Mamaia, Romania, May 12, 2007
Stream of conciousness - 1
Shadows
Bruges, October 15, 2005
A series of abstracts in which I have been assicoating things, bringing them together in some sort of stream of conciousness.
I gave most photos in this series a title. These titles do not explain the photo. They are a mood, an idea, a feeling or just a caprice of my mind.
Ferrara
Via Salinguerra, Ferrara, December 2000
In 1998 I visited Ferrara for the first time, when making a kind of grand tour in northern Italy. It was a historical project in which I wanted to see what was left of the once famous Renaissance city-states like Ferrara, Mantova, Modena, Padova, Venice.
Not very long after this journey I started reading and rereading the novels and stories of the Italian author Giorgio Bassani (1916-2000), all set in Ferrara. And I knew, I have to go back to this city, visit all the spots Bassani described, photograph it. I went back. Again and again for seven years at row. I must have photographed every stone by now. It was time to turn the Ferrara project into a book.
The stories and novels of the Italian author Giorgio Bassani (1916-2000) are all set in Ferrara. Bassini describes a closed city. Closed by its city wall, its long blind walls in town, its closed doors, its inhabitants, outcasting its jewish citizens in the late thirties and forties of the 20th century. He also describes the existential fears of his protegonists, their loneliness, solitude and isolation from which there is no escape. I have tried to translate the melancholy atmosphere of Bassani’s stories, that feeling of no escape from loneliness, solitude, exclusion and discrimination into the photographs.
First window
Ververstraat, Leiden, July 24, 2002
In 2002 I bought my first digital srl, went into twon to try it out and came home - amongst other things - with a surprise. This window photo. I don't know why I made it - never done it before. I guess it were the curtains that attracted me. It turned out to be the first of a growing series of window portraits, made in Leiden, The Hague, Amsterdam, Bruges, Ghent, Ferrara, Lodz, Tel Aviv, etc.
So wonderful! Why?
Garenmarkt - Leiden, 5-12-2006
Taking pictures is so wonderful.
Why?
Taking pictures is so wonderful.
Why?
To show I have "been there".
To safeguard a memory as nicely as possible.
Then slowly pictures started to be photographs, keeping in mind Ansel Adams:
"I saw many pictures, but no photographs" and he went home without making a single exposure.
Photographs.
Of what? Why?
What is driving me?
What am I trying to say?
What am I trying to say?
What are my themes?
What moves me?
Questions.
This blog is about finding the answers.
In the end it could be about fear, primal fear, transitoriness, void, melancholy, tristesse, childlike exaltation, observing people.
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