Archief

From Afar (Vanuit de Verte) is the personal blog of Hans van der Kamp, a Dutch photographer, author of Nette Mensen in een Nieuwe Tijd, and independent magazine publisher.
This website presents long-form visual essays, photography projects, and reflections on image, identity, and contemporary culture. This category of posts, both in English and Dutch, are for archival use only.

Working as a photo journalist

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I started out as an assistant portrait photographer and I liked that job. When the contract ended there was this job opportunity in advertising. The pay was good but I never really got used to the art directors and the marketing people who without exception seemed to think of themselves as godlike creatures.

So, I quit and started working for a Dutch weekly in 1977. One of my first assignments was to photograph heroin hookers working in the vicinity of Rembrandt Square.

I was very young and inexperienced, so I really had a hard time approaching heroin prostitutes on the street to ask them to pose for me. One of them finally gave in on the condition I would score some heroin for her. I was so shy that once we got to work I photographed her in the mirror while she was doing her make-up.

AMEA

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My second oldest site AMEA was founded in 1996. This site is located on a server in Amsterdam NL, and it was founded by a small group of Dutch artists in 1996. Although much of the material presented here is considered to be pornography in many countries, it is the strong conviction of the founders … Read more

Opa vertelt

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Toen ik voor The Kinky Web gevraagd werd een column te schrijven, heb ik heel voorzichtig geïnformeerd waar die over zou moeten gaan. Het antwoord kwam na enig aarzelen: ‘Gewoon, opa vertelt…’ Daar denk ik nu dus wekelijks over na. Is dat wel zo verstandig? Nostalgie is leuk, maar de BDSM in de jaren zeventig … Read more

Oude slaven

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Soms ben ik onverwacht onaardig naar mensen op BDSM-feestjes. Dan hupt er opeens zo’n jongen van amper twintig voorbij in een minuscuul latex slipje en roep ik: ‘Hé joh, ik wist niet dat het vanavond vrij zwemmen was?’ Flauw, natuurlijk. Maar u moet zich voorstellen dat ik me dan drie weken van tevoren bedacht heb … Read more

Mimi’s Clips

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I am currently working on MimisClips.com. Company strategy: “We are one happy bunch of senior citizens. With two cameras and one model who can still make it up the flight of stairs to our joyous loft, we are slowly conquering the world with keywords such as #mature #milf #wetandmessy #bdsm #fetish and #clowns of course. … Read more

Irving Klaw

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Af en toe moet ik aan Irving Klaw denken, de man die in Brooklyn geboren werd waar confectie en maatkleding de belangrijkste bronnen van inkomsten waren. Ook als de naam Irving Klaw u niets zegt, dan heeft u toch vast wel een van zijn werken gezien. Hij was de man die in de jaren vijftig … Read more

Sadisme

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Ik leef samen met een onderdanige vrouw die een groot zwak heeft voor sadisten. Op fetlife.com weet ze haarfijn de echte sadisten te lokaliseren en er komt dan steevast ontroering in haar blik. Voor haar is sadisme een gevoeligheid die te weinig voorkomt bij de gemiddelde Dominant. Ze maakt hierin duidelijk onderscheid tussen seksueel sadisme … Read more

Acceptatie?

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Een vraag die vaak gesteld wordt is of er ooit een dag zal komen dat BDSM geheel geaccepteerd zal worden in de maatschappij. Die vraag is moeilijk te beantwoorden, maar we kunnen wel kijken naar hoe andere ‘afwijkende’ uitingen van liefde en seksualiteit acceptatie hebben gevonden binnen de Westerse wereld. Homoseksualiteit is daar een mooi … Read more

Herbert Gentry

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Artist Herbert Gentry (1919-2003) made vibrant expressionist paintings of figures and faces, mixing global influences and African American experience. Referring to his childhood during the Harlem Renaissance, Gentry asserted, ‘Harlem prepared me for Paris.’ After completing military service in World War II, Herb Gentry returned to Paris for art school – and found himself in the heart of the expatriate American community in Montparnasse. Gentry moved to Scandinavia in 1959, but always kept a studio in Paris. In 1969, he returned to New York and became a resident of the famous Hotel Chelsea. At home on both continents, Herbert Gentry resided, painted and exhibited on both sides of the Atlantic. His work is represented in important national and international museum collections.


[ source: HerbertGentry.com ]

Looking at this portrait of Herbert Gentry with a friend of whom I have unfortunately forgotten the name I can see now how much I was influenced by American photographers at the time. The Hotel Chelsea looks quite seedy on this particular picture, but at that time this was one of the better rooms. There were cockroaches everywhere and Mr. Bard proprietor of the hotel had a hard time convincing people that ‘nobody ever died in this hotel’. Despite the deaths of Dylan Thomas and later Sid Vicious’ lover Nancy Spungen and many others. Although we have to give Mr. Bard some credit for the fact that most were pronounced dead on the way to or in a hospital nearby.

René Shapsak

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Born 1899 in Paris, René Shapsak studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, London, Bruxelles, emigrated to South Africa in 1932 or 1934, lived in Johannesburg (47 Saunders Street, Yeoville – where he held art classes for many years), executed numerous commissions, was committee member of the Transvaal Art Society, Johannesburg, 1937; left for the USA in 1954, his wife Eugenie and sons Leon, Maurice and Paul followed in August, 1955, the family staying for years at the famous Hotel Chelsea, with an atelier nearby at 219 7th Ave corner 23rd Street, New York NY. [source: Art Archives South Africa ]

Dr. René Shapsak was photographed by me in the Hotel Chelsea in 1981, four years before he died in 1985. Very few have heard of this artist. Yet he did sculptures of Mahatma Chandi and John Cecil Rhodes in Great Britain. His work of Ellen Church Marshall, the American Florence Nightingale, stands in the headquarters of United Airlines in Chicago, and Bas-Reliefs of her are in the leading air terminals throughout the United States and around the world. The State of Israel has acknowledged with gratitude Dr. Shapshak’s sculpture of former President Harry S. Truman, which is in the Israeli Parliament Building.

Surely Dr. Shapsak was not an easy man to deal with. He was a teacher at heart. He told me many interesting stories about the people of his time like Arthur Rubinstein, Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller. But to listen to him, I had to get up extremely early in the morning, refrain from smoking and have breakfast with him at the Greek coffee shop at the corner of 23rd Street. I still own the recordings I made during these breakfast meetings.