De Fotograaf | Holland, Belgium | Trade journal for professional imaging | December 2004
THE LACKING BRUSHSTROKE
A debut with free work, after a successful career in his own studio for reportage, photography for the public and advertising. Rob Sweebe comes out with exhibitions and a design for a photo book after careful preparation. "I am not afraid of slipping, if my audience will pick up my message. I thought it over carefully".
Born in Indonesia Rob Sweebe came to Holland in 1960 with his parents. After secondary school he went to the academy of art in Tilburg. After that for photography to Breda: "....the training was slow and not technical enough for me. In the third year I followed the courses of Fotovakschool as well.: ".....what I missed on the academy I got there" after that he finished his professional training.
Immediately he practiced portraits and wedding photography, later also advertising and assignments abroad. Beside this commercial work he kept working on free photography. At that time he often looks for the friendship of non professionals. In trying to publish in Dutch Foto magazine he also talked to Fred Hazelhoff, who gave him good advise. The seventies, the time of rough grain, mistreating films in paper developers, and so on.
"I was looking for somebody to be my mentor, if I may say so. Hazelhoff taught me a lot. He told me not to shout out so loud but to whisper a little more and to wait a little longer with exhibitions. That was a long time ago but I learned from it. Now I think the time has come for those exhibitions".
Five years ago he stopped his business in Eindhoven and concentrated on his free photography, to work on themes that interested him. Besides, he is a freelancer as well.
"I did my job, I hardly read trade journals for some time, did not mix in the art world and simply went my own way. As a matter of course businesses became interested and they invited me to give presentations and informal exhibitions. In fact ever since I was on secondary school there already was a thread in my photography: my theme is deterioration. Not only the declining of materials and buildings and the painting of graffiti, but also the disappearing of the characteristic atmosphere of the surrounding area, the unstoppable advancing of uniformity. The powerlessness I feel in experiencing all this.
I searched for symbols: You can see that for a split second in the eyes of people, in the desolation of a landscape with dead trees and dark clouds in the sky. I may have exaggerated in the past, like many others, but two years ago I started to sort out my files of free work and scanned the negatives. More short series came out, I continue to work on it and a concept for a photobook is ready now. I gave the subjects titles such as Writings on the Wall, River County, Helpless. My concept of decline stays, but there are more themes I am interested. Digitally I can mix images and that leads to a type of photography I never used before in my free work: studio- and stage photography. In the series Helpless for instance I use old images as well as new ones: the model never stood in the old building: Is that cheating? I look for images that symbolize. In this case one can use computer manipulations can't one? The concept was much older than that, but in classic photography it was not possible for me, to get that special atmosphere of emptiness.
I like the perfection of a digital print compared with the classic photograph I miss something. I miss the darkroom and the chemicals. Some dark parts in the photograph may dense up a little too much. That's what I call the lacking brushstroke, a mysterious incompleteness in the shadows. Some old Dutch painters took that advantage.
On bicycle trips it strikes me that the river county is so different. The banks of the rivers IJssel, Rijn, Linge, Meuse and Waal have an atmosphere of their own. Still there are some 'lost parts' were one can see the old landscape. I also see gardens and house fronts, that tell a lot of its owners.
His surrounding is his hometown Bemmel, a village between Arnhem and Nijmegen / Holland.
"I try to document that. I do not work out of nostalgia, yet out of my knowledge that this will be gone soon. Arnhem and Nijmegen will grow into one big city and slowly swallows up all surrounding villages. Our typical Betuwe-county disappears.
Those desolate scrap-buildings that I used in the seventies are gone in almost entire Holland. It doesn't have to bring spectacle, but I am still looking for that atmosphere. Therefore I am searching in former Eastern Germany, the French countryside or Sicily. Mostly as a setting my theme is in my home county. I have traveled the world, but this is my home. Rembrandt didn't travel much during his lifetime, maybe a few miles to Utrecht or Leiden. Yet some of his work is very exotic. The world globetrotter was in himself. In spite of this I would like to photograph in Spain again, but my roots are here where I was brought up.
"At the start of my career I was tightly held to assignments. From the art director you got transparences to put on your camera's frosted glass and set up the lighting. Nowadays an idea is sold, not a specific photograph. To realize that idea, the director is looking for the matching photographer. He will choose because the photographers vision or style of working. I seldom had the freedom to work in that way."
Nowadays his professional work is limited to work like photographing office furniture for magazines, without extra lighting just plain in showrooms. It makes money, but free work is more satisfying.
"Sometimes a client consciously buys a name and asks him to do something which is not his style. In that case the product may very well be dissatisfying. That's why I like colleagues like as Erwin Olaf so much. Great to see how he picks up the essential thing and visualizes the idea. The same for Ed van der Elsken and Anton Corbijn. They love their work, they themselves are moved by it. The description of their assignment is more spacious with more fantasy. The level of thinking must be the same for client and photographer. Communication is essential, at the end one has to reach the consumer. In this we were not trained. Now you see how the photographer is using himself as an instrument, he throws in his entire personality. The photographer has to be a catalyst and search for the right balance between the rolls played by the commissioner, photographer and audience.
In my free work I'd like to stay close to myself in a frank way. After all this commercial show off, I feel this as a release.
Also I'd like to start drawing and painting again, I can work on that as passionately as on photography. After some small scale try outs I shall expose my work in a larger circuit. To start with the Parkgallery in the theatre of Hoorn in January '04.
I consider this as my debut and I do this with all my heart ( that is also the tittle of the exhibition). The audience in Holland see many photos, but is hardly used to watching autonomy in photography. I think my work can match a theatre beautifully, it's not visited by an average audience but by people with a cultural interest.
I am not afraid of slipping, as long as my audience picks up my message. I thought it over carefully"
