Photographer Bert Teunissen

Jen is still in Houston reviewing portfolios at FotoFest and is so busy that her newsletter for today's edition by the Dutch photographer Bert Teunissen is running a little late, it should be out tomorrow. I think this photo is especially stunning —taken in natural light and rooted in a history of place, like the rest of his incredible Domestic Landscapes series. In a 2007 piece about his work by the NYT's Kathryn Shattuck, he says his work archives a way of life that is "fated to disappear as a consequence not only of architectural standardization but also of social displacement and shifts in public opinion about life and how it should be lived," and estimates that 90 percent of the 350 or so structures he's photographed no longer exist.
Teunissen discusses both his process and his views on rapidly disappearing ways of life in his ongoing travel diaries for the Aperture Foundation, written as he travels through Europe and Asia working on Domestic Landscapes. They're all of them fairly compelling but if you've not got the time to read through the whole lot, I highly recommend the last two entries from his Japan diaries, Grand Finale one and two, to get a perfectly encapsulated view of the man and how and why he does what he does.
Aperture published a monograph last May, also titled Domestic Landscapes, composed of Teunissen's portraits of Europeans taken in their homes—all of which were built before the World Wars, many inhabited by generation after generation of the same family through centuries. The book is now completely sold out, but used copies can still be had if you know where to look.

                                            >>>Bert Teunissen