Jard

Jard was a colleague of mine in the last café I worked at in Holland. The café was owned by a very good friend of mine and I was responsible for the Mondays. Long days, from 3 PM until 3 AM, but I did have a really good time there. I also helped occasionally on busy days, and that was when I would bump into Jard. He was an extraordinarily beautiful guy, almost photomodel material, but he remained very down to earth. A typically Westfrisian dude, really. I liked him because first of all he was a good worker, but he also turned out to be quite sweet. His energy was very straight, which made me keep some distance -not that I was afraid of him, or worried about his attitude; I just felt he wouldn't be overly interested in the gay energy and didn't want to bother him.

That's why I was a bit surprised that Jard insisted on keeping in touch after I had moved to the States. It didn't happen often, but every time I went back to Holland for a family visit he made sure we got to see each other and at one point he even thought I was in the Netherlands and emailed me to make an appointment -I was not in Holland....

This unexpected friendliness made me rethink our relationship. For me up until then it had been friendly but professional, but now I realized that there was indeed an extra element to our relationship. Jard could (quite easily, now I saw it) qualify for an "Ontmoeting". During one of my family visits I decided to just ask him if he would be willing to pose for me. I was a bit anxious about the naked part, for I didn't know if Jard felt we were close enough for that. But he instantly agreed, and within a week we had done the photoshoot!

Jard had taken this absolutely awesome tattoo several years before. He had shown it when it was just tattooed and it was one of the most impressive tattoos I had ever seen. It covered basically his whole side and showed a tree turning into a flying flock of birds. It was gorgeous! I chose this tattoo as the starting point of the photoshoot. The story of the transition reminded me of the myth of Daphne, who was not interested in the avances of Apollo, and eventually transferred into a laurel tree. I knew the stunning statue Bernini had made of that event, and picked that pose for Jard's photo. It took me a while to find the perfect photo, as most efforts were an all too literal translation of Bernini's statue, but now I believe I have made the perfect image.