Rineka Dijkstra

Rineka Dijkstra is a Dutch photographer. Born in 1959 in Sittard, The Netherlands, she is a famous portrait photographer.

She focusses on single portraits, quite often in series of a certain theme. Some examples of these groups are clubbers, soldiers, bull fighters and recent mothers.

Her subjects are often shown standing, facing the camera against a minimal background. That style is most notable in her well known beach portraits, featuring one or more adolescents against a seascape. In most photographs there seems to be an awkward exchange between her and the subjects. It seems many of her photographs recall a 17th century Dutch painting style. Very old fashioned looking, old fashioned clothing and often barely a smile.

Regularly, she would continue to photograph her subjects for an extended period of time. A famous example of that is her 'Almerisa' series, for which she started in 1994 with a single photograph of a young Bosnian girl in a Dutch refugee center for asylum seekers. However, Dijkstra continued to photograph her regularly for more than a decade. It shows the young girl grow into a woman with a child of her own.

Personally, I am not too keen on this style of portrait photography. The shots seem very moody, very old fashioned and just not very upbeat at all. It does bring out the character of the people, but it makes for a very sombre shot.

Photograph Source: 

http://southphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/rineke-dijkstra-retrospective-at.html