JULIE HRUDOVÁ
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Chasing Amsterdam
We speak with an author who moves through Amsterdam as if reading a map of small shifts, brief encounters, and frames that appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. Street photography became her natural field of work in her teenage years, when her first phone with a camera replaced a sketchbook and pencil. Since then, she has photographed what she comes across, with a small camera in her bag and a sensitivity to scenes that surface without warning.
Twelve years of editorial work in television news sharpened Julie’s eye for selection and for the meaning an image carries, alongside a deeper awareness of context and visual nuance. In this interview, she speaks about series that unfold slowly, about images whose value only becomes clear over time, about the book Chasing Amsterdam, and about the Instagram archive StreetRepeat, through which she shows how street photographers connect through ideas, even when they have never met.
What first drew you to photography, and when did you realise that street photography was where you could express yourself most fully?
When I was a child, I used to paint a lot. It feels natural to me to observe the world around me, and I’m always seeking to capture it. As a teenager, I got my first phone with a built-in digital camera, and that’s when I turned to photography. I was drawn to catching unexpected moments around me, without setting them up. At home, outside, with friends, and alone, street photography became a part of my life.
When you’re out shooting on the street, how do you usually work? Do you tend to build situations over time by returning to the same places, or do you follow movement and whatever unfolds as you go?
I work instinctively. I follow movement, or I sense that something might happen, even when it doesn’t. Interesting moments often appear when I’m not looking for them, so I always carry my small camera with me.
How does your selection process unfold after a shoot, and at what point do you recognise that an image belongs to a series rather than standing on its own?
When I’m selecting images, I usually know what is good enough. Sometimes I come to appreciate a photo even months or years later. As for series versus single images, sometimes I’m consciously working on a sequence, and other times, single images start to work together over time if something substantial binds them.
As a series takes shape, what holds it together for you? What tells you the work has an internal logic and feels like a coherent whole rather than a set of individual images?
There are thematic series, such as the herons of Amsterdam, and more subtle sequences of single images that make sense together. For the herons, I took a documentary approach, although I could also play with the strangeness and absurdity of these situations. That strangeness has always fascinated me visually.
Other times, it’s more of a generic theme, like the weekly pictures of Amsterdam that I was taking (and am again) for the local newspaper Het Parool. For this series, I look for peculiar scenes on the streets of Amsterdam. I first did this during the pandemic, and I’m doing it again now, focusing on surreal scenes. Right now, I’m taking evening pictures for the same section. The photos are bound together by the darkness, the atmosphere of the evening, the city lights, and everything that happens in between.
You recently spoke about closing an important chapter after twelve years as a photo editor in television news. What did that period sharpen most for you in terms of reading images, making decisions, and visual storytelling, and where do you feel that influence in your authorial work today?
It’s a big step for me, with an uncertain future ahead. I needed to feel the urge again to start creating more and to set up new collaborations.
Looking at thousands of images as a photo editor forces you to quickly scan through selections and databases, and it makes you see patterns and styles. We also had many discussions with my colleagues, which led to a sharper awareness of editorial and thematic choices, as well as possible connotations and stereotypes.
Alongside my editorial job, I started an Instagram account, StreetRepeat, where I collect similar pictures from the street photography genre, all taken by different photographers, to emphasise how much we all influence and inspire each other.
For my own photography, the editorial experience brought greater awareness when building visual stories, seeing connections between images, and also being aware that certain images can weaken each other.
Chasing Amsterdam eventually took the form of a book. How did that decision come about, and when did you feel the work was asking for that particular format?
Chasing Amsterdam took on a diary-like rhythm because of the weekly photos and the consistent vertical format. Flipping through the newspaper pages over time, a book felt like the most logical next step. In the book, Sabine Verschueren, the designer, and I added several spreads with small images and descriptions about the weekly hunt for the image. In this way, the viewer sees the actual photos and also understands what led up to them, and the creative and ethical choices I made.
It has become a visual document of life in Amsterdam (coincidentally) during the COVID period, with an insight into the photographer’s process.
Through StreetRepeat, you work with photographs by different authors from different cities. What interests you most when these images sit side by side, and what kind of reflection does that approach open up for you?
It’s an ongoing archive where I collect similar images from different photographers.
I’m always excited when I put together a new theme of three photos, almost like a child holding the right set of cards in my hands. This account reflects on how we all influence and inspire each other, even if we are not always aware of that. In some cases, it’s obvious that photographers are recreating an existing image in a specific style; other times, the similarities are more subtle. I’m always curious to find new patterns that emerge within the genre.
When you look at your work as a whole today, what matters more to you than it used to, and what have you deliberately stopped looking for in photography?
I think I’m gravitating more towards developing a personal approach and my own visual language, rather than trying to recreate what others already do better. When I was starting out, I wanted to do more story-based documentary projects, but I reckon that I’m not 100% a photojournalist. My work is somewhere in the middle, in a grey area between documentary and art, and maybe it’s doing just fine there.
In this conversation, Julie Hrudová speaks about photography as a process that unfolds on the street and continues in the edit. Her projects take shape over time, sometimes through a shared theme and atmosphere, sometimes through a connection that only becomes clear later. Amsterdam remains a constant presence in her work, by day and in the evening light, while her editorial experience brings precision to how images sit next to one another. As she closes one professional chapter and opens another, she increasingly shapes her own visual language in the space between documentary and art.
Julie Hrudová
