BY BERT STEPHANI
Unfortunately I never met Steve but his guest post on KAGE definitely struck more than one chord with me and the sad news of Steve leaving this earth made me think.
As photographers we all want to live on in our work, well I know I do. We try to preserve everything: the youth of our children, life events, fashion, our friends, loved ones, our environment and how it changes over time ... everything. But what about ourselves, the dark side of the camera? Sure, every picture is to a certain degree a self portrait of the photographer but it is not a picture of ourselves. I don't care too much if there won't be a picture of me in 50 or 100 years. But maybe my children or their children would like to have at least some document of how I looked. Hey, maybe in thirty years, I would like to see how I looked as a middle aged man.
I've never been into self portraiture much although I find it very interesting to see from others. But although there are billions of people that I'd rather photograph than myself, I'm going to make an effort to do an occasional self portrait. I had to dig deep in my archives to find some that I actually like.
Thx Steve for being Steve. You have made your mark on a Belgian photographer you've never met, I can only imagine what an amazing influence you must still be to those close to you.