Meet My Neighbours

Meet My Neighbours is a project about the neighbourhood I live in, the H.J.E. Wenckebachweg in Amsterdam. The main buildings in the neighbourhood are the studenthousing builed up from 1000 shippingcontainers, the clubhouse of the motorcycle club Hells Angels and the prison 'Bijlmer Bajes' which houses 500 offenders.

Sometimes It's More Than a Change of Season

Prison: Penitentiaire Inrichting Over-Amstel, also known as Bijlmer Bajes Amsterdam

Filmed with a Nikon D7000
Lenses: Sigma 10-20mm, Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, Nikkor 18-200m
Music by Daniel Licht - Changed

1000 Student Shipping containers

1000 shipping containers converted into housing for students, stacked five high, ordered in different blocks. Each with its own kitchen and bathroom with about 30m2 of space. Also housed in containers are a supermarket, a bike repair shop, a laundrette and a basketball court, placed between the Hells Angels and a prison. All this is housed on the H.J.E. Wenckebachweg in Amsterdam.

Hells Angels

Every day I pass the clubhouse of the Hells Angels with my bike and every time I avert my gaze to the terrain, what was happening there? On a sunny Saturday in September I got a chance to have a look inside the clubhouse, the hells angels were holding an open day. Whilst making pictures of the terrain and clubhouse, an hells angel approached me and asked me if I would take a picture of him and his biker friends. I quickly changed my lens and made a deal that I also could make individually portraits of them. I got the hang of it and went looking for Daniel Uneputty, the president of the Hells Angels Amsterdam. I found him in the back of an almost empty barn and I managed to lure him out for a portrait photo. I saw my white legs reflect in the reflection of his sunglasses and wondered where he would be looking at?

Despite of the somehow uneasy atmosphere my intriguing stayed for the Hells Angels. At the end of 2011 the clubhouse would be demolished, and therefore I wanted to visit the clubhouse one more time intact. The biggest part of the terrain was already cleared, the trailers and campers were removed from the terrain, but the clubhouse would still be there for a short while.