Useful Photography #1

by Hans van der Meer (Photographer), Hans Aarsman (Photographer), Julian Germain (Photographer)

The simplest way of judging the true value of a photograph is to take it out of its context. Cut a photo out of a newspaper, put it in a frame, and hang it on the wall. The vast majority will fail the test. But cut out a photograph from a wholesale butcher's brochure, one of those packaging shots of an aluminum tray full to the edges with pink chicken breasts, hang it over your bed, and a year later you still won't have gotten enough of it. For years, the editors of Useful Photography had drawers in their desks where they quietly collected such photographs. Now their private collections form the basis for this new Dutch magazine, in tribute to those anonymous photographers who in their out-of-the-way studios produce such unintentional beauty.

60 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Hans van der Meer (b. 1955) studied photography at MTS in The Hague, followed by a residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. He is probably best known for his series on amateur football, Dutch Fields (1998) and European Fields (2006, published by Steidl/MACK). In 2009, Camera Austria hosted a retrospective of his work.

Through photography, film and writing Van der Meer examines the world around him. For example, his images of amateur football are also an exploration of human nature within the landscape. In The Netherlands – Off the shelf (2012) he wryly observes the increasingly homogenous built environment of provincial Dutch towns. With his latest project, Time to Change Van der Meer shows us the remarkable world of dairy farming. Hans van der Meer is based in Amsterdam and teaches at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.