Starfighter Photography Prohibited ! Bio 1965 | 20230729 | Michel van der Burg | Miracles•Media | Photography not allowed here in 1965 where I – at the age of 13 – took this low-flying fighter jet picture hiding in the heath on a trip around our summer camp – first year highschool Aloysius College – at the Tranchée in forest and heathland between Weert and Budel in the south of the Netherlands near the border with Belgium. The camera – a Voigtländer Vito camera (no light meter / no rangefinder / fixed lens / viewfinder) – was a 13 birthday gift earlier that year – that I used here for my short first ‘reportage’. @michelvanderburg | TakeNode 9245cb78-da77-4069-879e-74a01b52fdb5
Bio 1966 Photography | 20230706 | Michel van der Burg | Miracles•Media | Summer of 1966 photography day trip at the Scheveningen seaside resort of The Hague, Netherlands. At the age of 14 – I am looking for good pictures with a Voigtländer Vito camera (no light meter / no rangefinder / fixed lens / viewfinder) on a breakwater in the North Sea. Captured on double 8 film by Piet van der Burg (my father) with a Paillard Bolex B-8 cine camera. @michelvanderburg | TakeNode 487a5ee6-bdae-4404-a2a2-55e9a4bfbcde
Consurella Show | 20220703 | Michel van der Burg | 1-memo.com | Brochure of the 1973 visual report I made in Dordrecht, Holland – my first assignment as a photographer – of the Consurella Show’s touring in Holland in 1973-1974.
My next assignment was the autonomous creation of images for a new show design with projection of the images as the decor in these live shows made up of real commercials supplemented with fake commercials. First 10 test shows (early 1973) had attracted ca 5000 visitors from Dutch housewives’ organizations. Another 50 shows were planned to tour in cities all over Holland Sep’73-May’74.
Early Nov ’73 I visited the new show using the slideshow decor of images I had made.
I was a Leiden University student Biochemistry at the time, and invested a new camera for this job – Asahi Pentax SLR camera.
Tulip Bulbs War Food Holland 1944-1945 (silent film) ~
My mother did not tell me much and no details on her experiences in World War 2, except for the Hongerwinter (“Hunger winter”) – the Dutch famine of 1944–45 – that she had to eat tulip bulbs.
The famine was caused by a German blockade plus the harsh winter blocking alternative water routes, that cut off food and fuel shipments to the western Netherlands were food stocks rapidly ran out in the large cities of The Hague, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. Tulip bulbs and sugar beets were commonly consumed.
March 25 this year I posted a more detailed ‘biography’ and the silent film ‘Eating Tulip Bulbs’ (20200325) a silent film using photographs captured during this ‘Hunger winter’ 1944-1945 by Menno Huizinga in Holland (mainly in The Hague).
Today I found this Dutch cinema news reel from Polygoon-Profilti published March 1945 with an impression of the daily food ration for the starving population of Holland at the end of the hunger winter. One sees the preparation of tulip bulbs, sugar beets, peas and cabbage soup. Also the use of an emergency stove. Courtesy of Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision (Open Images).
Tulip Bulbs War Food Holland 1944-1945 | 20201226 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com
Eating Tulip Bulbs ~ Hunger Winter Holland 1944-1945 .
(silent film)
My mother did not tell me much and no details on her experiences in World War 2, except for the Hongerwinter (“Hunger winter”) – the Dutch famine of 1944–45 – that she had to eat tulip bulbs.
As children in the 1950s our mother always told us to finish and clean our plates (and pretty large portions, served by our parents) , before being allowed to leave the table. The one thing we were regularly reminded of was the famine my mother and others had experienced…and that she even had to eat tulip bulbs – then a 16-year old teenager living (with her parents) in the city of The Hague during the Dutch famine of 1944–45.
The famine was caused by a German blockade plus the harsh winter blocking alternative water routes, that cut off food and fuel shipments to the western Netherlands were food stocks rapidly ran out in the large cities of The Hague, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam . Tulip bulbs and sugar beets were commonly consumed. Trees in The Hague city woods (like Scheveningse Bosjes shown in the film) were cut , and in the end furniture and houses were dismantled to provide fuel for heating.
