De verliefde camera

When in 1970 a TV portrait about Ed van der Elsken foundered prematurely, the photographer and his wife Gerda decided to take up the camera themselves: the result is a cinematographic self-portrait. Starting point of the documentary is the photographic work that Van der Elsken did from 1965 as a reporter and for which he travelled all over the world. The stories and anecdotes Van der Elsken tells in this film are illustrated with many of his pictures, slides and film fragments, progressively blurring the boundary between frozen and moving images. Streaking between Tanzania, Madagascar, Japan and Indonesia, between world history and photographs of childbirths, Van der Elsken explains his photographic creed to the spectator: ‘I sing the praises of life, that‘s all there‘s to it. However, I do sing the praises of everything: of love, courage, beauty, but also of fury, blood, sweat and tears.‘