Eyewitness
Rotterdam photographer Janine Schrijver (57) walked through the city parks with her camera last year. She asked walkers, athletes and people sitting on a bench to imitate a tree. “Just by asking the question, something changed in their attitude. Most of them had a smile on their faces,” she says in NRC. The great thing, says Schrijver, is how people suddenly start looking around carefully. And discover: hey, one tree is really not the same as the other.
The woman who imitates the weeping willow was absolutely right, she says: “That hanging posture, the curls in her hair that match so beautifully with the leaves on the branches.” But not everyone was actually going to do something. “There was also a man who simply stood upright next to a tree, his arms hanging next to his body. Very simple. Sometimes just being there was enough.” (rvd)