From holiday snapshots to Eindhoven as a subject
Jan has been taking photographs since the days of film rolls, although for a long time it was mostly holiday snapshots. That changed when he was given an old SLR camera that had belonged to his father. At first, that camera also stayed mainly on automatic mode. It was only when he started following landscape photographers on YouTube that he became curious about what was possible, both technically and creatively.
Tutorial followed tutorial. Filters and a tripod appeared, along with the intention to take landscape photography more seriously. The only problem was that there was no spectacular mountain scenery waiting around Eindhoven. The city itself turned out to be more interesting.
Around the same time, Jan joined a photography challenge with a new theme every week. Motion blur, long exposures, shooting without looking: the assignments kept changing, but Jan chose one fixed theme to tie them together — Eindhoven. What started as a practical choice gradually became his photographic subject.
A city where old and new overlap
What appeals to Jan is precisely that Eindhoven does not tell a single architectural story. Old Philips industrial buildings stand alongside post-war architecture, new residential towers and neighbourhoods that are still very much under development. It is that combination that interests him.
“You always used to hear that Eindhoven was a bit boring and not particularly beautiful. I like showing that it actually is beautiful.”
The subject itself does not necessarily have to be conventionally beautiful. Snow, light, a different angle or a remarkable sky can completely transform a place. Sometimes people tell him exactly that after seeing his work: they never liked a particular building, but his photograph suddenly makes them look at it differently.
For Jan, that is one of the most interesting things photography can do. Not make something appear prettier than it is, but make someone look at it again.
Everything starts with light
When Jan walks through Eindhoven with his camera without a specific assignment, he does not look first for a building or the perfect composition. He looks at the light.
“If you look through my photographs, they all start with beautiful light.”
That can even determine whether it is worth heading out at all. On a flat, grey day, he knows it will be much harder to create the image he is looking for. Post-processing can do a lot, but it can hardly repair poor light completely.
The transition between day and night therefore plays an important role in his work. During blue hour there is still enough ambient light to see the surroundings, while lights in buildings and streets are already coming on. The sky gains colour, windows begin to glow and reflections become stronger. A street that looks ordinary in the middle of the day can suddenly become a photograph half an hour later.
Familiar places from an unfamiliar angle
Anyone who photographs architecture in Eindhoven for years inevitably encounters buildings that have already been photographed thousands of times: the Blob, Strijp-S, the Evoluon, the city centre and the old Philips buildings.
How do you avoid making the same photograph as everyone before you? Besides light, Jan mainly looks for difference in viewpoint. He likes photographing familiar places from positions most people in Eindhoven never see, for example from tall buildings in the city centre.
Photography therefore takes him to places he would otherwise never visit. A building that seems to offer little new from street level can become part of a completely different cityscape when viewed from above.
Photographing a city that is never finished
Because Eindhoven changes so quickly, its cityscape keeps changing with it. From a rooftop at Strijp-T, Jan recently noticed Nieuw Bergen suddenly forming part of the skyline. For someone who has photographed Eindhoven for years, moments like that are special. A place you think you know suddenly demands to be seen again.
Nowhere is that more obvious than at Strijp-S. Jan has photographs of the area in which large parts of today’s buildings simply do not exist yet. If you stood in exactly the same place today, parts of the old view would no longer be visible at all. New buildings block it, and the skyline has shifted.
For a photographer, that works both ways. A city photograph can become dated quickly, but that is precisely what makes it more interesting later. An image that initially centred on light and architecture can, years afterwards, show what Eindhoven once looked like.
When a beautiful photograph becomes history
Jan has now photographed several moments that later gained an additional documentary meaning. One of the most unusual periods was 2020. During the pandemic, GLOW could not take place in its usual form. Instead, light installations were placed at several elevated locations in and around Eindhoven.
For Jan, it became a photography project in unusual places. Because the city functioned so differently at the time, those images later gained another layer: they show not only light and Eindhoven, but also an exceptional moment in recent history.
The same applies to buildings that have since disappeared. Shortly before its demolition, Jan photographed from an old Philips building opposite the Philips Stadium. That same photograph can no longer be made. Sometimes it is only years later that you realise an image has preserved something as well.
