Today I made a walk round the block with my daughter. On just an ordinary Sunday late afternoon with the intention to visit a garden in the neighborhood and after that drink a beer at the café where I spend … Continue reading
Sangamcwok, Damak, Jhapa in the East terai in Nepal (photo © 2012 Alice Verheij) Bladerend door de beelden die ik niet los kan laten vecht mijn hoofd met mijn hart een titanengevecht. Een hoofd dat me dwingt om los te … Continue reading
Please just take a look at the following photo. I guess that most people will see a beautiful woman. Some people will probably see that it’s a photo of Audrey Hepburn the 20ht century moviestar. Fashionistas will most probably see … Continue reading
Wegens omstandigheden neem ik afscheid van mijn mooie Mamiya 645 6×4,5 cm grootbeeld spiegelreflex camera. Een juweel voor de professionele fotograaf die het echte analoge fotograferen met topkwaliteit nog weet te waarderen. Alles in uitstekende staat en recent nog gebruikt. … Continue reading
Today was probably the first good day in the year. For photography that is. So we (me and two of my kids) went to the Gemeentemuseum in my hometown The Hague. Probably the best museum we have in the Netherlands … Continue reading
Janakpur, although in Nepal a provincial town that is in all aspects Indian by nature. A holy city in Hinduïsm. Holy because Sita, the wife of Rama came from Janakpur and she married Rama in her hometown. Nowadays Janakpur is the center of the region in northern India and south Nepal that once was the Mithila kingdom. An ancient kingdom with its own language (Maithili) that is still spoken in the region, its own art like painting, fresco’s, sculptures and theater.
It was a at the time not so hot day, meaning something like a comfortable 25 Celsius and we got the opportunity to meet a theater group. The made traditional theater, a mixture of almost Bollywood style dancing, singing and music of a harmonium and madal drums. The rehearsal took all afternoon and we thoroughly enjoyed watching them acting and dancing. And how these girls danced. Fast rhythm , fast feet. The moves familiar for Hindu dances and an enthusiasm that was electrifying. And although the men were no less than the girls in their dance it’s the girls what took my breath away. Because of their natural grace, the way they were dancing as if they were one and certainly because of their energetic fun.
It’s this photo that I love especially as the composition of the two first girls behind each other almost form a Shiva, my favorite Hindu God. Taken with my Olympus E420 on manual control to get the right movement effect.
Alice © 2011
I know it’s a bit late because the exhibition was finished in September. But as some photos are currently being exhibited on another location and because the whole exhibition will move to the town hall of Harderwijk next February I guess it’s nice to show some photo taken while preparing our first Headwind photo exhibition which draw over 800 visitors in September. The exhibition was held in Creative Warehouse HOOP in the city center of The Hague. A number of photos from that exhibition will be brought to Nepal in December, hopefully to exhibit them in the Beldangi II refugee-camp at the Caritas center.
This exhibition was held and prepared by me, Eveline van de Putte and Haydi Cameron and contains photos made in Nepal earlier this year focussing on the refugees from Bhutan and Nepali culture. All photos were made by me, Eveline and Prakash Angdembe who joined the production team of the Headwind documentary in May and July.
Alice © 2011
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White storks are migrating birds, not migrants, refugees or exiles on a one way trip but travelers of continents who fly triggered by the seasonal change. During the northern hemispheres summer they populate Russia and northern Europe including the Netherlands. They arrive in april for breeding and leave at the end of summer for the south. As the arms of the city I live in suggest we have storks living in the city with nests high up in the trees at some places and watching over us ground dwellers from lampposts and high risers.
Just like the white storks some people are travelers and drifters by nature. Only feeling well when they can follow the seasons and shift the domicile for sometime. In earlier times people like that were named bohemians. Lonely travelers but always in the company of others. At home in every place they travel, citizens of the world. National boundaries hinder them just as much as psychological boundaries like prejudice and cultural codes. They are the curious ones, the creators with backpacks and suitcases full of stories and memories pick up underway.
