Ed van der Elsken

Picture of two cuban young women using the public phone while looking at Ed's camera. 'Ed van der Elsken's first book full in colour starts off gently, perhaps even a little saccharine at the beginning. The 'people book', as he himself called it, opens with photos of boys and girls, pictures highlighting the differences between men and women, flirtatious situations, kissing couples, marriage and birth. Van der Elsken sets out to depict the universal theme of love, but halfway through he reconsiders: "And then suddenly, while in the process of making the book, I've had it with constantly bringing up that difference between the sexes. I now want it to be about people. People who need to make a living. Men and women who need to survive and raise their children." Pictures of hippies, a naturist beach in Holland, couples in intimate embraces and Indian transvestites make way for more serious subjects in the second part. During his travels for the monthly magazine 'Avenue', van der Elsken had taken pictures of demonstrations, starving people, grief, desperate poverty and even death. He selected some of these images, particularly those that showed people struggling to survive. He concluded that he was actually looking for the best, finest, bravest side of people. Van der Elsken emphatically positions himself between his camera and the subject he is photographing. In his texts that accompany the pictures, we clearly see the socially engaged photographer and the Dutchman with outspoken opinions. Take for example the caption he wrote for a large portrait of a veiled woman in Bangladesh: "As soon as she's married she gets a sack over her head whenever she goes out in the street. No one is allowed to know if she is beautiful or ugly or nice. Men are not allowed to talk to her. She is the possession of one particular man. Stupid bastards!" The book designed by Dick de Moei, can be seen as van der Elsken's response to Edward Steichen's famous exhibition 'The Family of Man' (1955), which explored universal aspects of human existence in the 1950s on the basis of work by numerous international photographers. 'Eye Love You' is of course more colourful, but it is also more raw. It is a personal document that reflects van der Elsken's view of the world in the 1970s.' Ed van der Elsken, 'Camera In Love', Prestel, 2017, p. 227.