Biography

Discussion

Jan Schiet was a resourceful photographer. The traits that fit him are, in part, the same that applied to all of his fellow professional colleagues at the NFK (Nederlandse Fotografen Kunstkring, ‘Netherlands Photographers Art Society’): a superior photographic technique and unparalleled craftsmanship, based on traditional photography. Schiet built a reputation as a successful advertising photographer very quickly. His passion for conceiving and devising solutions for commissioned photographic work was in tune with the wishes of the new advertising agencies emerging in Amsterdam in the 1950s. Schiet’s ‘photo stunts’ for advertising purposes, however, were not so appreciated by NFK members, ‘because they led him in the wrong direction, so that his love of artistic photography ended up becoming secondary.’ Advertising photography was something different than artistic photography. Schiet was indeed disappointed with the NFK’s constricting attitude. In spite of this, he managed to keep his status as a ‘principal’ member of the association for many years.

Schiet’s photographic training was brief: working as an assistant for Marius Meijboom in Amsterdam for no more than a period of two years in the late 1930s. He then obtained his ‘photographers guild’ diploma (conferred by the NFPV, Nederlandse Fotografen Patroonsvereeniging, ‘Netherlands Photographers Guild’), with which he became an accredited professional photographer. As was the case for many people, World War II also cut off Schiet’s career. Much later, in the early 1950s, he obtained his diploma from the Fotovakschool (‘Vocational School of Photography’), during working hours. Even at this early stage, Schiet was a valued principal member of the NFK.

For Schiet, the years of the war were a dramatic intrusion. He was part of the Amsterdam resistance group ‘Hoogeboom-Bruins Slot’, which was busy with activities such as falsified papers. Schiet was arrested along with approximately twenty other members of the group and sentenced to three years in a detention camp. Although not ‘politisch betätigt’ (‘poitically active’), he was accused of ‘Beihilfe einer geheimen Verbindung’ (…). The charge, appeal, trial, and locations of Schiet’s imprisonment have all been recorded and preserved in detail. He was first detained at the ‘Huis van Bewaring’ (‘Detention Centre’) in Amsterdam, hereafter at Camp Vught, then transferred to a prison in Cleves, Germany, and finally to a detention camp in Siegburg. It was here that Schiet came down with typhus, but survived. After being liberated by the Americans, he proceeded to document the horrors of the detention camp with a camera. On a side note, the activities of Schiet’s photo agency continued while he was imprisoned during the years of the war: corporate reportages, product photography, portraits, and architectural photos. The quality of craftsmanship produced by the unnamed individual who took Schiet’s place during the war was by no means inferior.

Schiet worked exclusively with a sheet film camera, and by his own account, he was the first in the Netherlands to acquire a Sinar professional camera in about the mid-1950s: ‘The best [camera] that I know is designed by a professional photographer from Switzerland and further developed by a precision [instrument] manufacturer. It can be extended like a kind of Meccano kit into all kinds of formats (…)’. According to Philip Mechanicus, who was hired as an assistant in January 1955, Schiet was ‘a master in rectification (…) Negatives were conserved by means of a formalin bath; I never experienced anything like that ever again.’

Schiet’s unpretentious, but enthusiastically written discourses published in the trade literature—for instance, on the equipping of the darkroom and studio, the proper use of the camera, and the ideal 9×12 format and accompanying lenses—are (still today) informative, crystal clear, and captivating for anyone wishing to learn something about these topics. Schiet introduced modifications to his equipment, if he thought he could do it better. In 1953, he published an article in the trade magazine Fotografie about using a flash as a ‘fill light’ for outdoor shots. It was a subject special enough to devote extensive coverage in an article. He wrote that a flash shot of this nature had to be done right the very first time, as lamps were costly acquisitions at the time—even for Schiet’s photo agency. Batteries alone were too unreliable as an energy source. To guarantee a stable voltage, Schiet worked with a capacitor that he had modified himself. He never kept his inventions to himself, but shared them wholeheartedly with others.