When I look at migrating birds I feel almost jealous of them. Flying free, living where they can do best and moving constantly with eyes focussed on horizons and the world beneath. The closest I can get to that is in an aeroplane as only artificial wings are able to transport me at an altitude. And when I do fly then along I see my friends flying and hovering, landing and taking off from the north to the south and vice versa. Without a timetable, without borders and customs officers and without the need for a passport.
I am by no means a drifter, I know to well what I want from this life. But I certainly am just like a stork longing for remote lands behind horizons and mountains whenever the seasons change. That is why I work hard to be able to do what I like best: travel, write and film. Preferably in cultures less familiar and more remote. It is also why for my new endeavor I chose the white stork as a metaphorical image of me and the people that I like to work and travel with, hence White Stork Films.
White Stork Films is intended as a platform for creative professionals, all but the odd exception women, focussing on creating great films, exciting photography and compelling new media content. A platform of free-lancing professionals who join up because they want to and because they add value to each others lives. The focal point being the production of documentaries, preferable in cross media projects. White Stork Films starts today and was invented by me and Eveline van de Putte who is besides creative soulmate a great travel companion, amazing photographer and wonderful friend.
Alice © 2011
It’s certain now. Even before years end I shall return to Nepal. To my friends, my loved ones. To that special young woman who I am so fond of and without who it is difficult to live. To that amazing young man who has helped me so much while filming in difficult circumstances earlier this year. To all those people living in the refugee camps which I have become so familiar with. To the elderly whom I have had the honor to visit their simple homes and share a meal, or tea or just a conversation.
To the colors of the clothes the woman wear wether they live in poverty or not. To the smells in the streets that one can only value properly when experienced in person. To the rivers, the streams, the mountains and the wildlife. To the crowded Kathmandu city and the so silent and tranquil rice fields. I wish there were fireflies in winter. To the temples to do Puja, to the Buddhas, the Hindu Gods and Goddesses and to my personal lama in the amazing Boudha quarter of Kathmandu, who I started to like.
But most of all, really, to that one person who has touched my heart with her smile, her joy, her wit and her love.
It’s only weeks from now and I can’t believe it to be true. I can’t comprehend the wonders and amazement I shall – again – experience. Hopefully not only in Nepal but also in the Indian state of Sikkim. That former smallest of three Himalayan kingdoms which is now part of that enormous India. To visit the temples and stupas and to feel like home again. Of course I’ll carry my cameras with me and return with hours of footage for the Headwind Documentary and possibly other work as well. And again with hundreds if not thousands of photos of which I am sure already that there will be many great pictures. This time the balance is tipping more towards holiday and less to work but even now there is work to be done.
I cannot wait to embrace Nepal, my friends there and my Bhutanese family. And you my dear. Because if you read this you know it’s you that I long to see. And this time maybe we can together see a glimpse of the future.
Alice © 2011
Zomer op het Prins Hendrikplein (foto: Alice Verheij © 2011)
Vandaag wint de zon van de herfst de strijd
het jaar lijkt welhaast verschoven in tijd.
De lente in de zomer en de zomer in oktober
en op het terras fluit zomaar vrolijk een ober.
Een vrouw wil zingen maar wie begint er?
want herfst zal het in de winter wel zijn en winter,
ach winter wordt het misschien dit jaar niet meer.
Vandaag geen gemopper op de streken van het weer.
Grijsheid heeft dezer dagen plaatsgemaakt voor
een tevreden zit op een terras en een vogelkoor.
En kinderen spelend met het water uit de fontein
ze mogen vandaag zo ongebreideld vrolijk zijn.
Geef de mens zon, zoals een plant haar water
breng haar de zomer dit jaar gerust wat later.
En ze bloeit op tot een innig tevreden wezen,
die op een bankje buiten een boek zit te lezen.
Genietend in een stad die onverhoeds van stil is
als een verliefd stel teruggetrokken in een nis.
Buiten zicht zijn die daar even blijven staan
en zijn stil geworden, omstrengeld, tesaam.
