Biography

Discussion

Ferry André de la Porte has been working since 1969 as a freelance photographer. De la Porte’s family and the photographer Philip Mechanicus, for whom he started working as an apprentice in 1970, introduced him to the cultural circuit directly at the start of his career. Since then, he has remained active in this world.

De la Porte photographed pop concerts, took working shots and stills for Dutch movies, made portraits of writers and artists, photographed their studios and their work, and did the photography for dozens of catalogues. In collaboration with the graphic designer Pieter Brattinga, De la Porte shot photos for the posters of the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, as well as book covers and several album covers. Over the last thirty years, De la Porte has been doing primarily journalistic photography, reproduction and product photography, corporate reportages and portrait photography. His oeuvre comprises circa 80,000 black-and-white negatives and an unknown quantity of colour material, prints in black-and-white and colour slides. De la Porte’s autonomous work is much more important to him than his professional photography. In this regard, he still sees himself—even after having built up thirty years of experience—as an ‘amateur’ in the true sense of the word, i.e. a photography buff.

Ferry André de la Porte comes from an artistic background. His grandfather on his mother’s side was the surrealist painter, drawer, etcher and lithographer Willem van Leusden. His mother, Ine van Leusden, had studied at the Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs (‘Institute of Applied Art Education’, the precursor of the Rietveld Academy). She also studied at Schoonhoven to become a jewellery smith. Ine’s sister was a photographer. De la Porte’s father studied interior design at the same institute as his mother and later became a practicing architect. Once De la Porte had completed his final exams at the HBS (Hogere Burgerschool, an upper-level secondary school) in 1969, his parents strongly encouraged him to attend the HEAO (Hoger Economisch en Administratief Onderwijs, ‘Upper Economic and Administrative Education’). This was not what De la Porte wanted. Instead, he wanted to become a photographer or designer. Without his parents’ knowledge, he enrolled at the Rietveld Academy and the RABK (Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, ‘National Academy of Fine Arts’), both in Amsterdam. Although accepted to both, he was first required to serve in the military.

After he was released from the military several months later based on an ‘S5’ indication (unsuitable for military service), it turned out that De la Porte would not be able to start any study until the next academic year. Consequently, he started working as a photographer—never to study again. De la Porte’s first commissions were done together with the pop photographer Gijsbert Hanekroot. He ended up moving to New York and working for a photographer named Horowitz. The contact had been made via Jan Henderikse, a Dutch artist then living in the United States, to whom De la Porte had previously been introduced by the writer Gerard Stigter (K. Schippers). Horowitz was a commercial advertising photographer who taught De la Porte to photograph still lifes. Back in the Netherlands, in about 1970, an uncle of De la Porte’s brought him into contact with the graphic designer Pieter Brattinga.

Brattinga, in turn, introduced him to Philip Mechanicus, who had a studio and a darkroom on the Singel. Mechanicus, who had begun to lose interest in photography and wished to do more writing, already had an assistant, Floris Bergkamp. But he was willing to take on De la Porte as an unpaid employee. De la Porte took over much of Mechanicus’ darkroom work. In so doing, he became thoroughly familiar with Mechanicus’ photography. This was to have a significant influence on the young Ferry, in the same manner that Mechanicus had been affected by the work he himself had done for Ad Windig as an apprentice. The great importance that Windig placed on a perfect printing technique was in turn passed to De la Porte through Mechanicus. Even though De la Porte has never attempted to follow any one role model in photography, Windig is one of the Dutch photographers he admires and with whom he feels a certain affinity. Other photographers falling under the same category in his view are Paul Huf, Ed van der Elsken and Johan van de Keuken. Among foreign photographers, the same applies for Edward Weston (1886-1958), André Kertész (1894-1985) and Diane Arbus (1923-1971). Outside the world of photography, De la Porte is particularly influenced by the graphic designer Pieter Brattinga, with whom he collaborated in the years 1978–1988 on the posters for exhibitions in the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo. Brattinga taught him another way of seeing. De la Porte’s photos had to be usable for the designer, which meant that the designs had to be photographed with clarity. In addition, the photo had to be fairly empty, as extra space was always required for the accompanying text.

In 1970, De la Porte began sharing a studio and a darkroom with Philip Mechanicus. They would continue to do so for approximately seventeen years. For the first three years, De la Porte worked mainly in the dark room. Mechanicus’ former teacher Ad Windig had told him it would take at least five years to adequately master making prints. De la Porte learned quickly, however, and was given the nickname of ‘tovenaarsleerling’ (‘wizard’s apprentice’) by Mechanicus. Mechanicus taught De la Porte not only how to make prints. In the newspaper Het Parool dated 20 April 1996, Mechanicus says the following: ‘I later also had a student of my own: Ferry André de la Porte. I, too, taught him—just as Windig did with me— how to talk, drink, eat, play billiards, and photograph.’ Serving as the ‘classroom’ for some of this learning was the Amsterdam artists society De Kring. It was here that De la Porte built up an extensive circle of friends and acquaintances. Over the years, these contacts provided him with the necessary commissions. He photographed for many years for the film magazine Skoop, for the cultural magazine Hollands Diep (including portraits of writers), for the catholic weekly De Tijd (e.g. a reportage on the Dutch politician Dries van Agt) and for the economic magazine Quote (company reportages and portraits of figures in the business world). In 1988, De la Porte did almost all of the photography for the comprehensive book De activiteiten van/ The activities of Pieter Brattinga. It was through Brattinga that he became the staff photographer for Mercis­–Bruna, the company that did the merchandising for all of Dick Bruna’s products.

