Rob

Rob came into my life as a friend of a friend. He was an aspiring artist and as such shared an outlook on life with me. He made three dimensional work, which reminded me of shrines. I thought they were very strong.

One day we went on a winter-sports holiday in the Czech Republic with a group. Rob and I ended up sharing a bedroom. I had just bought a new camera and wanted to try it out during the vacation. Rob and I started making photos after we had gone to bed for an afternoon nap. I told Rob his boxer shorts looked silly on the photo -which they did! He took them off and I was able to make a series of truly gorgeous male nudes.

That first series of photos were black-and-white photos. Later I decided to ask Rob if he wanted to pose again, this time explicitly for the Ontmoetingen series, and then I took colour photos.

For the series with Rob I wanted to work with the theme "passion", for I was passionately attracted to him. I don't think there was ever a thought of actually sleeping together, but I do believe Rob enjoyed the sense of being desired. I wanted an extra layer for the theme, and so I arrived at the most famous passion in the Western world; the Passion of Christ. And while my series is defunct of any religious emotion, I did use the story of the Passion of Christ to shape the images for Rob's series.