De zaterdag voelt als de zondag heel fijn
en op de zondag zal dat zeker ook zo zijn.
Geen onvertogen woorden in de lucht
maar een glimlach en een blijde zucht.
Een onverwacht cadeau voor gejaagde ouders,
badgasten, ijsverkopers en strandtenthouders.
Als die tenminste hun tent nog hebben staan
en niet al met hun herfstverlet zijn gegaan.
Mijn lens vangt mensen zonder ongezien
ze spelen lachen en zoenen zelfs misschien
en terwijl ze het niet eens beseffen
laat ik ze door mijn foto-oog treffen.
In een bevroren beweging van tevreden rust.
Alice © 2011
Een goede vriend reageerde pas geleden met ‘You may say I’m a drammer, but I’m not the only one…’ op een tekst van mij hier. Als reactie op mijn keuze om hier even stil te zijn over wat er in mijn leven gebeurt. Sommige zaken verdragen nu eenmaal niet het podium maar kunnen beter achter de coulissen plaatsvinden. Hij begreep precies dat het alles te maken heeft met het najagen van een droom.
Het is zondag vandaag en ik zit in September achter een cortado. Het is de enige plek in Den Haag die ik ken die een fatsoenlijke cortado kan maken. Nina Simone klinkt door het zo goed als lege café en brengt mij in de stemming waar ik het liefste in ben. Zachte pijn, milde smart, maar bovenal tevredenheid met de situatie waar ik me in bevindt. Hoe gek dat ook misschien zal zijn voor een ieder die weet wat ik doormaak.
Museumnacht in HOOP (foto: © 2011 Alice Verheij)
Gisteren was de museumnacht in Den Haag. Musejumnach dus eigenlijk. De opening van de expositie op 1 september was een forse tegenvaller door de belachelijk lage opkomst. De dag er na was een slappe dag en ook gisteren leek niet op gang te komen. Maar toen kwam de nacht los. Een paar uur later waren we na dik zes honderd bezoekers de tel kwijt, waren er een aantal foto’s verkocht, vele mooie gesprekken gevoerd (een mooiere vorm van mensenrechten advocacy door kunst ken ik niet) en een paar boektitels uitverkocht. En het was daarmee een droom die uitkwam. Zoveel mensen, zoveel bewondering voor het werk van Eveline, Prakash en mij, het was hartverwarmend. Wat ons opviel is het grote aantal vooral jonge mensen die met zoveel interesse in het onderwerp de prachtigste gesprekken aan gingen. Zo’n expositie wordt dan ineens een plaats van ontmoeting, uitleg en begrip. Het is geweldig om dan de passie die er is voor wat we doen te kunnen delen en te ervaren dat de ander werkelijk geïnteresseerd is.
Straks ga ik weer naar HOOP. Een paar foto’s reframen en een korte middag doorbrengen op de expo. Misschien komen er nog wat mensen kijken, ik hoop van wel. Maar ongeacht hoeveel of hoe weinig publiek er nu nog langs komt, de expositie is een succes. Nu al, dankzij de museumnacht. (Dat The Hague Pride tegelijkertijd in de stad was heeft natuurlijk wel meegewerkt.
Alice © 2011
She left her family. She had to. There actually was no way left to live like she’d been living up till that moment. So she left. A car and a u-haul packed with her stuff. A friend helped her out moving her shit into a storage facility in her birth town. Then she went to someone else’s house for a couple of weeks. When those weeks had passed too she finally could move into her apartment. The same friend helped her moving her belongings again from the storage to the apartment. They painted some walls and cleaned the house.
