A Covid story.

At the start of the Covid debacle I got the challenge via DAPh (Dutch Architectural Photographers) to come up with two images of Dutch canals that could be printed 2,94 m high and 36 m wide in 100 dpi. It would serve to decorate the full length and height of a corridor in a new ferry between Amsterdam and the UK.

The first challenge was to find the right location. I found it in Amsterdam’s red-light district. It felt eerie to walk from the Amsterdam railway station towards the location as there were hardly any people on the normally very lively streets. Trams were driving around empty and handful of tourists were walking around dazed. Some junks were stumbling around talking to themselves, others lay in stupor on a doorstep.

But as I anticipated the absence of people and the sex industry in lock-down was a big advantage for this shoot. 

After all, the image was to become a huge stitch composed of images taken every 10 meters. So if not much changes during the shoot, stitching the images together in postproduction is less complicated. That proved to be right. But still, it was a serious challenge.

The images have been delivered to the client, a London based publicity agency, who were ecstatically pleased with the result. 

Without Covid it would have been impossible to make this image.