GLOW through a photographer’s eyes
Light and Eindhoven perhaps come together nowhere more naturally than during GLOW Eindhoven. Jan photographs the light art festival both out of personal interest and on assignment. As a visitor, you can take your time walking past an installation. For a photographer on assignment, an evening looks very different: several projects have to be captured in a short space of time, with not only the installation but also its surroundings and visitors becoming part of the story.
“Sometimes I am looking more at the people around the artwork than at the artwork itself.”
People stopping, holding up a phone or standing together under an umbrella show what is happening around an artwork. Because so many visitors photograph the same installation, Jan looks for difference in the surroundings, timing, movement or viewpoint.
His favourite night photographs also often emerge before it is completely dark. During the Lichtjesroute, he started photographing as soon as the lights were switched on. With the surroundings still visible, the light became part of the city rather than something isolated from it.
Patience — and reacting quickly
Looking at Jan’s architecture photography, you might think the images are mainly the result of meticulous planning: setting up a tripod, deciding on a composition and waiting for the perfect light. That certainly happens, but a surprising number of photographs arise because something suddenly changes.
A beam of light falls in exactly the right place. The sky changes colour unexpectedly. An extra element appears in the frame. At times he literally has to turn around and react quickly before the moment disappears again. In hindsight, the photographs that feel most carefully planned are not automatically the strongest ones.
Perhaps that is also why he enjoys photographing a city so much. A building does not walk away, but everything around it is constantly changing.
From Instagram to a photograph several metres wide
A great deal of photography is now viewed on a small screen. Jan takes that into account in his compositions and regularly shoots in portrait orientation for Instagram. At the same time, he finds it especially interesting when a photograph grows beyond its digital format.
He is selective about what goes into his portfolio. The images need to be photographs he would genuinely want on his own wall. Panoramas are particularly well suited to that, he says. Thanks to the high resolution of his camera, cityscapes can be printed very large without losing their detail.
Looking beyond Strijp-S and the city centre
Jan also sees a risk in photographing the same city for years. You automatically return to places you know will work: Strijp-S, the city centre, the Eindhoven Canal and familiar sightlines.
That is precisely why he wants to search more often beyond that familiar circuit. The three distinctive water towers at the former sewage treatment site are one example. During GLOW, he photographed them together with a projection. A place he had barely considered as a photographic subject before ended up producing one of his favourite images of recent years.
Not every location needs to be spectacular. Industrial estates, canalsides and everyday buildings can show exactly what has fascinated Jan from the start: under the right conditions, an ordinary place can become extraordinary.
A visual memory of Eindhoven
If someone browses Jan’s archive twenty years from now, they will probably see more than beautiful photographs of Eindhoven. The development of the city will be visible too: buildings that have disappeared, high-rises that did not yet exist, Strijp-S before new residential blocks closed off certain sightlines, and light art that existed for only a few days.
Jan never deliberately set out to create a historical archive of Eindhoven. Above all, he wanted to photograph: to seek out the best light, show a city that is more interesting than the image he used to hear about it, and look at familiar places from a different angle. Yet by continuing to do that year after year, such an archive develops almost by itself.
Eindhoven never stands still. And that means Jan never has to look far for a new subject.
Just start
For beginning photographers, Jan ultimately has a simple piece of advice. Do not wait until you understand every setting. Do not spend forever working out which camera you need. And above all, do not think you have to know in advance exactly what kind of photographer you want to become.
“Just go out, take photographs and try to discover what you find beautiful and what you enjoy photographing.”
Almost everything can be learned online these days. Start with the basics, experiment and gradually discover where your own interests lie. Jan himself began with an old DSLR on automatic mode. Then came the filters, the tripod, the weekly photography assignments and, eventually, a great many kilometres through the same city.
What does your Eindhoven look like?
Jan Timmer is one of the judges of the Eindhoven Photography Challenge. Show us your own view of the city and submit one photograph — from architecture, people and light to nature, nightlife or that one everyday detail that, to you, is Eindhoven.
Join the Photography ChallengeSee more from Jan Timmer
Want to see more cityscapes, architecture and night photography? Explore Jan’s portfolio and follow his latest work on Instagram. His photography can also be seen in visual communications around GLOW Eindhoven.
More photography from Eindhoven
Keep reading: discover why analog photography is making a comeback in Eindhoven, explore more creator stories in the Eindhoven Creative Community blog overview, or find your own subject in the city.