Photo Book Friday: Reveling in Ed van der Elsken’s ‘Feest’
“I celebrate life. I’m no more complex than that. And this means I celebrate everything: love, courage, beauty, but also rage, blood, sweat and tears.” And so it is with Feest, the little photo book I suddenly can’t put down.
Y’all, Feest is wild, and I can’t believe I let it sit on my shelf for over two years before I gave it the focus it truly deserves. It’s rich and grainy and saturated and vibrant — just the kind of black and white photography I love.
© Ed van der Elsken
Published sixty years after Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken painstakingly laid out his designs with cut-outs and tape, Feest was finally brought to light once the Rijksmuseum and the Netherlands Fotomuseum acquired the work in 2019. And while van der Elsken had a long and accomplished career, this project never fully saw the light of day until recently.
© Ed van der Elsken
Leafing through Feest in 2023 feels right, and maybe I needed to wait until now to fully appreciate and enjoy this particular collection. The images span a wide array of “celebrations,” from soldiers marching in a Bastille Day parade in Paris to teens laughing themselves into stitches at the annual spring fair in Amsterdam. You feel the intimacy in the more heavily shadowed shots, but also an openness when he depicts jubilant crowds out in broad daylight.
It’s a testament to human revelry and living sensually, while also depicting the come down; “a long intoxication” (as the book’s essayist describes) from beginning to end. And once you survive a plague, photos like these feel perfectly timely and not a moment past their prime.
© Ed van der Elsken
There’s a really great essay at the end of the book which details a bit about van der Elsken’s winding career as a photographer (primarily in the Netherlands and Paris), as well as how he laid out certain photo pairings and sequences. I always love a peek into a photographer’s process when it comes to editing and sequencing, so this part I will come back to, I know. But for now, here is where I land in thinking about what I may take away from Feest — live vibrantly; take your camera everywhere you can; used smartly, motion blur feels euphoric; and lastly, shoot more black and white.
Until next time — happy shooting,
Paige