Schiet’s working approach to photography was the same as for making a film. Prior to a photo session, there was first the preliminary choice of location, a situation sketch, and perspective drawings that had to be prepared. If the studio was too small and the (advertising) budget allowed it, then the work floor was relocated to the Cinetone Film Studios in Duivendrecht. By as early as 1952, Schiet had already made a name for himself as a successful advertising photographer for special assignments. In that year, he wrote that ‘…photography in advertising is showing up much better…’, but that ‘…the Netherlands is just a bit too small for larger projects…’. In contrast to the work of, for instance, someone like the Amsterdam photographer Paul Huf, Schiet’s photographic solutions for advertising projects are rather conservative. In his (colour) shots for Heineken beer in the December 1957 issue of Het Beste (‘The Best’, from Reader’s Digest), commissioned by the Smits advertising agency, Schiet employed elements such as a pretty woman, rolled cathedral glass (to obtain an indistinct, blurred effect), and the main topic, two foaming glasses of beer. In the magazine Foto (the official trade magazine of the NFK), the assignment was characterised as being difficult, but successful: ‘The product, the article, had to be kept the main topic, with the surroundings playing a secondary role around it. A photographer then thinks in terms of sharp/unsharp (…) The brooding mind came no further than a window-pane of configured glass, and for the time being, found this to be a solution that was anything but original (…). An advertising photographer most certainly has to be artistically gifted, but periodically he also has to be able to stand very firmly on his own two legs (…). That’s why it still ended up being figurative glass, with the hidden underlying promise, to apply it without the would-be virtuosity and with complete objectivity. As a means, nothing more. Jan Schiet still comforts himself with the idea that, as far as he can tell, he was the first to put the articles in front the wavy glass, and the figuration behind it.’ This description says much about Schiet’s character and even more about commissioned photography as it was valued and practiced by members of the NFK. Schiet strove for originality, but was apparently far from being entirely satisfied: Foto (and implicitly, the NFK) placed the emphasis on ‘artistically gifted (…) standing very firmly on his own two legs (…) without the would-be virtuosity’. Compared to the photographic discoveries made by other photographers for the Het Bier Is Weer Best (‘The Beer is Again Best’) advertising campaign that had preceded this, Schiet’s charming photo comes across quite backwards. In 1958, it was Paul Huf who was ultimately awarded the commission to do an advertising campaign for the same agency, as well on behalf of Heineken. Was it because Schiet’s inventiveness failed to meet the mark that explains why he was not the one chosen for this particular commission? As far back as early 1953, the magazine Foto wrote that ‘(…) his skill at tinkering around has never overshadowed its effectiveness (…).’ Schiet’s pièce de résistance in this respect, as well embodying his desire for technical and organisational perfection, was (after 1957) a converted trailer called the ‘Schiettent’. It was typically one of Schiet’s creations: completely rebuilt himself and furnished with every convenience. The trailer was sometimes used as a backdrop, and when photographing outdoors, it served as a changing room so the models could avoid the peering glances of curious spectators.

It was the photographer Nico Zomer who advocated Schiet’s application to the NFK in the early 1950s. Based on his submitted work, Schiet was immediately accepted into the association and was even made a principal member shortly thereafter. Regular membership could be changed to a principal membership within a given period of time, following the approval of a more extensive submission consisting of an additional twenty-five shots. For many photographers of the NFK, this proved to be an impenetrable obstacle. For many years, Schiet served as the association’s treasurer. In addition, he was the contact person for any photographer daring to apply for candidacy in the Amsterdam chapter of the NFK, but also for those who were ultimately rejected (e.g. Godfried de Groot and Kees Scherer, for reasons unknown). Ironically, in 1962 Schiet himself was dismissed as a principal member when thirteen of the fifteen members voted negatively on the works he submitted.

Schiet was more genuinely interested in documentary photography than other NFK members. Unlike experimental, subjective photography and abstraction, documentary photography (i.e. ‘human interest’ photography) failed to concur with the association’s aesthetic ideals.

Over the years, Jan Schiet wrote enthusiastically about the documentary photography he encountered at exhibitions in the magazine Fotografie, including work by the photographers David Seymour, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Robert Capa, Denise Colomb, Eugene Smith, and Werner Bischof.

