Maybe you've seen this photograph on a wall near you: a black and white picture of Amsterdam, with a red bicycle parked in the middle. IKEA sells a ready-to-hang version for $50, and it's sold 427,000 of them. Tom Roes (pictured) bought one, and then began to recognize it everywhere. He began to wonder about the picture.
Who made this photo, why was it made, and how did it end up at IKEA?
What he found may surprise you. The photograph itself is less exciting than you'd expect, but the story of photographer Fernando Bengoechea is downright tragic. Roes made a documentary about his search for answers, which is in Dutch but English captions can be turned on. The short version of the story is in text at PetaPixel (along with the documentary). -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Tom Roes)