithappens between them and me and it lastsjust a fraction of a second.'VONDELPARK IIFor her latest and still ongoing body of work,now on view as part of her first solo showat Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, Dijkstraspent the summer in Vondelpark. If, afteryears of travelling the world in search of hersubjects, this series represents a kind ofhomecoming, it also marks a change in hervisual language.

Rather than employ the stripped-downbackgrounds of her earlier work, she herepositions her subjects in almost Edenicsurroundings, with sunlight dappling a lakebehind some trees. It is a move that bothlooks back to the tradition of landscapepainting and which provides context andsupport for the sitters. In the strongest

'withyoung peopleeverything is muchmore on the surface- all the emotions;when you get olderyou knowhowtohide things'

picture, a comely adolescent couple sit inthe shade of a tree, he retiringly behind her,she staring directly out, the intensity of hergaze commanding you to return it.

In this serene and contemplative depic-tion of youthful ardour Dijkstra managesto distill all their subterranean fervour.'I think in a good picture there is a kind ofrest and harmony,' she says. 'As though theyhave been sitting there forever.' And as shespeaks I understand that it is precisely herinfectious calm that at times enables theyoung people she photographs to step outof the maelstrom of their everyday livesand enter into eternity. *RinekeDijkstra s on view at the StedelijkMuseum, Amsterdam until 6 February.An accompanying catalogue is publishedby Schirmer/Mosel

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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: Silent Witness

SOURCE: Modern Painters F 2006

PAGE(S): 87-91

WN: 0603201632031

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http://www.modernpainters.co.uk/

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rineke dykstraon how to take a photo

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