Starting on 10 May, the winning photos of the Dutch photojournalism contest De Zilveren Camera will be on display at the Folkingestraat synagogue in Groningen. This is the first time in a decade that the photo exhibit has been held in the city.
Translation by Traci White
Dagblad van het Noorden reports that the exhibit, which opens on Friday and runs through 2 June, is the first time De Zilveren Camera winners have been exhibited in Groningen in ten years. The Groninger Internet Courant writes that De Zilveren Camera – The Silver Camera – is an annual photography competition for Dutch photojournalism. The award has been handed out in the Netherlands since 1949 and is coordinated on a national level by the Dutch Association of Photojournalists.
According to the Facebook event page for the exhibit, visitors will be able to admire 200 photos by 55 winners in a range of categories: regional news, national and international news, politics, sports, people in the news, art, culture and entertainment, and international and national documentary work. The exhibit is organised by NonFiction Photo Groningen.
De Zilveren Camera features outstanding Dutch photojournalism from the past year, and the exhibit is an opportunity to showcase the best of Dutch news photography which has covered events ranging from “the Stint railway crossing accident” to “the introduction of the donor law and the eleven cities swimming tour embarked upon by Maarten van der Weijden.” The winner of this year’s eponymous Zilveren Camera prize was Cynthia Boll, who won for her photo story about sea level rise in Indonesia: Sinking Cities Jakarta”.

A number of northern-based photographers and stories will also have a prominent place in the exhibit: Kees van de Veen’s story on the election campaign of the local party Samen voor Pekela, Jilmer Postma’s striking bird’s eye view photos of sheep crossing a geometric bridge over a canal in Drachten, and Marcel Jurian de Jong’s portrait of Ugbaad Kilincci, a Muslim Labour party council member in Emmen who was harassed during campaign activities in 2018.
The Groningen synagogue on the Folkingestraat has also been the location of the World Press Photo exhibit for years, which is also a Dutch-based photography competition and is focused on stories from around the globe. Tickets to De Zilveren Camera exhibit are eight euros and the exhibit hours are 12 to 6 on Friday.
Photo source: Cynthia Boll, “Sinking Cities” – courtesy of Andrea Hooymans/NonFiction Photo