Preface to the Capitals

Yesterday I finally sat down to write the preface to the Capitals booklet. It's something I have been postponing for a long time. First I wanted to find someone to do the job for me. Something neutral, about Europe, not about the pictures. I asked Tony Judd and William Hitchcock, both authors of influential studies on postwar Europe. They kindly and sympathetically declined, citing too many other responsibilities. There has been the vague opportunity of someone of the Friends of Europe taking on the trouble to write something. But now I've taken it in my own hands. It's difficult, because there is not a lot to say about it. I visited 27 cities, camera in hand. So what? I don't want to be too intellectual and certainly not too artsy (the former is a worse crime than the latter). I want something simple and plain. This is my first (and maybe final) draft:

This book contains 27 pictures, one from each capital on the expanding jigsaw puzzle of European member states. The project grew organically, up to a certain point. There was a time when I travelled along a string of capital cities with other purposes than taking photographs in mind. However, I had my latest infatuation - a plastic, Russian panorama toy camera with a rotating lens – in my pocket. And I liked what I saw. So I started to plan other trips. And so the collection grew, to include all 27 of them.

It is true that these journeys took place at a time when the European Union went through a process of soul searching. The expansion of the Union to 25, then 27 member states, the debate on the failed Constitution, the Turkish dilemma … But I had no program, no position in these matters to defend. I had no other purpose than to spend some time in each of these 27 cities and to push the shutter once in a while.

I tried to stick to a fairly strict discipline. Each city was visited only once. No retrials possible. I confined myself to the extreme, dizzying perspective of my Horizon camera throughout the whole journey. None of the trips was planned in detail. I travelled, got out of the bus, plane or train, and basically started to walk wherever my feet would take me. Often such trips would become “trips”, where the rhythm of my steps, of my internal monologue, the frisson brought about by the unfamiliarity of my surroundings and the absence of a fixed end point or destination would blend into a pleasant sense of suspension, a flow in which taking pictures moved to the periphery of my awareness.

Throughout I have been grateful for the opportunity to travel so easily and carefree to the furthest confines of the Union. Schengen, budget airlines, a monetary union make travel a cakewalk compared to only 30 years ago, let alone 60 years ago when the continent and its people were ravaged by ferocious conflict. Whatever one may think of the European Union as an institution, there is no need to be blasé about its accomplishements as a force for peace and a more open society.

Both as a citizen and as a person manipulating a camera (or vice versa) I have learned quite a few things on this journey. And that was its only purpose. Now I have to move on.

Thanks to my wife Ann Coppens and my children Witold and Emma who are supporting my many idiosyncracies with admirable love, patience and, occasionally, refreshing irony; to Johan Doumont, a very generous and indefatigable friend; to Herman Van Campenhout and Luc Hoebeke, who kindly have taken the trouble to look and reflect; to Pol Leemans and Willy Robbeets for their generous sharing and assistance in the darkroom; to Frans Roex for amiable and reliable lab work; to Hans Bol, for his great professionalism and the generosity with which he shares the fruits of hard labour; to Jo Goossens, for his warm and genuine friendship, to Lorenzo Castore, who will think that I can do much better and therefore is a marvelous source of inspiration. Further thanks to Eddie Ephraums from Self Publishing Solutions, Tom Maes from Snoeck-Ducaju, David Titeca and Sophie Brassine from the Maison de l’Europe, Fabienne Langbeen and Anja van der Voorn from Enspiro, Jaak Sleypen from Beeld Express, Lucia Palomino-Gomez and Veerle Kumps from the European Commission, Werner Everaerts, Jos Mertens, Diana Vilyte, Masahiro Kakuwa, Adrian Taylor, Lore Vanhees, the City of Leuven, Marko Hehl, Franziska Hagedorn, Ulrich Döbler, Val in Sofia, and the unknown taxi driver/writer in Nicosia.