Years later her house was packed with all kinds of things that somehow intruded her existence. It cluttered like veins do just before a heart attack. And she got fed up. Within five years she didn’t succeed to feel at home at the wretched place. And then her mom died, her dad had died years before and when she realized she was an orphan she decided again to shift the balance in her life. So she fixed her kids up in the house to maintain it while she ran away. Working on the other side of the world, literally. The inheritance of her mom and her last savings were used to start on something she had never done before and without any certainty for success. But she went anyway and for the first time after over ten years of headwind she had the time of her life. She gained friendships. Learned about herself. How she was able to endure, to get things done. With a little help from some and a lot from others. And then she came back home. And all right, it was all wrong. She couldn’t adjust. Thing is, she’d seen how life could also be. Like s-i-m-p-l-e. As in not difficult. Only needing a simple house with a water well outside and almost no facilities. She had discovered what had always been there.
The house was as cluttered with things as it was before she had left. So she started cleaning the house. Getting rid of the superfluous belongings, trying to simplify life. To bring her place in a new balance. A new balance. That’s what is was all about, getting a new balance. Although she was chased for the effects of her downfall years ago she just keep on trying and trying. And slowly things progressed. Not so much with the house as it took so long to get is like she wanted to. It’s not easy to get rid of your belongings nowadays as people have all they need. But the other things started working out. She wrote another book and started working on her masterpiece to be. Filming, scripting, re-filming, editing, re-scripting, re-editing, designing, anything. And although at first she thought she wouldn’t be able to put it off, to really make something good, she started to understand that there were other qualities needed than the few that she had always been using in het no-so-perfect life. And she found out that they were there. With all the lack of confidence of a newbie on the scene she opened up her mind and allowed herself to re-think the concepts of her work and she rephrased.
And before the book was published and the first rough cut of the film was finished she made a photo exhibition with her friend who helped her getting to know who she was and that it wasn’t needed to try to be perfect. Although so many things challenged her and although many things went wrong and had tho be redone, she got the hang of it.
Within a few days from today her photos are exposed to the eye of the occasional visitor together with photo’s made by her friend. Maybe, you shouldn’t miss it and go check it all out. You may find her there and maybe you’ll get to know her again. The Headwind exhibition will open on September 1st in Creatief Warenhuis HOOP at the Grote Markt 10 in The Hague. Don’t miss it. May be you’ll find out she’ll be ok anyhow, even though it’s still all wrong. But that’s all right.
Alice © 2011
Every picture tells a story. As Rod Stewart once sang on just another one of his albums. And it’s true. Just like that a picture is a thousand words. My life and work now is all about pictures. Pictures made by me and other photographers. The culmination of my work over the recent months at this stage is the photo exhibition, hopefully soon to be followed by the film. But there’s more happening around me.
Some time ago, early this year, I met Johan Brouwer. He is an artist, photographer, who works on the empowerment of gay people in the Netherlands and he does so in a vey positive way. His response to the increasingly bad sentiments in Dutch society regarding gay people was his idea to make a photo and storybook that will show the beauty of the diversity that the gay, or better lgbt, world in the Netherlands has. We talked about it and he asked me if I was available to be part of it. Like publishing a portrait of me in his book ‘Proud@.nl‘.
I suggested not to print a couple of photos but to use one, made by him at a place that’s somehow special to me, and publish that accompanied by a story of me. We agreed and the photo that you see here was taken at the Lange Voorhout, close to Pulchri, in the city where I was born, raised and where I now live. During the summer I wrote a story for the book while I was in Kathmandu.
Johan’s book, that I already love before I have seen the whole book, is soon to be published. Early Oktober there will be a presentation in Amsterdam. I’ll be there with a performance. What I’ll do there is a surprise, even for Johan. I am happy that in this way, by being involved and having a portrait of me published together with a short story in Johan’s book, I can contribute to a different style of gay pride than that was is usually regarded as pride.
There are very few transgender lesbian artists who are public on their gender and sexuality up to the level of being open, out and visible. It’s a choice I made to do this. I did so because of Johan’s positive angle on the topic and the quality of the book he is making. I feel proud to be part of it. Also because I’m part of a selection of people in that book that is a great selection with amazing people. So, if you want to see more of what Johan made: buy the book once it hits the bookstores. It’s worth your money. Check out www.proudat.nl for a sneak peak.
Alice © 2011
