Images

A sad week

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I love Russia, or better, I love the Russians. I have very little to state about the Russian government. To me, it is a government like any other, maybe corrupt, but certainly not as corrupt as many other countries, with the USA topping the list of dubious regimes.

It was a sad week. The cover model Evgenia for the new series I am working at called ‘The Russians Are Coming’ – which is basically a satirical approach to the many news items of the last few months blaming the Russians for just about everything – died of a heart attack on her 25th birthday, most probably caused by bad drugs, an overdose or even suicide.

It broke my heart. I was working hard at Moscow’s Sunlight Studios, so the models were lined up behind me. When it was her turn to be photographed I looked over my shoulder and I immediately felt that something was wrong. At first I thought it was her age, because she seemed so young and fragile to me, so I asked for her passport. She was 24. It is not uncommon for models to be skinny and fragile, but that eery feeling stayed with me during the entire shoot. She turned out to be the best model I worked with for a long time. The result of the shoot was a series of great photographs. I picked one for the folder to be printed for the Kriebels exhibit at Ahoy Rotterdam.

When I returned from Rotterdam I was told she had died on her 25th birthday. Since then I have not been myself. In a blind rage over some demanding models and a highly talented filmer with a total lack of social skills I deactivated my Facebook account and moved to VK, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, a social network without advertising and a very tolerant attitude towards nudity in photographs.

It is that time of the year when we burn a lot of candles, and we will be burning them for Evgenia. She will be sorely missed.
 

Preview: The Russians Are Coming!

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From December 8 – 11 we will participate in the Kriebels spectacle at Ahoy Rotterdam with a fully equipped photo studio. Visitors will be able to experience a real photo shoot. At this mobile photo studio there will also be an exhibit of photographs made in Moscow early November. This show entitled ‘The Russians Are Coming’ will be a premiere for The Netherlands. A larger series will be exhibited later in 2017.

Moscow

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While organizing a trip to Amsterdam for my old friend Alexander Donskoy who facilitated my first exhibit in Moscow, he unexpectedly asked me how much time I could free up for him. I hesitated, but he persisted and I answered two weeks, not knowing he was going to invite me to Moscow. It was a present for something I had done for him that I would have done for any of my friends. To be precise, I had no real clue what I could have done for him that was important enough to receive such a gift, so at first I refused.

During my previous visit to Moscow Alexander and his crew noticed that I smoked like Brezhnev and drank Vodka like Boris Yeltsin. Also my political ideas where a bit to the left of theirs. It must have been a funny sight, me drinking vodka and chain smoking, while they were all non-smokers and drinking water or Starbucks coffee. I was living up to the worst of Western prejudices against Russians, while they were perfect global citizens.

This must have been at the root of their decision to surprise me at the airport with a traditional Russian ceremony, a Soviet hat and a vintage Чайка Limousine – the kind that Soviet leaders used – waiting for me to escort me to Moscow’s Business Center. It turned out to be the best two weeks I had in a long, long time and of course I did a lot of photography there too, and I will be posting a selection of these works soon.