'The Drawer' (2011-now)

After making 'Controle-In Control', I changed, realising that I would never get closer to my subject matter than in that project. I was searching for what I call my personal necessity in photography. Which story do I want to tell? Why should I be the one telling that story? And how should I do it? The work in 'the drawer' resulted from that search. I worked in an associative manner, without predetermined subject matter. Taking pictures of the people near to me, my surroundings. I use film material of which I do not know how the image will come out. I have little control over the results. And these accidents, these imperfections can make an image perfect, mysterious and magical. The perfection of imperfection. Always a surprise and ultimately without control. Just like life, at least my life. When I read about a research done by Stanford University I realised which feeling I was trying to convey. What these images are about. At Stanford researchers let people meet their 'future self'. They made a computer simulation of you as an eighty- year old, a so called avatar. One group of people was allowed to shake hands and make contact with their 'future self'. The other group not. The research learned that the group who got to know their future self took more responsible decisions about their future. They saved more money, flossed their teeth more and generally were happier. Learning about the existence of this 'future self' concept caused an epiphany within me. As a result of my personal medical history I have never payed much attention to a 'future self'. The book I am working on is about this feeling, not having 'a future self', not being able to have one, or unconsciously even being afraid of it. Maybe these images are a banishment of this fear. 'The drawer' contains a few hundred pictures and these are just a selection.