Hobbyist snaps Rotterdam history with camera

ROTTERDAM - Tinus de Does may well be the country’s most enthusiastic shutterbug, and Rotterdam’s best photographic chronicler. The hobby has taken De Does on a publicist track, as an exhibitor of his vast photo and slides collection, and as a lecturer on his hometown’s history. He also has published 45 volumes in his seemingly endless series, “Uit vroegere tijden” which rely on his collection of 200,000 photographs and 20,000 slides. The hobbyist published his first volume in 1983 but started taking images of buildings slated for demolition 45 years ago, when his parental home was about to be torn down. He also documents sod-turnings or first stone ceremonies. An impressed Mayor Ivo Opstelten decorated De Does with an Erasmus insigne recently.