This project is called ’Posing for a Delayed Future’. It is based on a collection of 157 old photo negatives in black-and-white (approx. 100 years old) i found on a flea-market in France.

The pictures show a family which poses through the years, showing their special moments, looking through the lens into the future*. The way they pose says gives an impression of that time, and are touching in all their simplicity, in that pre-image era. A complete different time from our current perspective. It is a world which amazes me and at the same time long for. The images look pure, simple and honest. Posing for a future that wil undoubtedly delayed.

 

With this negatives as a starting point, i make prints with the Cyanotypes process. For almost 10 years now i work with this technique. It is a ‘slow’ process, with long exposure times. This connects the negatives which are also shot on slow film. Time delayed. The prints are mostly in negative, like the way the Cyanotype process was long time used, for the reproduction of technical drawings (in negative). The faces of the people are under-exposed so only the setting becomes relevant, not their identity.

In this way the images become a ‘blueprint’ of posing people. 

By showing the family in this way, i try to come closer to them, to that time, and at the same time honor their lives in a colorful way.

 

*As we are this future, i think it’s fascinating to realize that we look back through this very same lens.