Sterre Sprengers

New articles in my project on horrific imagery

I’ve been writing essays on horrific images in media, to get insight in how imagery can fulfil a (new) role in making journalistic productions. I’m investigation the issue from different perspectives.

The journalistic/editors perspective:
“War porn and why we must look at these pictures”

The historical perspective:
“Horrific imagery can: a) stop war, b) prevent war, c) cause war” 

The makers intentions perspective:
“IS makes horrific images, but not only because they are gory”

ED IT is on the shortlist

Good news! Our book ED IT – the substantial system for photographic archive maintenance (including the Appendix to ED IT – Discoveries) is nominated for The Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation First Photobook Award 2014.

Check this out for more information about the book and the price.

EDit workshops

At Dag van de Fotografie organised by Fotodok – Space for Documentary Photography we did the ED-it workshop on how to edit your personal and/or professional photographic archive.

 [Photo: Rob Wetzer]

My vision on editing images

For a year now I can may call myself the image editor-in-chief of the Dutch journalistic platform De Correspondent. So it’s time to tell about what I want, what I’ve been doing, what I’ve been trying and what I would like to do more next year.

New project on horrific imagery

On De Correspondent I’ve started a new project to investigate the need of horrific pictures in media. As an image editor for journalistic media for over seven years now, I’ve had some experience with the difficulties – like “need” versus “ethics” – of (not) publishing these kind of images. But I would like to extent my research with contributions of others to get more perspectives on this theme.

You can read my introduction on this project here [only in Dutch].

Nominees Steenbergen Stipendium 2014

And the nominees are…

Ad van der Koog (St Joost), Olya Oleinic (KABK), Carilijne Pieters (HKU), Jannemarein Renout (Rietveld), Lisa-Marie Vlietstra (Rietveld).

The winner will be announced on the evening of the 15th of October 2014 in the Dutch Photo Museum in Rotterdam. 

Update: Olya Oleinic is the winner of Steenbergen Stipendium 2014

Column in Dude Magazine #1

For Dude #1  – the Dutch Designers Magazine by BNO – I wrote a column on the work of Richard Mosse, on invitation of Harald Dunnink (head designer of Momkai) who was the guest editor-in-chief of this issue.

[read here the longer version in Dutch]

Guided Tours: The Enclave by Richard Mosse

After writing a recommendation for De Correspondent on the exhibition The Enclave of Richard Mosse I gave several guided tours through this exhibition in Foam (the photo museum in Amsterdam).

[Photo: Bas Losekoot]

James Bond like you’ve never seen him before

My review on the new photobook of Taryn Simon ‘Birds of the West Indies’.

ED’s Octagon

ED (the collective which I’m part of) is working on a new project, on instigation of Fotodok (a Dutch platform for documentary photography) and in collaboration with Fred Ritchin (professor of Photography and Imaging at NY University).

By investigating ‘best practices’ of documentary photography submitted by Fred Ritchin, ED aims to create a framework through which one can look at – and think of – innovation of the medium.

In the coming months all material will be collected on the Octagon website.