“Eva”: Richard Brocken Photographs Daughter in Ongoing Project

“…that they knew everything about us though we couldn’t fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise…” – It is this strange bit from a passage in Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel The Virgin Suicides (1993) that the Dutch photographer Richard Brocken uses to introduce his work. He is most famous for his meditative images of his daughter Eva, which, he believes, “capture the quiet introspection behind our personal evolution.”

The girl is shown in water, in a car, with a cello, in monochrome, in colour. She looks straight at the camera, stares in space, closes her eyes. This ongoing project depicts her growth, her maturity with much tenderness and affection. Some of these pictures have already been used as book covers.

Richard attended the Amsterdam School of the Arts. He lives in Acquoy. He likes the photographers Erwin Olaf and Anton Corbijn, also the writer Arnon Grunberg and filmmaker Lars von Trier. His list of clients includes Microsoft and Elle. He began photography in his 20s while travelling all over the world with his wife. His initial themes were street life in Kathmandu, wildlife in Africa. “Later, when my children were born,” he says, “my subject changed to them.”