On the road photo reportage series for NRC
Photo reportage series tour bus
Project info: For the Dutch news paper NRC, we jump in tour buses, used by music bands and artists. Together with music journalist Leendert van der Valk we tell the on-the-road stories of endless hours behind the wheel, the conversations, the accidents, the silly jokes and terrorising farts.
Client: NRC
Media: Photography
My role: Idea and photography
Languages: Dutch
Photo reportage: high tide in Holland
Photography, news report
Project info: As water levels rise in Dutch rivers, I made a visual report of a Dutch couple living in the floodplains of the Waal river. .
Client: Autonomous
Media: Photography
My role: Idea and photography
Languages: Dutch
Background story: growing up in the refugee camps of Lebanon
Reportage of children living in the Ein el Helweh, Rashidieh and El Buss refugee camps of Lebanon
Project info: Hundreds of thousands Palestinian refugees live in refugee camps in South Lebanon. Ein el Helweh, Rashidieh and El Buss have been the makeshift home of generations of Palestinians who have fled the violence in Gaza and the West Bank. In 2010 and 2012 I visited the camps in Lebanon to document the lives of children living in these dire conditions.
Together with founder of the Dutch NGO War Child Holland and its goodwill ambassador Marco Borsato I interviewed and portrayed children and their parents. The pictures, reportages, background stories and video reports have been and are still used in War Child’s printed media, website, social media and advocacy reports.
Client: War Child
Media: Photography
Languages: –
Background story: Los Valientes/the braves
Background photo stories
Project info: Five brave, aspiring photojournalists from Latin America face major challenges expressing their opinions. Prejudice, intimidation, violence, it’s part of their daily job in Mexico, Venezuela and El Salvador. This long scroll honours these young professional photographers and video reporters.
Client: RNW Media
Media: Photography, webdesign
Gulu carwash
Photo series of a makeshift carwash in Gulu, Northern Uganda
Project info: When the heat of the day leaves town and the sun gets low, men gather at the washing bay in Gulu. At this roadside carwash against a tropical backdrop, cars, trucks and motor bikes get their daily clean-up.
Client: Autonomous
Media: Photography
Languages: –
Idle indulgence
Idle indulgence, an ongoing photo series
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Numana, Italia, 2018, From the series 'Idle Indulgence' © Michiel Bles / all rights reserved
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Berlin, Germany, 2018, from the series 'Idle Indulgence' © Michiel Bles / all rights reserved
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Porto, Portugal, 2018, from the series 'Idle Indulgence' © Michiel Bles / all rights reserved
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Budapest, Hungary, 2017, from the series 'Idle Indulgence' © Michiel Bles / all rights reserved
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Porto, Portugal, 2018, from the series 'Idle Indulgence' © Michiel Bles / all rights reserved
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Wijk aan Zee, Holland, from the series 'Idle Indulgence' © Michiel Bles, all rights reserved
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Mexico City, Mexico, 2015, from the series 'Idle Indulgence' © Michiel Bles, all rights reserved
Indulgence by Michiel Bles
Project info: In times of work pressure, stress and our newly acquired need to be in touch 24/7, room and time for indulgence are diminishing. This photo series explores situations and persons who take time for enjoyment. Forget about time, being idle.
Exercising, as French revolutionary Marxist socialist journalist, political writer and activist Paul Lafargue stated, the right the right to be lazy. These progressively scarce moments are captured in this ongoing photo project.
Client: Autonomous
Media: Photography
Languages: –
Photo series: musing on the ferry
Photo series of Amsterdam ferry men
Project info: No less that 80 times Amsterdam ferrymen and women go up and down the IJ canal each shift. Each day, each week. 80 times the same 5 minute passage. 40 times a view on the same quay.
A few meters above the passenger deck, they look down on the cargo disembarking their vessel. A couple of minutes when docked allow for a moment of woolgathering.
When the buzzer sounds, the mesmerizing is over and a new crossing is about to begin.
Is this the most peaceful or the most dreary job in the world? ‘Musing on the ferry’ is a visual quest for the answer to this question.
Client: Autonomous
Media: Photography
Languages: –
More photography by Michiel Bles
Have a look at more photography projects via blessedshots.com