As Slow As Possible

Roelof van der Schaaf was born in Amsterdam on 3 July 1952. He is a photographer, lighting designer, visual designer and art educator. Throughout his career, he has continually moved between photography, film, television, art and education.

His education began at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where he started studying graphic design in 1975. One year later, he switched to photographic design, graduating in 1981. In 1980, he also studied photography and film at Medway College of Design in Rochester, England.

He subsequently broadened his professional expertise at the Media Academy in Hilversum, formerly known as Santbergen. In 1982 and 1983, he completed the Camera A and Camera B courses. In 1989, he also graduated from its directing programme. Much later, in 2004 and 2005, he completed a teaching course in art education at higher professional education level. This brought together his artistic experience and his interest in sharing knowledge.

Since the 1970s, Van der Schaaf has photographed architecture, landscapes, deserts, polar regions and vast salt flats. His camera has taken him to Antarctica, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Indonesia, among other places. He has also travelled and photographed extensively throughout Europe. And sometimes Texel proved to be every bit as remarkable as the ends of the earth.

A teacher at the Rietveld Academy once advised him to specialise in portrait photography. Van der Schaaf chose a different direction. Although social documentary photography dominated photographic trends for many years, people rarely appear in his images. In his view, the presence of people can quickly tie a photograph to a particular period. More importantly, however, is his enduring love of space, silence, light and landscape. Old loves never die.

His photographic archive is not a closed collection, but a continuously expanding visual narrative. He still travels, observes and photographs. From Leeuwarden and its surroundings, he continues to develop a body of work in which careful attention matters more than haste.

As he puts it himself, with characteristic understatement:

“I live and press buttons in and around Leeuwarden.”

As Slow As Possible.