Amsterdam photographer Nico Koster sat at John Lennon’s bedside for days

On the outside wall of his house hang life-size portraits of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, taken during their bed-in in the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969. It was their honeymoon and they were protesting against the war in Vietnam and in favor of peace. They stayed in bed for a week.

“My neighbor thought that wall was a bit boring,” Koster explains the gigantic photos. “He said, go ahead, put something on it.” Koster immediately knew which photos he wanted there. These photos were very close to being lost forever.

“Yes, I lost them. I missed them for forty years. That’s because I had put them in a folder belonging to my daughter. She called me: ‘Hello, Dad. I found something, you will be happy with that. are.'”

“I was. It was exactly forty years after John Lennon was at the Hilton. Pure coincidence. So I came up with those photos and everyone thought it was a stunt to get attention, but it was real .”

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Were you impressed by the stars you photographed?

“No, strangely enough not. I’ve never had any problems with it. Not even with the painters. That always went very smoothly.” Koster was at home with various renowned artists such as Karel Appel and Corneille for a long time.

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How do you look back on your career?

“Overall it’s been a fun time. And still.”

Koster won, among other things, a Silver Camera for a photo during the riots around the Lucky Luyk squat in 1982. He also took a world-famous series of photos during the hostage situation in the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam. He won second prize for it at the World Press Photo.

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“But I also think back to those things I missed.”

What keeps you awake at night?

“That was during the time of the Lockheed affair, with Bernhard and the queen. I was standing at the palace and saw Prince Bernhard passing by with a glass in his hand. I took that photo. A little later Juliana came with a glass in her hand “I said to a colleague: that’s a nice photo. But I won’t take it. And he got the Silver Camera for it.”

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