Photographs, as Hans Aarsman prefers them, are not taken to make a nice picture but only because they attract the photographer’s attention and because he just feels like taking a picture of them. Photo Libretto by Eddy Posthuma de Boer is full of it.

Or as Garry Winogrand said:

Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.

Discovering Eddy Posthuma de Boer

I knew Eddy Posthuma de Boer primarily as the photographer who had taken the pictures in Cees Nooteboom’s travel books. His images accompanied Nooteboom’s literary wanderings through Europe and beyond, creating a visual counterpoint to the writer’s observations. But Photo Libretto revealed a different side of Posthuma de Boer, one less concerned with illustrating a narrative and more focused on pure visual discovery.

Photo Libretto was published as a photography calendar, offering one image for each day of the year. This format gives the work an intimate, daily rhythm. Rather than presenting a single coherent project, Posthuma de Boer organized his images into thematic collections that reveal his recurring fascinations and visual obsessions.

The Art of Noticing

Here and there, the images display a wit reminiscent of Elliott Erwitt: black-and-white dalmatians crossing at a zebra crossing, creating an accidental visual rhyme. An Arab who appears to be trying to fix an overturned car, fiddling with the engine with one hand, but a few meters away lies the rear axle, completely detached. A massive pile of crushed car blocks, compressed into perfect metal cubes, speaking to the lifecycle of automobiles.

The book is organized around themes, or rather, collections of related observations. There are texts on signs and storefronts with spelling mistakes – the kind of vernacular typography that most people walk past without noticing. Means of transportation appear frequently: French cars slowly rotting and becoming part of the French landscape, their rust and decay creating unintentional sculptures.

People reading newspapers make multiple appearances, caught in moments of absorption. Companies and products bearing the name Victoria form another collection, turning a simple proper name into a typological study. It’s this kind of obsessive attention to patterns that makes the work compelling.

Ordinary Things, Extraordinary Images

The most admirable pictures capture everyday things rendered without further context, producing unexpectedly remarkable images. A neat little plant table constructed entirely from Pepsi crates, a moment of folk design that could have come from an Eggleston photograph. The ingenuity of making do with what’s available, elevated through photographic attention.

Marte Röling’s Star Fighter aircraft appears, incongruous and powerful. A hotel reception desk in Marseille drowns in an overwhelming abundance of floral wallpaper and carpet patterns. Maximalist interior design that borders on the surreal. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, photographed with the camera tilted so that the tower appears straight while the surrounding world tilts askew, a visual joke that upends our expectations.

Most memorably, a hotel room features a bathtub positioned in the middle of the space, surrounded by a shower curtain like an island of privacy in an otherwise open room. Only possible in Belgium, I thought when I saw it. These are the kinds of vernacular oddities that Posthuma de Boer sought out, or simply noticed when they appeared.

The Philosophy Behind the Images

What ties these diverse images together is Posthuma de Boer’s approach to photography – taking pictures not because they’re obviously beautiful or important, but simply because something catches his eye. It’s photography driven by curiosity rather than ambition, by the pleasure of looking rather than the need to make a statement.

This connects directly to what Hans Aarsman advocates: photography as a practice of attention, of noticing what’s already there rather than constructing elaborate scenarios. It’s democratic in its gaze, finding equal interest in a damaged car, a spelling mistake, or an improvised piece of furniture.

Photo Libretto reminds us that the world is already full of remarkable images – you just need to pay attention and be ready with a camera. The joy Posthuma de Boer found in this practice comes through in every page of this calendar, making each day’s image a small gift of visual observation.

For anyone interested in Dutch photography, vernacular culture, or the art of everyday observation, Photo Libretto remains a treasure worth seeking out.

Related reading:

• I Will Be Wolf – Bertien van Manen
• Ancient and Modern – William Eggleston
• Hans Aarsman on Interesting Pictures