The neighbourhood - Phase 2

Introduction:
Carel van Hees is a photographer and filmmaker who is mainly known for his photography books, exhibitions and documentaries.
A few weeks ago, Carel searched for people that were interested in taking part in his new documentary. He was preparing to shoot the documentary in the apartment complex he is living in and since I live there too he knocked at our door to ask us whether he could interview us. He looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember where I knew him from. I told him that I would love to be in his documentary, if I could interview him, too. He accepted and we made an appointment for the interview. During that time I talked to Elke about him and she told me that he was in a documentary of older WdKA students she showed us a few months ago. Then I remembered seeing him in that documentary and found it quite funny that I met him in my own house. He was the perfect first interview partner for me, since I still wasn’t sure in which direction my project would go at that time. But hearing him talk about his project and his photography really helped me to take the next steps in my project. I started to think more about the whole crisis and the changes of peoples’ behaviours in general; not only the people’s body movements we can see, but their opinions. I started to be more interested in peoples stories and planned my other interviews according to that. The interview was recorded in Carel’s flat, where we had a nice talk.

In your career you faced and face issues that had and have to be documented. Right now we all get confronted with problems no one of us has ever encountered before. Do you think right now is one of the most important times to document what is going on in the world and in our nearest surroundings?

Yes, I feel that I have to record this time. When you are a filmmaker or a photographer, writer, artist you must feel something in the time we are living right now, so you have to express yourself with the tools you have in which you feel the most comfortable. For me that’s a camera, analogue or digital. In early March, it started that I felt an urge to do something with this period to make pictures.

Currently you are producing and filming a documentary about the experiences of people during the quarantine.
How did you come up with the idea to film this in the apartment complex where you live and what is your intention with the film?

I wanted to make the city smaller than it is. You see Rotterdam is a big city with a lot of people living there and I always liked to see the big thing from a small perspective. So you make your world a little bit smaller and from the perspective of the small world you look at the big world. 160 People are living in this apartment complex and I see it as a small city as a small part Rotterdam. So then I thought well I’m going to interview the people at their doors and at the same time I can look at the bigger world from my balcony on the front side and on the back side. In the editing process I think I will combine these two so that you go from a few interviews to seeing the outside life back and forth. Some people were optimistic other people were very negative and other people said I don’t know what’s going to happen.
I hope that this this period is a reset and I can feel the warmth between people and we should hang on to that. That we make the world better, that we look after the climate and the way we divide our money.

So, that was actually my last question - how we feel about each other during the crisis. I feel way more connected to everyone on the planet because I know that there’s a problem we all have to face right now. Do you also feel that way and do you think this state of mind could stay even after the crisis?

Yeah that’s a big question whether this is going to stay. We have a lot of time to think about these things even in your dreams you are processing this, but will that feeling sustain in the future when everything is going back to normal? There are still a lot of problems to think of when a medicine is there. The economy has to come back to life and a lot of people will still be in debt. But we still have to work and shouldn’t forget our thoughts of making a better world. Or that we combine working together after the crisis to help the economy and still think about how to make the world better. I personally really want to try to remember now and try to make it better, but I think a lot of people will forget it and then it’s back to normal.

Since I first saw you in the street photography documentary, and my project is mostly about this, I’d like to ask whether you did some street photography during the crisis.

Yes I’m combining it. I’m trying to make a film about the apartment complex and try to go out on the streets for 5 times a week, mostly early in the morning or late in the evening, it depends. And then I’m interested to document the city. It can be empty streets or suddenly one person on the bike or a person walks. You also see all these signs like keep distance or that only one person is allowed to be in a shop. And you are getting used to these things very very fast. Everything changed in a week or so. So, that’s always with photography when you go to the other side of the world, then you think for the first days, wow, I haven’t seen this before and on the third day you think well it’s normal. This man with his donkey, this women, the food etc. So, as a photographer or a filmmaker you always have to be like a little child of 4 or 5 years old who sees the world for the first time. And that’s what I always had until now. I’m 66 now but I still have the Neugierigkeit. If you loose that as a photographer, well, then you better look for another job, because that is one of the most beautiful things in life I think as a photographer. That you can feed the Neugierigkeit-Gefühl with the camera and the camera is an extension of your brain and then you just push the button and you got this very special moment of the world in that certain moment. You capture it. For me that was always the magic of photography. And that’s not only now but since I started when I was 16. You got this little box and then you see something special and you can capture it and then you can show it to the world.
And right now it’s even more important. I think this is our war. We never lived through a war but I think this period of Covid of Corona is kind of a war. The enemy is not a man with a gun but is somewhere in the air and I have to I want to capture it. It can be a man in the street or an empty street, it can be a sign or the nature. When we look down from the balcony we see the people keeping distance and being careful but the trees are getting greener and greener, you see the swans making love to each other and you know it just goes on and on and on. So it’s a beautiful combination. A strangeness of reality. You think we are looking at the reality but there’s a deep strangeness that we can’t understand. I’m trying to capture that and sometimes you succeed and sometimes not.

In my project I try to study the body language of people on the street during corona. I chose to only make pictures of people without their knowledge so they behave as they would normally. Do you communicate to people right now or do you also chose the more documenting way? I also had the feeling that people don’t want to get photographed right now.

There are always people that don’t want to be photographed. I don’t think it’s that special now. There are countries and cultures that don’t want to be photographed. For example in New York you can make pictures of everybody because everyone is so used to see cameras and in other countries it’s different again. But what happens here now is that everyone is scared because of these stupid privacy laws which are very overrated. You have to fill in forms and people say you can’t make pictures or I sue you etc. What I learned from an older colleague when I was younger was when you are going in with an open heart and you are trying to make a good picture. At first you have to make it but when you want to put it in a magazine you should think whether you would want to be in that picture, with that caption. If your answer is yes, then you listened to your heart and you do it. If you think that you wouldn’t want that, then don’t publish it. I think in the last 15-20 years there’s a big change going on in street photography. More people say that they don’t want to be photographed, but it has nothing to do with corona, because there’re always people like that. Yesterday I saw a beautiful old man from turkey with a beautiful hat and coat and I just asked Sir can I make a picture and he said yes of course. I put him in front of tree and I took a total, a half and a portrait. So if you don’t ask you don’t know, but of course you have to respect the people like thank you Sir I understand that you don’t want it. But most of my street photography is not staged. I just take pictures and don’t ask, because I think when you ask the magic of the moment is gone. People start to pose etc., but sometimes you can make the scene when you missed it. But I don’t do this all the time. I’m not a director. There’s this sentence from an American photographer I learned at school. And he said you got picture makers and you got picture takers. The picture maker works in a studio and stages everything. He’s making the picture as a director. As a taker you go on the street, look at the light, set up your camera and capture. You are concentrated, you are waiting and you see a man for example walking. You wait to let him walk to the background you want him in.