The history of photography was built on the shoulders of giants. Ed van der Elsken is one of them. The Rijksmuseum exhibition in Amsterdam, under the title, Up Close, welcomes us with a lady pulling a tongue at us, or at him, and that sets the tone immediately. The exhibit brings together a lifetime of looking. Van der Elsken struggled in the streets of Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo and beyond, drawn to the margins and youth. He was motivated by curiosity and desire and fixed on film the life of people living at the side of the official history. His photographs are restless like he was and tender as he might have been. Seeing them gathered in one place made a strong impression on me. He was constantly immersed in life with a camera and the result is now on the walls, for us to admire or question. Intimate scenes with his family or his friends, everyday life on the streets. I particularly enjoy his photographs of Japan and reflect every time: why has the book on Japan never been republished? A quote that explains a lot about the photographs on the walls stayed with me: “your camera is like a painter’s brush, it is like a violin and it is like a gun”. To meditate.
