Colorful petticoats, quiffs, tattoos, roaring Cadillacs and exciting music, Anno van der Heide loves them. In recent years, the photographer from Tuitjenhorn has been a regular at the Cruise Inn, a rock ‘n’ roll center in Amsterdam. She made beautiful portraits of old and young rockers. “I think the great thing about this scene is that behind that rugged appearance are often those lovely people.” In Culture Club, the culture and music program of NH, a report about Anno.
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In the photo, we see a girl who looks like she’s straight out of the 50s and looks up in shock, perhaps because a rough rocker pulls his pants down and shows his tattooed buttocks. Photographer Anno van der Heiden likes to capture people at funny moments. A boy with floppy ears and a huge crest of fat looks at you smiling from the photo.
She takes her pictures at festivals and at the rock ‘n’ roll honk Cruise Inn in Amsterdam. “I then walk around with my camera, make a dance and look around me and then I strike,” Anno says. She connects with people, you can see that when you see the pictures. A kind of female Ed van der Elsken. “If you compare me to him, I see that as a big compliment. I think his work is very beautiful,” laughs Anno.
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We go with Anno to visit Hans and Lya in Alkmaar. Their entire house is rock and roll style with several jukeboxes from the 50’s, a coke bottle machine and numerous portraits of Elvis on the wall.
The couple is dressed in style with clothes sewn by Lya herself. When ‘Shake, rattle and roll’ by Elvis Presley sounds from the jukebox, Hans and Lya start dancing spontaneously. For Anno the ideal moment to grab her camera. “This happens spontaneously and then I like to take pictures,” she says. “I never put people down.”
When Hans and Lya show their 50s bedroom, she does not ask if the couple would like to pose on the bed. “No, if they would do it spontaneously, I would take a picture,” laughs Anno.
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Anno van de Heiden wants to publish the photo book Keep on Rockin’ from the series of rock ‘n’ roll portraits. At the moment she is trying that via crowdfunding at Voordekunst to realise.
Culture Club at NH Nieuws
In the new Culture Club programme, NH Nieuws visits culture makers from our province to ask them about their motivations. All episodes of Culture Club can be viewed on this one special page.