A Million Dollar View

This ongoing series is a portrait of a woman faced with the inevitable notion of aging. Embracing her old memories, Henny shapes them into alter egos to redefine herself through this journey of vanity and acceptance.

It is the few, if any, who will proudly stand by their own vanity. But it is always there, hidden, held down, fine-tuned, manipulated, for many different reasons – and sometimes for the better in all of us. And it can, I think, be extremely interesting to take a closer look at, to enlarge and highlight, to let loose. And whereas we – the young and the middle-aged – have all kinds of opportunities to shape and nurture our vain tendencies on social media channels, there is a generation whose vanities are rarely exposed nor demanded: the elderly.

Henny is her name. Well, actually, she was born Hendrika Catharina Louise.

She also had a ”show name” for whenever she hosted catwalks in her fashion boutique. That was Juliette, because it sounded French and she liked that.

Henny lives on the 6th floor of an apartment building looking over the ocean. She moved to live high, to feel free, she told me one afternoon while smoking a cigarette in her kitchen.

Henny’s late husband Peter had worked as a portrait photographer and she as a fashion stylist. They were each other’s everything and worked close together. From introducing me to this part of her life, Henny and I started shaping our own language of images, trying to capture a piece of their fabulous past. We slowly, but steadily created a space that allowed us to explore Henny as a character. Henny being styled in looks from her own wardrobe and discovering new versions of her self. With Henny in the role of the stylist and me as the photographer – a dynamic reminding her of Peter – the meetings between Henny and I have become a celebration of their shared past and an exploration into her own future.