Portfolio

Armando Jongejan FRPS

Welcome (last update May 2011)
You find four series of mine, one new series of Monastic Life. A publication in the May issue of our Jounal is also possible to read.

In April 2011 a new photo book is published ‘Thuiskomen’ (Coming Home): Daily life in a monastery.
I started in May 2009 to documents daily life in the Sint-Lioba monastery in Egmond-Binnen. The series starts with prayer; moments of silence and quiet reflection. Sometimes they cook for up to fifty persons, with all kinds of routine domestic activities, such as cleaning, washing and repairing clothes. The Lioba monastery is famous for their creative characteristic, expressed through pottery, sculpture, fashion, weaving, batik and working in copper and silver. The results after many hours of work are unique.
The community organises the day to be ‘full’. There is almost no time for recreation, but occasionally one of the nuns will take a turn on the trampoline in the backyard, or read a book in the meadow for the sheep. Several nuns say that life in the Lioba monastery feels like ‘Coming home’.

The results of this project is published in the same way of the books ‘Van binnenuit’ (From the inside - 2000) and ‘Een zoektocht’ (A quest - 2004).

I like to make photographs of people in their own environment. I’m curious how they live, what they do. Although non-religious, I became interested in the monastic world. Our village - Egmond - has three monasteries.
I started to document a nunnery: ‘From the inside’. Contact with the nuns was not easy. It took 18 months before I was allowed to make my first photo. The nuns lived in an isolated way, with very little contact in the ´real world´. They live cut off from the villagers in their ‘Karmel Nunnery’ with their own gated garden, including their graveyard. Until 1969 there were even barriers inside the nunnery. It was strongly prohibited for men to enter the building. After some visits - without a camera - I was allowed to make my first photograph in the garden.
They were helpful, but didn´t trust me in the way I made photographs. The nuns made their own photographs: using a simple compact camera. I made my photo with a Hasselblad, tripod and 180mm lens. Their reaction when I made the photo of the group in a lane with hawthorn trees in their garden. “Isn´t it too dark under the trees, do you have enough light”... “are you not too far away to make a good picture”. Seeing the results, they were satisfied...
The reportage starts with prayer and includes domestic activities, such as cleaning and relaxation when the nuns have one hour ´spare time´ a week. I was even allowed to make photographs of the nuns in their own cella (private room). Just daily life.
I made this reportage of silence and quiet reflection over a period of two years, until the nunnery closed. The nuns became too old and moved to a home for the elderly, a nunnery elsewhere in the Netherlands.

After this series I made a reportage of a Benedictine monastery, the ’St. Adelbert Monastery’: ‘A Quest’. The abbot invited me to produce this. The project was similar to the reportage of the nuns, but the results were more satisfying. After finishing this project, one of the monks died. I decided to make some pictures of his last journey - these photos close a very special period.

For me as a photographer it is hard to understand why nuns and monks live in such a special way and environment. But I have a deep respect for them. It is another way of life, spiritual and religious. They are searching, but don’t we all in our own way?

The first two series of monastic life are also published in an 'on demand' photo book ‘Daily life at a Monastery and Nunnery’ (English version at Blurb.com) with 120 pages. You are able to see all pages and order the book.

Other project (Scotland):

During the Second World War (WW2) Creebridge Caravan Park in Newton Stewart - Dumfries & Galloway - Scotland was a Prisoners of War Camp (POW). In 1941 the camp is noted as ‘Holm Park Camp, Newton Stewart, camp No.113’. It was in use for Italian prisoners of war. In 1943 the Italians were defeated and surrendered in Italy. The Italian prisoners were repatriated to Italy. The Camp then housed German prisoners of the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht. After the war in 1945, the camp became a displaced persons (DP) camp for refugees for the Soviets. They came from former Eastern Bloc countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia.

In 1964 the Prisoners of War camp became a campsite. The first owner was Mr.David Baird. Original parts of the Prisoners of War Camp are still visible in 2009. The roads were build by the Italian Prisoners. In concrete we see the name ‘Italy 43’. De tower for the guards is not in use, but is overlooking the campsite. The storage room/garage is an original barrack with the fire buckets in front of it. The house/reception was the prison for violent prisoners. The phone box was formerly the sentry-box and the fundaments of the barracks are in use for the static caravans. The laundry room was build in 1968.

Since 1998 John Sharples is the owner of the campsite and sometimes he meets old prisoners of the barracks. At the reception desk he has a framed photo to show it to people who are interested in the history of the camp site.

A book is published ('on demand' 40 pages) at Blurb.com. You are able to visit and order the book.

The last years I had several exhibitions in Museums and Galleries in the Netherlands and abroad, including: the Naarden Photo Festival 2001 and 2005, FOAM: Museum of Photography Amsterdam (2005), the Dutch Museum of Photography in Rotterdam (2008) the Hasselblad Image Centre in Utrecht (1997) and in the Comenius Museum during the OFF Photo Festival Naarden 2011 - the Netherlands and during the Old Town festival Tallinn - Estonia (2005) and in the Lishui Photography Museum of China (2010).

Five ‘real’ photo books have been published by me and I had several publications in photo books of the Dutch Photographic Society (2009) and publications in a German photo book of 'European Villagers' (2010).