Passion

  

Photography was always my passion. When I was six years old, I got an old camera from my grandfather and from that point on, I have been taking pictures. When I opened the box, either at Christmas or Easter, the time when kids get presents, I was disappointed. I was looking to get a fancy one, perhaps a Nikon with a removeable motor, one that when I put my finger on the shutter it would just take pictures automatically, one after another, until I took my finger off again. I just loved the noise it made ssssssssssss. I have no clue where I saw such a camera, but it stuck with me. Perhaps I saw it in an espionage movie. Mother gave me one of her gazes, meaning: give your grandfather a kiss and say thank you. No other words! But anyway, I started capturing pictures of the inner circle of my family. I lined them up,

the grandparents in the back,                                the parents in the front,
         the parents in the back,                       the grandparents in the front.

I put them in a circle, I made them kiss, took pictures of events, Christmas and Easter. At this time I could only get black-and-white rolls of film. A few years later I saved some of my allowance and bought color film for special occasions. As a teenager I got tired of capturing the inner circle of the family, grandparents and parents, so I moved on to the neighbor’s kid whose family occupied the house next door. The kid, a nine year old girl, had a brother too, but he was off with his new friends. I had visions of capturing her coming of age on film. In a magazine, I read of a photographer who took pictures of her children, but I am unable to recollect her name. An American photographer, Sally Mann, best known for her large black-and-white photographs of her young children came out with a book consisting of 65 photographs of her three children, all under the age of ten.








The pictures were taken at the family’s remote summer cabin along the river where the children played and swam in the nude. It was an idyllic place for kids, and I think a natural way to run around nude. I had exactly the same idea. I captured a typical childhood theme of my neighbor’s girl, from dressing up, napping, playing in the garden. I tried to capture and explore the child’s insecurity and loneliness; however, I was afraid to explore her sexuality. I did not want to ask her to undress for me and there was never an opportunity like the situations from Mann’s work. Mann’s book, however, created an intense controversy, child pornography was even mentioned. Looking through her pictures, I think they are outstanding, beautifully made. I studied the images when her book was out in the stores. The opportunity was at her doorstep and she had and has a special passion to capture the children in a way I think nobody could repeat. The perspective, the balance, the use of focus and depth of field, the proportion, the shadows, and the highlights are all arranged to lead into the perfect perception of art. There is the fine line when a photographer has to decide when the image will create pornography. Mann herself “considered these photographs to be natural through the eye of a mother”.