Tom Stappers – tom stappers

Mar 27

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house parties – Club Exposure

By Tom | photography

House parties is the first series on the renewed site Tom Stappers|Photographer www.tomstappers.com . These photographs were taken during the heyday of the house scene in the Scheveningen dance Club Exposure between 1994 and 1998. The club, “.XPO…” for insiders, soon acquired legendary status because of the extravagant side acts and the chemistry of that special mix of visitors, and by now seems to have reached mythic proportions in the collective memory of a whole age group.

To me, as a photographer, the whole scene was not just the usual boy-meets-girl, but a concentrated version of life with all the exuberance, desire and rejection that were acted out right in front of me. Fortunately I was readily being accepted, which enabled me to identify with the regular visitors – in spite of the differences – and not feel an intruder. I enjoyed the music and the people, careful not to outstay my welcome, while managing to take many thousands of photographs. I like what came out of it. These are respectful photographs.

Mar 15

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dutch article “Tom Stappers: house parties”

By Tom | photography, street photography

For my readers in the Netherlands and Belgium who read Dutch here’s [was, TS] a link to the article from P/F Vakblad voor Fotografie © 3/’99, written by the late Herman Hoeneveld, about my house parties series done in the famous Scheveningen Club Exposure during the 1990’s. This well-published series is the first batch shown on my new website, designed by |r|ocketclowns webdesigners from The Hague.

The link is [was] to my agent’s website [this link no longer exists, TS 11/16/2009]. Several more series of photographs are due for web exposure in the near future, making my photography site grow bigger still. The bulk of my street photography is yet to come!

Mar 14

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text 3

By Tom | photography

Tom Stappers’ work in this exhibition represents the aesthetic reflex. The photographer looks at the outside world to see what all of us others no longer see, because we are a little tired and lead our lives absorbed by our own thoughts and sorrows. He rediscovers for us the visible reality and shows us how fascinating and disturbing, how beautiful it can be. To this end he uses an adequate aestheticising imagery which owes a lot to the adventure of modern art. We experience the same urban atmosphere. I’m not surprised to hear that Stappers is also a jazz photographer. The urban atmosphere – and in a way the atmosphere of the artistic live photography of the 1950’s and 1960’s with its graffiti and “la beauté du laid” [the beauty of ugliness].

Mar 13

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Winogrand: quotes from 2 tv interviews

By Tom | street photography

“When things move I get interested, I know that much.”……….”I think that there isn’t a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability. Any of them. They do not tell stories, they show you what something looks like. To a camera.”……….”It’s the subject. I think I’m interested in how a lot of things look.”……….

……….Q: You shoot every day? Winogrand: Yeah,sure.

……….”the photograph isn’t what was photographed, it’s something else. It’s about transformation.”……….”there is a transformation [of the banal] , you see, when you just put four edges around it. That changes it. A new world is created.”……….

……….Q: Do you (….) think of yourself as an artist? Winogrand: I probably am. I don’t think about it (……) But, if I have to think, yeah, I guess so.

(quotes edited and selected by Tom Stappers – for more: click red tags below this post)

Mar 11

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just titles

By Tom | photography

house of plenty

gentlemen’s delight

town ghost

fishnet replay

…or blonde

turn a blind eye

sandwich – Kim, Njusja, Paultje, Katerin, Michael

futur noir

rain clouds & abandoned game

VE EN TE EN

dead end galaxy

el leil

thrown

sea of dreams (for Vali Myers)

healing (=the front page of my new website www.tomstappers.com )

beau métro