A Million Dollar View

︎    2019–ongoing

︎    Personal project

︎    The Netherlands

Back in September 2019, in the small town Zandvoort by the west coast of the Netherlands, I met a woman walking her dog on the stormy beach. Henny is turning 72 and lives on the 6th floor of a concrete apartment building. She lives alone with Bella, her dog – her husband passed away five years ago. Together, she and her husband had moved in because of the apartment’s million dollar ocean view. They wanted to feel free, she told me one afternoon while smoking a cigarette in her kitchen. Henny’s late husband had worked as a portrait photographer and she as a fashion stylist. From introducing me to this part of her life, Henny and I started working together, trying to capture a piece of her fabulous past. We slowly, but steadily started to create a space that allowed us to explore her as a character by styling her in her own old clothes and embracing her perception of herself; her self-image. With Henny in the role of the stylist and me as the photographer – a dynamic reminding her of her late husband, Peter – the meetings became playful explorations of their shared past. Suddenly the rampant COVID-19 entered our world and we were forced to put the collaboration on hold.