Amsterdam 68 Photographic Impressions / 68 Fotografische Impressies

Amsterdam" by Dick de Herder celebrates the re-birth of the city in the post-war period. It celebrates the people, the architecture and streets of Amsterdam. It is also an ode to Brassai's first book "Paris de Nuit" from 1933, which concentrated on the nighttime world of Montparnasse, a district of Paris then noted for its artists, streetwalkers, brothels and petty criminals. Brassai's book portrays "a phantasmal and unreal Paris, plunged in darkness and fog," as he later put it. Of these, one of the most eerily evocative is "Cobblestones," which is on the cover of "Paris de Nuit." In Herder's "Amsterdam," there is an equally gloomy photograph of a cobblestone street with mysterious shadows wondering the street (p.39). Paralleling "Paris de Nuit," the book format is also similar, both being spiral bound