5) Critical and selective

5) Critical and selective

Chantal is a critical photographer. More like a sniper than a machine-gunner. Afterwards when we have framed the slides we do some runs before we show them to our friends. We have always been critical.

‘No, this one does not catch the breathtaking scenery I remember we have seen. Away with it. On this one you can’t see how frightening steep it was. Away with it.’ And so on we go through the sledges until only a few slides remain.

In January 1999 a brain-tumor destroys her within weeks. I make pictures of her in the hospital, at home. I make pictures when she is dead, the mourning friends waiting in front of the mortuary and at last the funeral. Together with pictures of our last trip abroad they form a treasured photo-album.

Now it is 2012, I’m happily married and retired. Finally I have assembled the courage to go to the garage and salvage the boxes that contain the color-slides of Chantal. I want to show the children what has been important to Chantal and me. I go looking for existential pictures.