Previously announced and now on its way to book shops: Hellen van Meene’s new book Tout va disparaitre (note: Amazon has the title and cover wrong). The book contains new photography, taken over the past few years in The Netherlands, Russia, and the US.

Early this year, Hellen emailed me and asked me whether I would be willing to write an essay, to be included in the book. Given that I have been a long-time fan of Hellen’s work I was more than happy to do that. The essay summarizes a lot of my thinking on portraiture in general, and I am talking about how to approach Hellen’s portraits - what they might say, what they have to offer, and what we might have to do to be able to experience them.
The new photographs in this book (click on the images in this post to see larger version) continue Hellen’s earlier approach - you can read about the thinking and motivation behind her work here - while expanding it in different directions. For the first time, Hellen used a panoramic camera, and she also added photographs of empty spaces to the mix.
Tout va disparaitre reproduces the photographs at roughly the size of Hellen’s smaller exhibition prints - so when looking through the book you basically see the photographs the way Hellen intends them to work.

All images are © Hellen van Meene 2009; they’re reproduced courtesy Schirmer/Mosel