1984 Robert & Thijs 1984 Thijs & Jeroen 1985 Wiebe Portrait Carefully Twisting Jeans, 1986 Maurice Undressing / Pim, 1986 Boys from Havana Strechting / Arie Nouschka / Tiel, 1990 Untitled Belt / Paul, 1992

This picture and many others from the years 1984 en 1985 were the material for the first exposition in 1985. Most of the pictures in the first exposition were made in my living room: a simple background (a linnen sheet), two small flashes and fluorescent lamps, a fast film in the Olympus OM1 were the technical ingredients.
Already in 1984 my brother in law gave me his 6x6 camera of low quality which soon was replaced by asecond hand Mamiya.

Great role models
Two dedicated 'models' Robert & Thijs (at that time training partners) took care of a succesful session which forced me to do more of those sessions. 1984 was also the year that every gay photographer started with nude male photography. In the Netherlands dance master Hans van Manen and then journalist Erwin Olaf became household names.
In the spring of 1985 I met Hans & Erwin though Thijs whose was modelling for both of them. Hans was especially impressed by my portraits and stimulated me to start exhibiting the pictures. Because of small film and TriX my print quality was nothing compared to theirs (at the first expo in theater Desmet Hans stepped very close to the pictures and examined the quality and the retouche and was disappointed in silence).

Limits
In total I had some 12 expositions all over the country. It is very good for your ego and I learned a lot about how people look at pictures, but after the seventh or so expo I decided to bring it to an end. At that time Chris Klees and I shared a studio and lots of thoughts on photography. Discussing material for his exhibition I suddenly realised that in my recent exhibitions I kept repeating myself.
And to be honest: my range of photography isn’t wide, my range of interest in a good picture isn’t that wide. I like a silent portrait, I like to create a beautiful fom. Wild experiments as Erwin did with people and the less famous Chriswas doing forms were/are not in my book. The hype of nude photography was also over. The open attitude of ordinary gay men in modelling nude was becoming less. The market was filled more and more with books with soft porn pictures of beautiful men. Beautiful men, dull photography.

I still make portraits (it is an addiction), I still make nudes but the urge to put a lot of effort in an real exposition is gone.

(Deze pagina in het Nederlands)