Bye

Everybody needs a goal in life. When an incurable disease shortens one‘s lifespan, the necessity to accomplish something seems to be even more pressing. When Ed van der Elsken was told that he suffered from an incurable form of cancer of the prostate in 1988, he decided to capture his parting from life on film. In the self-portrait BYE Van der Elsken registers the progress of his disease and the slow decay of his body like notes in a diary. One hour he feels angry, the other he seems to resign himself to his illness. His wife Anneke, taking over the camera only now and then in the first scenes, films the lingering process until the end. Gradually the world around the photographer becomes smaller and smaller. The exotic countries and vivacious metropolises he once visited are far away from his limited panorama of the IJsselmeerdijk in Edam. Ed van der Elsken died on 28 December 1990.