Hans Aarsman is a former photographer, who worked as a photo journalist at a Dutch newspaper and published a series of books. In 1989 he published the book “Hollandse Taferelen” (Dutch scenes). He published three more photo books before he left photography. He now writes about photography, a.o. for the Dutch daily newspaper the Volkskrant.

His talk at TEDxAmsterdam was titled "From pretty to ugly and back again; mysterious ways of beauty in photography” and the audience judged it one of the highlights of the day. Surprising, insightful and at times hilarious, Aarsman shows different concepts of beauty in photography, and suggests that the only real photographic beauty is to be found in pictures that were made without such a goal in mind.

More at tedxamsterdam.nl/2009/video-hans-aarsman-on-the-mysterious-ways-of-beauty-in-photography/