PHOTŒIL
This is a book with a particular story. For years, I made pictures for Leo Peeraer, who runs a little but nice publishing house, called “P”, specialized in poetry and art books. On several occasions, Leo called me for some pictures to put in the poetry bundles as to have some illustrations and a resting point in the bundle. After a while, I gave him a whole box of B&W prints from which he just could pick when and what he needed.
About a year later, curious as I was, I called him to ask what he had done with these pictures. The answer came as a surprise, he wanted to publish a little book with a nice selection of pictures out of that box. He asked Johan Van Cauwenberge, a radio producer (KLARA), author of several books and an inspired poet, to select some poems out of the world literature to combine with my pictures. Then, the idea began to grow, a temporary title was suggested, ARCADIA, and a final selection of 20 photos was fixed. After a while, Johan suggested he wanted to write the poems him self, what was certainly not a bad idea at all! But, it took Johan about three years to write these 20 poems. The title got changed into ‘VOOR DE ZONDVLOED’ (before the flood) and was inspired by the Antediluvian movement in the early 19 Th. century in France of which Nadar was a prominent member and the life and soul.
Finally, the production of that book took about one year. It is very well printed on 175g Novatech paper in duotone covered with a thinly colored varnish to accentuate the deepness of the tones. 450 where printed, ten of them exclusively numbered, with a handmade Baryta print aside including a handwritten poem.
Here, you can see a handful pictures selected out of that series.
VOOR DE ZONDVLOED