Schiet was well aware of the particular professional audience for which he wrote. When it came to the subject of documentary photography, he acknowledged that the understanding of those in the circles of the NFK and those like-minded was in fact quite limited. Regarding the 1956 ‘Photo Salon’ in Brussels, Belgium—with the NFK being an important participant based on its submission to this exhibition—Schiet stated in Fotografie: ‘There are only a few photographers who are capable of understanding their fellow man and who photograph him precisely at that moment. Instead, one goes to a great deal of trouble to portray him in a strange situation, with crazy light effects and backdrops, or in the gutter, and preferably with sad faces so as to hide the emptiness through astonishment (peculiarity). Though admittedly, the content of many abstract photos likewise consists only of the element of astonishment (in the sense of eliciting astonishment). This most definitely even applies to photos by Otto Steinert, not to mention Heinz Hajek Halke.’ Schiet had no hesitation in pointing out limitations found in the work of the two most celebrated practitioners of Subjective Photography.

The question then arises why Schiet, being a photographer working in Amsterdam, never joined up with those photographers who had come together to form the GKf. Not only did he possess a mental attitude that fit this group, but in addition, his war past (resistance, imprisonment) was similar to some of its members who had actively resisted the German occupier during the years of World War II, had also been imprisoned, or were forced to go into hiding. Jan Schiet’s ideas were not essentially any different from those of the GKf. Despite his contacts with Carel Blazer and the photographers at Particam Pictures (e.g. Austria/Jonker/Klein/Zilver Rupe), there was never any talk of a convergence. Perhaps the photography of the GKf members was too closely associated with a social engagement that was then seen as being linked to communist sympathies by those in the circles of the NFK, and which was therefore considered controversial. This is the reason why Schiet, who was raised Catholic, chose for the NFK.

Schiet launched an exhibition featuring his photos of Paris at Café Eijlders, an Amsterdam café where artists came together, entitled Parijs Van Alle Dag (‘Day-to-Day Paris’). He was perhaps inspired in this endeavour by an article that appeared in the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool (written by the photo editor Theo Ramaker) regarding the enthusiastic reception of Ed van der Elsken’s photos of Paris, which were being shown as part of the exhibition Post War European Photography being held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the summer of 1953. Theo Ramaker opened Schiet’s exhibition at Café Eijlders. Cor van Weele’s remarks on this exhibition were: ‘(…) Jan Schiet has experienced Paris as a true-blooded amateur; with his camera, he has taken hold of what he wants to show us here. Nevertheless, when seeing the large number of photos on display here, we feel something of that characteristic atmosphere of this world city.’ That it was something, and nothing more, is certain to have been related to the detachment and reserve with which Schiet approached the Parisians, as affirmed by photos published at the time. Schiet was highly enthusiastic about Nico Jesse’s Vrouwen van Parijs (‘Women of Paris’), which appeared in 1954. ‘Looking only with your technical eye, then there are things to criticise in many of these photos. But when both eyes are open, then one virtually no longer notices it. This is much better, of course, than a technically perfect photo that has no significance.’

In the early 1950s, Jan Schiet’s photo agency was a respected address in Amsterdam for industrial, architectural, and advertising photography that was perfect in its technique. Schiet focused on staged interior and outdoor scenes of a complex nature. But in actuality he believed the Netherlands was too small for larger advertising projects. During the 1950s, Schiet also specialised in colour photography. Too little of this material has survived, however, to make a justified statement concerning his work in this area. Schiet was a driven man who achieved a great deal in the Dutch photography world, despite the brief duration of his career. He established his name in the areas of advertising and professional photography, in the management of an important photographic trade association, and in numerous articles addressing the technical side of the profession, as well as photo exhibitions both in the Netherlands and abroad. Following his sudden death—Schiet drowned at the age of forty-three during a sailing trip, as a result of a water spout that struck during a sudden storm—most of Schiet’s negatives archive was lost. Those who had taken over his studio harboured no interest in preserving his images.

Documentation