A fisherman’s wedding ring wrapped around a neckerchief for safekeeping. The buttons are made of precious metals to serve as a form of life insurance for the wearer. Sculpted white hats made of up to 10 feet of fabric.
This strange detail of clothing, ubiquitous in Dutch clothing for more than 100 years, is still alive and well in traditional societies captured by 21-year-old Dutch photographer Ezra Bohm.
Organizers of the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards revealed on Tuesday that the Boom series titled “The Identity of the Netherlands” has been named Student of the Year 2022. The annual competition, now in its 15th year, also named Australian Adam Ferguson as its best photographer for this year, with other winners announced across the Professional, Student, and Youth award categories.
Boom portraits look like 19th-century monuments, with formal – and often non-smiling – subjects dressed in traditional Dutch clothing. But these aren’t fancy costumes: those who wear them are dedicated to preserving their cultural history by wearing historical clothing to attend church or go on choir outings.
“I started the series by emailing historical museums,” Baum said via email. “After a while, I got in touch with some people who are still in fashion today. Once I got in touch with them, things went really fast. There are only a few people who are traditionally dressed and they often know each other.”
Bohm took over a year to research, visit, and document these tight-knit communities. He often depicted multi-generational families in intimate settings—in front of a brick stove while the flames heated a copper kettle, or inside an old drawing room while his subjects drank tea. Although there are no smiles, tenderness stems from the photos.
“The goal was to celebrate and cherish the ancient culture of the Netherlands,” said Bohm. “But apart from all the beauty, these societies have one valuable common thing that we often miss in modern society: teamwork, security and pride.
“Many people today have lost their cultural roots and can feel alienated in a society full of global citizens. By showing these societies to the world, I hope people will start looking at their cultural roots again.”
Bohm, a student at the Dutch Academy of Image Creation in Eindhoven, will receive 30,000 euros ($33,000) worth of Sony imaging equipment for his school.
Elsewhere in the competition, 18-year-old Vietnamese photographer Tri Nguyen won the Youth category award for “Under The Moonlight,” a lifelike portrait of a boy basking in a beam of artificial light. Meanwhile, acclaimed Canadian photographer Edward Bertinsky, known for his enchanting landscapes, won the award for Outstanding Contribution to Photography.
The first prize in the competition was awarded to 43-year-old Adam Ferguson, whose photo series “Migrants” depicts the life of immigrants in Mexico, near the US border. Filmed in black and white, the project has seen Ferguson subvert the typical narrative of documentary photography by engaging his subjects in creating their own images—often allowing them to hit the shutter. The result is a poignant depiction of the harrowing realities of immigration.
“Winning the Photographer of the Year award gives this story another life,” Ferguson said in a statement. “It allows a new audience to connect with the important stories of the individuals who have shared their story with me.”
Top image: a photo of Ezra Bohm”Holland identity” a series.
CNN Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc. , a WarnerMedia company. All rights reserved.
Comments
Post a Comment