He is still recovering from – as he puts it – a ‘bizarre evening’: the Haarlem news photographer Michel van Bergen. Unsuspectingly, he is celebrating his birthday when his phone is suddenly red-hot with messages about a possible hostage situation in Amsterdam.
Van Bergen had presented his birthday quite differently. While he is bowling with family in Haarlem, an armed man walks into the Apple Store in Amsterdam.
“We just finished the game, but then I went to Amsterdam after all,” the photographer tells NH Nieuws/Haarlem105 this morning.
best picture
There is a good chance that you have seen a photo of Van Bergen. The Haarlemmer can be found where there is a major accident or disaster. He sells his photos to almost all Dutch media. You can also see his work on this site.
For ‘the best news photo’, Van Bergen regularly has to put himself in difficult positions.
Once in Amsterdam, it initially looks like it will be a difficult evening for Van Bergen. “There was a very big deposit, we couldn’t get close at all. Everything was cordoned off, not normal.”
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The police have designated a place where journalists can stand: a so-called press box. “But that was completely at the Vondelpark, you didn’t see anything there”, sighs the photographer, who decides to join forces with a fellow journalist. “So we borrowed such a shared scooter and drove to the American Hotel (opposite the Apple Store – red).”
Of course, Van Bergen also encounters a deposition here. “But the NOS was also there, so we thought we were allowed to be there too. After some insistence they allowed us in and we drove into the cordoned off area on the scooter.”
After being checked several times, he is let into the hotel. “We were not allowed to take a picture there, but we could drink coffee at the bar. We had a good view of the situation there.”
Coffee
While Van Bergen is having coffee, the hostage and hostage taker arrive suddenly ran out† The latter is hit by a police car and remains on the ground. Snipers keep him at gunpoint using laser beams. “Then, of course, I shot some special pictures.”
The photo that Van Bergen takes there can eventually be seen almost everywhere and is printed in large format in De Telegraaf. Yet the Haarlemmer is sober. “I’m just doing my job, beating things,” he says. “But it was a bizarre evening. Fortunately, you almost never experience this.”