Vincent Mentzel - Photojournalism Career

Photojournalism Career

Mentzel studied at the Rotterdam Art Academy (Rotterdam kunstacademie), now called the Willem de Kooning Academy of Fine Arts. Afterward he worked in the late 1960s as an assistant to the distinguished Amsterdam theatre photographer Maria Austria. From her he learned darkroom processing and printing techniques.

Mentzel then worked as a freelance photojournalist for national newspapers and magazines. His early photographs are characterized by their narrow perspective, created by heavily printed skies and surroundings. His later work is lighter and more balanced. His use of a wide-angle lens gave his photos an unusual and striking perspective.

NRC Handelsblad, the leading Dutch daily, quickly hired him. He became widely known for his photographs of politicians and statesmen. Mentzel established personal relationships with eminent politicians in the Dutch parliament and photographed them candidly in their private moments. His approach attracted attention and changed the character of political photography in the Netherlands.

By the 1970s Mentzel had become known as the photographer of the powerful. His photos captured ministers, heads of state, and the Dutch royal family at home and abroad, as well as dictators. His photo of the Dutch prime minister Joop Den Uyl won the 1973 “Best Dutch Press Photo” award from the Amsterdam-based World Press Photo Foundation. However, Mentzel curtailed his work as a political photographer because he felt his friendships with politicians interfered with his journalistic independence.

Even as he expanded his professional horizons, NRC Handelsblad gave Mentzel assignments of wider scope, dispatching him to cover not only extraordinary events and famous names but also ordinary people and places around the world. His first trip to China was during the Cultural Revolution in 1973. He proved skilled at capturing peasant life in China and Tibet, where he was one of the first to be allowed to enter. He also photographed street scenes in Tokyo, ordinary people in the southern United States, and kings and prime ministers.

Among the stories he covered were the Nieuwmarkt riots in Amsterdam over the building of the new metro system, the sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland, the Tiananmen Square student uprising, and war in Lebanon. These assignments firmly established his stature as a broadly talented photojournalist.

And that is how Mentzel views himself and his calling: "I'm not an artist," he insists, despite the fact that many view his work as representative of true photographic art. "A newspaper is not an art magazine, or a picture book to be kept and treasured. It's something people look at, read, and then throw away. They shouldn't have to puzzle over what a newspaper photo is about. It's fine for a newspaper photo to be striking or beautiful, but its basic job, its reason for being, is to convey information. That's what photojournalism is about."