RRROR.

The Death of the Unedited Life — my new essay, now on The Wandering Muse.

I went to the Ed van der Elsken retrospective at the Rijksmuseum on a Sunday afternoon in high season, which was a bad idea logistically and a good idea for everything else.

Nine rooms. Forty years of work. Contact sheets with every crossed-out frame still intact. Colour slides his publishers refused to include. Film footage of the Nieuwmarkt and Waterlooplein where he described what he saw in six words: Echte mensen. Geen rijke mensen. Interessanter. Real people. Not rich people. More interesting.

The piece isn't really about photography. It's about what happens when the edit moves from the photograph to the life itself.

M. Mackiewicz illustration for 1958 "Jak kotek zwierzątka mlekiem częstował" (How the kitten treated the animals to some milk)

By James Voges

CONTROL