Note: missing plate: “Levensavond” by H. Berssenbrugge (March 10)

Issue #1 Details: (translated)

Geïllustreerd Weekblad voor Fotografie

Thirteenth Year 1906.  Saturday 6 January.  No. 1.

Published by LAURENS HANSMA, Apeldoorn.

Message.

In addition to the changes stated below, our faithful readers will see our Weekly in a new fresh outfit.

It certainly goes without saying that we will continue to give a monthly reproduction in Heliogravure as a bonus with our magazine, made according to photos sent in by our subscribers. We would be very pleased if you would send us photos for the above-mentioned purpose.

To the readers.

With the beginning of the new year, good luck to the reader! May his hobby, photography, give him much success this year and therefore much pleasure. To be able to contribute to that, the aim of the Weekblad voor Fotografie will be again this year.

We can inform the readers that drastic changes that were already to be implemented on January 1 are waiting for the complete recovery of our publisher, whose health condition during the last weeks made a temporary rest necessary.

In the meantime, some changes will already be made in the composition of our weekly issues.

The column “Op den Uitkijk,” (“On the Lookout”) that had to be temporarily introduced due to circumstances, has been discontinued and foreign affairs will again be dealt with by our Editor who previously always provided the “Buitenlandsch Overzicht”. (“Foreign Overview”)

The short reports of this former column, mainly dealing with practical regulations, will be expanded, so that from now on the most important articles that appear in foreign magazines will be translated and included, or an abbreviated report of them will be given. Both in our country and abroad, a great deal is printed that only moderately arouses interest.

In our small country, the number of photographers who have the desire and aptitude to submit solid and for the majority of amateurs instructive articles is very small, compared to neighboring larger kingdoms, where a world language is spoken and where the number of inhabitants of one city often exceeds the number of souls of our entire country.

To want to fill a magazine with original Dutch work would be equivalent to: 1. having to accept and publish everything that is rough and ready, suitable and unsuitable, useful and useless; 2. withholding from the readers everything that goes on and is written outside our borders, even the most important, since it is not possible for the amateur to personally purchase all the magazines and work through them.

Even in our most important cities, we mention Amsterdam at the head, a good photographic reading society is lacking. This will probably be mainly caused by the fact that the ordinary amateur, who has his business, lacks the time to keep himself informed of the contents of the periodicals while practicing his hobby. Therefore the Weekblad will try to: provide good original work, insofar as it is submitted, but in addition to that keep its teachings informed of the most important that the foreign magazines contain, expecting that it will fill an existing gap with it.

Also of the most important books that appear at home and abroad, a very concise report of the tendency, or assessment of the content will be included as much as possible. The Weekblad urgently invites every author with knowledge to submit original contributions that, if they can be considered for publication, will be fairly honored.

Among these submissions are no translations, or taken over, or pieces already published elsewhere to be understood, but only original contributions of the sender.

Contributions are to be sent to Mr. Laurens Hansma in Apeldoorn, they will always be welcome. We will also make some changes to the “Question Box” and “Criticism” sections in consultation with the editor concerned.

Differences of opinion between the Editorial Board and the contributors will not be a reason for not publishing a decent submitted piece.

There will be room for everyone’s opinion, also on the point of the great issue of the day, whether or not photography belongs under the visual arts, and what one wishes to understand by photographic art, in the columns of the magazine, provided that the writers move in practical terrain and refrain from endless disputatious writing.

We hope to be able to make more announcements in the near future, all of which will have the aim of increasing interest in our Weekly and promoting its prosperity. And now readers we enter the new year full of good courage, hoping that the mutual relationship between the readers and the Weekblad voor Fotografie may be a pleasant one, as always, and that we may succeed in being conducive to the flourishing of the amateur profession par excellence “Photography.”   Editors and Publisher.

History: Geïllustreerd Weekblad voor Fotografie  1894-1910

The Dutch photographic journal Geïllustreerd Weekblad voor Fotografie (Illustrated Weekly Magazine for Photography) was published for 17 years, from 1894-1910. The masthead on the title page for yearly volumes owned by this archive indicate the “Weekblad” was the “Official Organ of the Amateur Photographers Association “Rotterdam” from at least 1903-1905, and most likely associated with the group much earlier. From 1893-1900, (1898 missing) the weekly was promoted as the Official Organ of the Nijmegen Amateur Photographers’ Association M.L. (1.)

The journal was initially published in Apeldoorn, a city in the province of Gelderland in the center of the Netherlands by Laurens Hansma from 1894-1906. Hansma, (1860-1920) according to a short biography by the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam was “an enthusiastic amateur photographer….the publisher of more than fifteen books on photography, including Kleurenfotografie, Fotografie voor den natuurliefhebber, Gomdruk and Het fotografeeren in de tropicen. Laurens Hansma is seen as an important figure in the spread of photography in the Netherlands.”

From 1907-10, the “Weekblad” was then published in Zutphen, located approximately 30 minutes southeast of Apeldoorn- also in the province of Gelderland, by W.J. Thieme & Co.

At the end of its 17th year of publication in late 1910, the journal was purchased and incorporated into the pages of the Dutch photographic journal “Lux” (geillustreerd tijdschrift voor fotografie-illustrated magazine for photography). Now published by J.R.A. Schouten, Lux (1889-1927) took on the former weekblad’s top editor, J. J. M. M. Van Den Bergh, with him joining the growing publications editorial staff.

1. List of Dutch amateur photographers and their circle before 1900: Dissertation: Mattie Boom: Doctoral degree: Erasmus University Rotterdam: “Kodak in Amsterdam The Rise of Amateur Photography in the Netherlands 1880-1910” (p. 142)