When I Hear The Name “Amsterdam”
I met a good man a year ago in Germany that was going through a change of career. He told me that he was taking a job in the Middle East somewhere but that he would come back soon to Europe for a visit, maybe after a year or two. I told him I’d be there to hang out with him wherever that may be, and that he should let me know in advance so I could book tickets to travel there and get a hotel room. That man, Jimmy, a self-taught street photographer, told me this year that we should meet in Amsterdam for a few days in April prior to him making his way down to Spain. I felt like it was a good idea and I made arrangements for a train and hotel in the city.
I hadn’t been to Amsterdam since 2014, and even then, I became sick shortly after my plane landed. Consequently, I was unable to leave the room, dealing with a headache and bad cough, so this time I would need to take full advantage of the time I’d be there. I knew I wouldn’t be with Jimmy every day, so during my down time I could go do a bit of walking and photographing. I packed a bag, few rolls of film, camera, and headed to Amsterdam with the train. The trip was a comfortable four and a half hours, only one stop at Frankfurt Flughafen (Airport).
ABOVE: My very small travel bag full of 120mm roll film and a Mamiya 7 camera I packed for the trip. I try to travel as light as I can no matter where I roam around to.
ABOVE: Jimmy, a good friend of mine that I met up with in Amsterdam. I took this photo on our very short excursion outside of Amsterdam in a place called Harlem. Ironically, he is from New York. He is a very talented photographer and his work can be found at https://iamemmanuel.org and on instagram at @rokcity_pix
The Germans of the Swamp
I arrived many hours earlier than Jimmy. I had almost a half a day’s time to kill before I meet up with him at his hotel. I, as per usual, started looking around for flea markets. In my doing so I ended up walking the crowded streets above the very many canals within the city. I would soon learn after chatting with a few locals, that the Germanic tribes who first left the Saxony area of Germany migrated very many years before to this area. It was full of swamps, more so than dry, inhabitable land. The tribes imported thousands of pounds of timber from what today is Sweden, and built windmills which they used to scoop up hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, displacing them on the other side of dikes they built surrounding where they wanted to build the city. The same is true for the nearby city of Harlem. Just in case the dikes where overwhelmed with water, they dug canals all over the city to catch and push out excess water. The windmills obviously are no longer used anymore in favor of more advanced technology. I hear cities like New Orleans and others that have levys and dikes protecting it from surges of large bodies of water have called on engineers from Amsterdam to help them keep an emergency from happening. All this information was cool, but I really just wanted to find a flea market.
ABOVE: Wandering around Amsterdam you are going to see what seems like an endless system of canals. This particular one is found somewhere near the Red Light district.
ABOVE: I made this picture as soon as I left Amsterdam central.
ABOVE: A gentlemen takes his bike for a spin somewhere on the other side of the city center. Bikes seem to be the main transportation for the inhabitants of the town. Nobody rides with a helmet I noticed.
The Life Blood of the Town
There are a few things that I will remember about the city outside of the few more things I write about later in this blog. I’m not talking about the marijuana smoking foreigners walking around the city and sitting along the benched lined streets. I’m not talking about the sex workers in the windows who come from Romania, Italy, Spain, or down the road in Harlem to make a few hundred Euro for a week. I mean the lifeblood of the town which are the locals, the characters.
ABOVE: Jimmy and I saw this young gentlemen hanging out and asked him for a picture. He was more than ready to pause and give us what we asked. Also on a bike, no helmet, just tons of ‘swagger” and coolness.
I always have time for them, to listen to their stories and look them in their eyes. Walking through the streets I met gentlemen after gentlemen and lady after lady, some young and some older, all beautiful and different faces. Some stopped for a photo, others would rather not. All were extremely polite, all had time to entertain me. I remember every name. This is their Amsterdam, and I respect it. I didn’t ask them about the marijuana or the sex workers. I asked what do they do in life, where did they get their clothing from and develop their style of dress, in what direction do you want to take your business? They gave me these answers and so much more.
ABOVE: A good gentlemen I waited on a picture for. I was sure that he would say no for a photograph when I asked him but what I was grateful for was our conversation. We even spoke German for a short while. He described to me his travels through Germany, the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands. I won’t soon forget him.
ABOVE: Known only to me as “Bob” but to most around Amsterdam central as “Mr. Mokum”. He is an entrepreneur who treated me better than anyone has in a city I have been to. We discussed a few things like why he started his own business and the differences between systems in the United States and The Netherlands. I purchased a few things from his place.
ABOVE: Bob’s shop Mr. Mokum on Haarlemmerstraat 46 in Amsterdam. Some of the best breakfast sandwiches, coffee, espresso and merchandise in the city.
ABOVE: To me, there is nothing sweeter than a father/daughter day. My heart melted as Jimmy and I walked past this scene. I was mesmerised by the cowboy boots. The kids were a bit young to speak English but the father explained to me that they were happy to be in a photo.
The Markets at Waterlooplein and Noordmarkt; Biking Outside of the Box
I’ve said it somewhere before and I’ll repeat it here again, I’ll go anywhere in the world for a good flea market. I found one the first day I was there while waiting for Jimmy called the “Waterlooplein”. The next day I found another called “Noordmarkt” in a different part of town. Both were decent but I wasn’t interested in the clothing they had to offer. Piles of fast fashion lay on the ground where various people interested had the opportunity to rummage through them. They all smelled bad and no self-respecting person I know would have rummage through that lot but surprisingly I saw some takers, some interested. H&M, Zara, were high end for this lot. What happened to the old days when you could find a vintage Louis Vuitton, or a Burberry made of one hundred percent cotton?
ABOVE: Noordmarkt, a flea market that happens every Saturday in Amsterdam. A gentlemen takes a look through some vinyl records.
ABOVE: A woman puffs on a “cancer Stick” while drinking a beer and checking her phone. I was doing a lot of the same and saw her turn around at me and smile.
ABOVE: A random church in Harlem on a rainy day. The shop on the left side of the pictures wasn’t open that day. Bummer.
ABOVE: A shot from inside an old pub where I was having an espresso. Two gentlemen sit outside enjoying the sunny day near a canal. Never knew that espresso and marijuana were a thing that went together. I didn’t get that memo but apparently they did.
In all seriousness I should have just been happy that I arrived in both places in one piece. The “whizz” and “zipp” of all bikes flying by me was almost too much to bear. Everyone drives a bicycle there. It’s truly a primary form or transportation, something very different than what I grew up to as an American. Back home a bicycle is a thing of recreation, not necessarily considered legal traffic. That is not the case in Amsterdam. I even saw women with two children on the bike at once, one on the handlebars and one behind her as she pedals. Most people back home pay under a few hundred dollars for a bike except for a road bike that a serious cyclist might buy. This is, also not the case in Amsterdam. They could range from a few hundred euro to three thousand for a bike to get you from “point A” to “point B”.
ABOVE: I saw the daylight falling on these seats and told Jimmy I needed someone sitting in them. I followed the marijuana smell and saw this gentlemen, already nicely stoned but still enjoying a “spliff” after work. I asked him to sit in the chairs and he was glad to be able to help me.
When people are scrounging around old flea markets, or on the way somewhere, anywhere, with their bikes, they are just hanging out around the café’s and bars, they are in the book stores reading and buying books, they meet their partners for walks through the parks. I can say that the city left an awesome impression on me. I’m probably one of the few who won’t immediately think of marijuana or sex work when I hear the name Amsterdam.
ABOVE: A gentlemen enjoys a “spliff” in the city square before making his way home.