Artist Research- Rineke Dijkstra

Rineke Dijkstra is a Dutch photographer, who lives and works in Amsterdam. Dijkstra's photography concentrates on portraits and works in series/groups including, teenagers, clubbers, soldiers and the Beach Portraits of 1992. Her backgrounds of her photographs are normally quite minimel and dont give many clues of what the subject is conveying. Dijsktra's compositional style in her beach portraits generally feature one or more teenagers, standing against a beach environment. This style is again seen in her studies of women who have just given birth.

I have been mainly inspired by Rineke's beach portraits because they convey an interesting atmosphere of the reality of a beach environment. I feel like the background style that Dijsktra shows is very simple but effective becuase of how she uses the same background for her each of her beach portraits. I think that this works well and creates an idea that they are a group of people in the same location, doing the same activity without knowing eachother.

Rineke Dijstra was interviewed and questioned about her becah portrait series.

How did you come up with the idea for the 'Beach' series?

"I was interested in photographing people at moments when they had dropped all pretence of a pose. Once I began taking these pictures, I realized I would prefer to do a series because it gave me a better grip on a subject."

I feel that Rineke wanted to take these photographs to show truthfully what the individuals are like. For example she didn't get them to pose and just got them to stand however they would like.

https://www.popphoto.com/how-to/2008/12/conversation-rineke-dijkstra#page-2

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rineke-dijkstra-2666

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rineke_Dijkstra

#PortraitureProject