Broertjes Geert
1 Year
I have a strong desire to photograph everything that’s happening around me. I do it for myself as a diary but also to translate my reality into images. And finally to create a new reality with those images, a fictional story with events that really happened. The mood shown in my photography is mysterious, melancholic and dark. This has to do with my view on the world, I love the intensity of life. I am fascinated by the world. If I walk in a city, I sometimes feel like walking in a strange theatre play, the play “of life.” All those different people, in all those different cities are in their way, no matter how different, surviving. Nobody knows what we are doing here, what our task is or where we are going. So we try to create the best conditions for ourselves. With photography I can explore that world. But I am not interested in the reality of things, because I do not think it exists. My reality is different than that of a friend or family member. And is completely different from someone who grew up in a different culture. For me, photography is the tool to create my own reality. To show how I look at the world. This project shows the process of the loss that happened to me. In a very short time I lost my aunt , grandmother and mother. Photography was an unconscious reflex. I shared my grief with my previous girlfriend so she became a recurring theme in this series. The moments that we shared together show the beauty , intensity , pain but also the joy after a series of painful events.
Bio
Born in 1987, Amstelveen. I’ve always been fascinated by photography. My mother always took pictures all the time of holidays, birthdays and everything else with family and friends. So it was not in a professional way she did it, but for me my interest in photography was born. After working at a photo shop at the age of 15 I knew it, I wanted to be a photographer. I started to make photographs myself with the old camera from my grandmother, just playing around nothing really serious. When I became 19 I went to college. The photography was in the background because I had other things on my mind…having fun and being young! I finished the study Media & Information Managemnt in 5 years and after that I finally went to the Photo Academy in Amsterdam. After 4 years, at the age of 26, I graduated. Since 1 year ago I’m working as a freelance photographer. I have some nice commercial clients to pay the rent. But if I’d have a bit of money I’d pack my stuff and go photographing everywhere I can.
As good a set of pictures of everyday life as I’ve seen in a long while.
Hi, great work!. I like the ligth, the mood, the mysterious… very personal pics…
And sorry for your losses.
kind regards
This work deserves more feedback (praise) than the two comments it received!
dr – I agree. I just took another look at it and it really is quite an extraordinary set of photographs It truly does convey the sense of one walking puzzled and perplexed through the pain of loss, one reaching out to convey the dream and the sense of etherealness the death of loved ones can leave you in.
I think the whole problem in lack of comments is Facebook, Instagram and such. Over saturation. Shallow connection with multitudes at the loss of in-depth connection with the few.
I think of the handful of friends and relatives I used to exchange such good emails with and the even small numbers I used to write and receive letters from. Now, in the case of those still alive, the communication has been reduced to one or two line comments and regular clicks of Like – just as I give to so many more who I rarely if ever communicated with at all. I miss those in-depth exchanges – yet don’t want to lose the connections I have gained. And it so often falls to the like, to the thumbs up, the smiling emoji for all. And – thankfully – there is no like button on burn and emojis do not interpret here.
It applies to Burn as well. I comment more often than I don’t. Sometimes I feel a little self-concious about that, hesitant to comment at all.
Frostfrog- very true…and if i went back to my comment: i complained, and then what? did i actually say anything meaningul or thought provoking, anything that added to conversation? none what so ever..so your observation is spot on.
I was moved by these pictures (and i didn’t know the story behind it- i read the essays only after if the pictures speak to me), and thought that they were very sincere. often this type of expressive black and white language is used as a powerful graphic tool to make up for lack of content. not in this set.
I like this a lot. It’s underrated. Maybe if this had been published five years ago on Burn things would be different. People would of run to comment on it, but anyway, that’s way it is.
I hope Broertjes keeps on and sometimes shows us year two of his life. I will be most interested.
I like the B&W with strong tones and the feel of spontaneity, the unplanned visual diary, a series of emotions. Between dreams and nightmares. And yes, each one has a different reality…there is nothing like the absolute reality…
robert