also assisting professional photographers such as Ad
Windig in Amsterdam. Van der Elsken also took
pictures of his hometown and of a trip from Paris
to Marseille (1949). Through such early photo-
graphic achievements, he joined, that same year, the
GKf, the leading Dutch photographers’ organization
at which point he also benefited from Kryn Taconis’s
support. Taconis belonged to the GKf and was asso-
ciated with Magnum Photos in Paris.
When van der Elsken decided to go to Paris in the
summer of 1950, he arrived with Taconis’s letter of
introduction in hand. Pierre Gassman, the addressee,
headed Pictorial Service, a leading photo laboratory
that worked for Magnum Photos, and employed
him. There he met Ada Kando, a photographer,
whom he married in 1954. After six months, how-
ever, he left Pictorial Service and started photograph-
ing the lives of some of the people he had met. This
group of young Bohemians was not the only subject
he recorded; many images echoed Parisian street life,
comic urban scenes, and his daily life in Se`vres with
Ada and her children (1950–1954).
However,thisgroup was themainthemeofhis first
book,Love on the Left Bank(1956), published with
Edward Steichen’s strong encouragement. He had
met Steichen in 1953. Steichen, the head of the photo-
graphy department at the Museum of Modern Art
(MoMA)inNewYorkalsoshowedhispicturesintwo
important exhibitions of the time:Post-war European
Photography(1953) andThe Family of Man(1955).
ForLoveontheLeftBank,vanderElskencomposeda
love story between Ann and Manuel using short texts
followed by a series of images with varying dimen-
sions, which added rhythm to the sequence. Among
the last photographs of this visual narration, Vali
Myers, alias Ann, lavishly kisses a mirror: van der
Elsken knew how to picture sensuality well.
After van der Elsken had come back to Amster-
dam and divorced from Ada (1955), he began a life
of intense travel while working on photo books and
reportages forVrij Nederland,De Volkskrant,Het
Parool. Amsterdam, its neighborhoods and musical
life was not neglected. InJazz(1959), hisChet Baker
in Concertgebouwillustrates how van der Elsken
obtained very dark, contrasted, and coarse-grained
images. It also shows his shift towards the use of a 35
mm Leica camera equipped with a telephoto lens.
Van der Elsken traveled with Gerda van der Veen
whom he married in 1957. Soon after, he accepted
the invitation of Gerda’s brother, an anthropolo-
gist, to come to a small village, Banda, located in
French Equatorial Africa. His photographs show-
ing communal life were published inBagara(1958).
He and his wife also traveled around the world for
14 months (1959–1960). They went to Sierra Leone,
South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, The Philippines,
Japan, Mexico, and the United States. The book,
Sweet Life (1966), includes his images and com-
ments about each place. In these images van der
Elsken demonstrates how his photographs are able
to create an emotional link for the viewer with his
subjects. InDurban(1959), in which a bench ‘‘for
Whites only’’ is shown, van der Elsken reveals
another ability: his cunning way of denouncing
how absurd a situation can be by utilizing visual
irony. AsSweet Lifetook a long time to be pub-
lished and disappointed by the difficulties in mov-
ing this project forward, van der Elsken renounced
photography after 1962 for five years and concen-
trated on filmmaking, an activity he had first taken
up in 1955.
A new shift in his career followed his moving in
1971 from Amsterdam to the more rural Edam
where he lived with his family on a farm. As the
1971 prizewinning filmDe Verliefde Camerates-
tified, van der Elsken had been working on a private
record of his country life both in film and photo-
graphy in the 1970s. Photographs of his son,Daan
(1975), or of his horses,Pravda and Fidelito(1978),
illustrate such interests. His taste for intimacy was
also exemplified by the slide exhibitionEye Love
You(1977). Published in color, the exhibition cata-
logue was a celebration of love, all kinds of love:
images of couples, love scenes, or of pregnant
women mingled. These personal works were sup-
ported by his intense activity as a photojournalist:
van der Elsken published photo reportages inAve-
nue, between 1967 and 1980, and in other Dutch
periodicals (e.g.,Margriet). This led him to travel
once again to Africa, South-East Asia, and South
Asia. In South Asia he reported on the terrible
floods, which had taken place in Bangladesh in- Published in 1975 inAvenue, his treatment
of the tragedy, was an exception to his established
way of photographing: for the first time he engaged
the viewer with a clear vision of sorrow.
Between 1979 and 1990, van der Elsken concen-
trated on editing and publishing books using the
photographs he had been taking throughout his
life, both in the Netherlands and abroad.De ontdek-
king van Japan(1988) was a special case. It empha-
sized his fascination for the country that from his
international travels had impressed him the most.
Another South-East Asian experience, in Korea
(1988), was short-lived, because he was diagnosed
with cancer. This would become the main subject
of his last filmBye(1990) in which he filmed his
illness. His last film illustrated another strand of his
work from the 1980s: a focus on photographing and
filming his own life, his farm life (seeAvonturen op
ELSKEN, ED VAN DER