When the famine was worst and deaths were reaching a peak , the Bezuidenhout neighbourhood of The Hague – were my mothers family lived – was bombed by British bomber crews with the wrong coordinates flying in fog and clouds, causing widespread death and destruction. More on that ‘Bombing of the Bezuidenhout’ later this month.
Menno Huizinga (1907–1947) took photographs illegally during the occupation , mainly in his hometown The Hague in Holland. He was a member of the group of Dutch photographers ‘De Ondergedoken Camera’ (1943-1945) – The Underground Camera – doing resistance work during the Second World War.
‘Eating Tulip Bulbs ~ Hunger Winter Holland 1944-1945’ is a silent film by Michel van der Burg , using photographs captured during this ‘Hunger winter’ 1944-1945 by Menno Huizinga in Holland (mainly in The Hague) from the public domain collection of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies , curated by Dutch Network War Collections (NOB) for WO2 Open Data Depot via Wikimedia Commons.
Credits
Photographs by Menno Huizinga, Holland 1944-1945 | NIOD | WO2 Open Data Depot | Wikimedia Commons.
Film : Eating Tulip Bulbs | 20200325 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com – CC BY 4.0
Raging Fire | 20140915 | 1-memo•com | Heerenlogement building in Leiden, Sept 15, 1976.
In the early hours of Sept 15, 1976 the historic Heerenlogement buidling (1652 – Leiden , Holland) was on fire. I was living nearby then at the bottom of the ‘De Burcht’ (a 11th century shell keep). After midnight I was listening to music via headphones when I noticed the sound of the raging flames. I took my Asahi Pentax SLR camera and tripod and went up the hill of De Burcht to take pictures around 1.30 AM.
Image Michel van der Burg – scan of vintage print on silk-screened – grid – photo paper, making it difficult to scan and a lot of work to restore the image.
Citation : Raging Fire | 20140915 | 1-memo•com | Heerenlogement building in Leiden, Sept 15, 1976. | TakeNode ID 1fbb58a8-f0c5-4c26-b711-06a02867a110
Just before the fire it had been decided to start the restauration of this monument (once a ‘city inn’) as a future location for a new central public library. The attached scaffolding is showing in this picture.
Two weeks later a 17 year-old pyromaniac confessed having set fire to the buiding – he had actually helped that night extinguising the fire and getting coffee for the fire brigade. July 1980 the new public library moved in a the beautifully restaured Heerenlogement building. I – being a ‘poor’ student with a part time evening job – sold some negatives but not the copyright of my images 😉 for 400 dutch guilders (around $200) to the head of that library who planned to have a large print made for the boardroom … and, so I could have a short vacation in Normandie with my future wife and kids 😉 The official opening by queen Beatrix was in 1981.
The image below shows the front page and 1 page inside from the library pamphlet on the opening 11 june 1981.
Out Of Service | 20140911 | 1-memo•com | In the morning of 9/11 2001 logistics forced me to officially announce a temporarily – 1 week – ‘out of service’ of our Leiden islet isolation and transplant center. Our center was started earlier that summer of 2001 at the Leiden University Medical Center. So, I decided to have a short vacation abroad – heaven, after being on call 24/7 almost non stop for years. Later that day at home, I was downstairs watching TV — because upstairs near my workroom the central heating was being replaced – when I saw the CNN breaking news about the plane crashing into the World Trade Center. That day would become a landmark in history and the course of my life.
Background image : Microscopy picture I took of purified human Islets of Langerhans – tiny clumps (size around 1/10 mm or 1/25 inch) of 10s to 1000s of cells that produce hormones like insulin – these cells are just visible when you enlarge this 50x microscopy picture : as tiny translucent ‘balls’ or ‘spheres’. The red color is from a stain that binds to the insulin cells.
Iodixanol-UWS purified human islets, stained with dithizone. Original magnification 50x.
25 Years of the Ricordi Automated Method for Islet Isolation. Piemonti L, Pileggi A. in CellR4 2013; 1(1): e128. – URL https://www.cellr4.org/article/128
Credit : Out Of Service | 20140911 | 1-memo•com | TakeNode ID e22f209c-14da-40d8-b11a-74a29b1e80b4
