series
(Un)colored
During my travels as a photographer and d.o.p. I always carry a Stylus Epic to photograph intuitively. The series (Un)colored is a selection of these images from the last 15 years. Most of the images were originally shot on b&w film. When I was in Silver Lake, Los Angeles one time, I realised it was a shame I was working on b&w and decided to start colouring b&w images in post production. Bringing to question how one remembers color.
In June 2014 I went to see a performance of the Forsythe Company during the Holland Festival in Amsterdam. That night I got totally overwhelmed by the piece and the originality and richness of the costumes of the dancers.
When I met the associate artistic director afterwards I asked him if I could come back the next day during their last ever performance of The Returns. He said yes. And so the next day I returned, now backstage, and photographed as many costumes as possible. It felt like being backstage at a fashion show from another world. For one night I became part of the crew, capturing the dancers who only had a few seconds to be photographed before going on stage. Sometimes none.
The result reminds me a lot of the work of Jean Baptiste Vanmour (1671-1731), who has a series of portraits hanging in room 1.3 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. A series I very much like. The fabulous depiction of notables from Constantinople, all paintings hung in a grid. I decided to present this work in the same grid, as a homage to Vanmour's work.