In 1994, De la Porte travelled with his life companion, the art historian Marion Peters, across India. In the vicinity of Madras, they discovered a small temple with the names of more than 80 Dutch people carved into its walls and pillars. Among them was the name Daniel Havart, the author of the book Op- en Ondergangh van Coromandel (‘Rise and Fall of Coromandel’), published in 1693. Many of the names found at the temple were also featured in Havart’s book. This discovery led to a major investigation conducted by Peters and De la Porte for many years regarding the material remnants (primarily forts and gravestones) of the Dutch presence on the eastern coast of India in the days of the East India Company. During the four trips that the couple made to the temple (1994, 1996, 1997 and 1998), requiring in total more than a years’ work, De la Porte shot countless rolls of films with his Hasselblad. The vulnerability of this almost forgotten Dutch legacy is illustrated by the fact that a share of the objects photographed during the initial trips —e.g. gravestones—turned out to be missing during their later visits. The serene character that De la Porte bestowed on many of the photos in this sizeable series recalls shots taken by photographers such as Isidore van Kinsbergen and Adolph Schafer in the nineteenth-century. In 2002 (the commemorative year of the East India Company), a book will be published featuring De la Porte’s photos during his travels in India, with an exhibition to be organised in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Very soon after he began to take photographs, De la Porte developed his own style, particularly in his autonomous work. This style, which is closely connected to his ideas about photography, is more in line with past generations of photographers rather than his contemporaries—though undoubtedly, De la Porte’s work reveals similarities to that of Paul den Hollander, who was also born in 1950, on a number of levels. As an aesthete, De la Porte loves what he calls ‘clean, sharp photos’. There should not be too much in these photos: only that which is necessary. While the subject can be anything, it has to be captured in an original manner and without any tricks. Generally speaking, De la Porte is averse to staging and to the livening up less successful photos in the darkroom.

Typically, there are very few people found in De la Porte’s autonomous work. He usually prefers simple crops taken from material reality, e.g. such as when photographing a wooden statue of a horse in Indonesia. What does one actually see? A corner formed by two walls and the neck and head of a horse. The head of the horse is situated close to the wall and casts a shadow on it. There is nothing more to the photo than this. Why does De la Porte not show anything other than the horse and its surroundings? Why did he not move the statue so that it was not so ‘inconveniently’ close to the wall? Anyone examining the photo for a longer period of time cannot help but observe that this image brings up all kinds of associations. Why does the photo radiate such a sadness and loneliness? Does it recall memories of having to stand in the corner at school in order to contemplate one’s own sins? Does it remind one of a horse faced with a premonition of its own, inevitably ending under the butcher’s knife? De la Porte’s photos are only truly exposed in the associations of the observer (not only beauty, but also ‘content’ is in the eye of the beholder). This presupposes that one is willing to take the time to view this image.

Although De la Porte does not think highly of themes—that is, when it comes to his own oeuvre (‘I am the uniting factor)—over the years one can nevertheless observe a fascination for certain visual elements recurring in his photos. Geometric forms appear in various types in his photos: a corner formed by two walls and the ceiling, bushes and trees trimmed into conical and square shapes, a gigantic egg-shaped boulder, a cylindrical haystack. In addition, one regularly encounters animal-like forms: a stuffed swan, the head of a ram, a wall covered in antlers, or the tattered head of a stuffed tiger. De la Porte also plays with patterns and striking shots taken from reality, which sometimes gives his photos an abstract character.

In secondary school, André de la Porte photographed with a Canon. In the late 1960s, he purchased a Pentax and later a Nikon F2. He acquired his first Hasselblad in 1970. Although having collected a large number of cameras over the years, he preferably uses a Hasselblad with a standard 80 mm lens for his autonomous work—consisting exclusively of black-and-white photos. De la Porte likes an ‘honest, old-fashioned’ approach to working and averse to artificial intervention. This is expressed in the manner in which he photographs, as well as in the way he makes prints. When photographing, De la Porte always bases his work on the reality in front of him and very rarely introduces changes to make the image more interesting. He is just as reserved in the darkroom and has always worked according to the following creed: ‘One photographs with a camera and not in the darkroom.’ Like his teacher in the early 1970s, he holds the opinion that prints should include a multitude of grey tones. In the darkest of blacks, one should still clearly see outlines, with accents created through the brightest of whites. In general terms, De la Porte’s prints are fairly soft and tend to be on the darker side. In principle, he always uses the entire negative, though there are occasional exceptions.

In addition to his professional career as a freelance photographer, De la Porte has been building a special oeuvre in his autonomous work for the last thirty years. In the world of photography, he is an individualist. He holds no interest in movements or trends and follows his own path without distraction. He has never felt any ambition to be a trendsetter or to found his own school.

André de la Porte refers to himself as a traditional photographer and someone who enjoys photos printed with painstaking care. He is a lover of photography who photographs for other enthusiasts and those willing to take the time to arrive at an understanding of his photos, which possess their very own idiom. Anyone who suggests there is little to be seen in this work and therefore disapproves should perhaps reflect on the words that Philip Mechanicus wrote about De La Porte’s photos in 1981: ‘Nothing is more difficult to represent than absence; nothing is more difficult to represent than nothing.’

Documentation