1950年から1954年の間、同僚の写真家 Ata Kandó[1] (1913年、ハンガリー・ブダペスト生まれの女性)と Ata の3人の子供たちと一緒にパリの「ごろつき」や放浪者たちに囲まれて[2]暮らしていた。Ata は信念を持った報道写真家であり[3]、もっとも有名な写真はアマゾンの林において Piraoa 族とイェクアナ族(en:Yekuana)の中で撮られたものである[4]。しかし、後の作品である Droom in het Woud(森に夢見る、1957年)に見られるような彼女のより詩的な傾向もエルスケンに影響を与えたことは間違いない。エルスケンの作品の多くは、自身のエネルギーに満ちた型破りな人生経験を、主観的に[5]記したものであり、ラリー・クラーク、ナン・ゴールディン、ヴォルフガング・ティルマンスらの作品への予兆となるものであった[6]。パリ時代を通じて彼が出会ったなかには、Postwar European Photography での調査と The Family of Man 展(en)とにおいてキュレーターとしてこの写真家の写真を多く使ったエドワード・スタイケンや、恐らくは(ヨーロッパの写真家を探し出してはスタイケンに紹介していた[7])ロバート・フランクなどがいる。それらの人々とともに、義理の家族との生活は彼の写真の主題となった。別の出会いとしては、実話小説的作品集『パリ左岸の恋』(Love on the left bank、Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint-Germain-des-Prés)[8][9]でアイシャドウのヒロインとして記憶に留まることになるバリ・マイヤーズ(en、1930-2003年)がいた。『パリ左岸の恋』は弱冠二十歳のエルスケンにとっての初出版であり、オランダ人デザイナー・彫刻家・タイポグラファーである Jurriaan (William) Schrofer (1926-1990年) によって装丁され、瞬く間に完売した。20年後にマイヤーズは映画 'Death in the Port Jackson Hotel'(1972年、36分。16mm カラー)に出演した。
その後エルスケンはいろいろな地を旅した。1957年には Bagara(現在のコンゴ民主共和国に位置)を、また1959年から1960にかけて東京と香港を、2度目の妻である写真家 Gerda van der Veen(1935-2006年)と共に訪れた。その後まもなく、アムステルダムの古風な労働者階級地区のニーウマルクト広場で[10]、エルスケンは第2子である Daan の誕生を映画撮影した(Welkom in het leven, lieve kleine、1963年、36 分。16mm 白黒)。これは、音声と同期する小さな肩掛けカメラを用いた映画撮影の初期の例である。エルスケンは映画撮影において、撮影者がもはや不可視の存在ではなく被写体と相互作用する[11]という主観的態度を取り続けた[12]。これはオランダの映像作家 Hans Keller(nl)と Roelof Kiers(en)のテレビ作品に影響を与えた。
1971年からエダム近郊の田舎に妻であり写真家である Anneke Hilhorst(1949年 - )と共に暮らし、息子 John が生まれる。
Ata Kando (born Budapest, 1913) is the daughter of Hungarian parents, the writer Margit G. Beke and Professor Imre Görög. She calls herself 'Ata' from her first name Etelka,, and Kando is the name of her first husband, the painter Gyula Kando, with whom she left for Paris in 1932. Her commercial photographic career began with being assistant at the Magnum photo agency immediately after the War. Later she photographed for Paris fashion houses and continued to do so after accompanying Ed van der Elsken to the Netherlands.
"In Paris, this kind of urban roaming was characteristic of Left Bank bohemianism, where the art of drifting was a favorite way of cultivating that feeling of being "apart together" that Huizinga
described as characteristic of play. A vivid record of this time and place is Ed Van der Elsken's book of photographs, which recorded some of the favorite haunts of the lettrists". Andreotti, Libero. "Play-Tactics of the "Internationale Situationniste". October, Vol. 91 (Winter, 2000), pp. 36-58: The MIT Press
Kandó, Ata; Sándor, Anna; Interview with Ata Kandó in Múlt és Jövő (Past and Future) Journal Issue 2, 2003, pages 72-75. Budapest: Past and Future Publishing House (Múlt és Jövő)
see her illustrations in Soundmaking, magic and personality / by Jacqueline van Ommeren. (English translation of Bevrijd de dommen van hun domheid). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1979. ISBN 9062037925
Dziewior, Yilmaz. Yilmaz Dziewior talks with Annelie Lutgens (interview). Artforum International. v. 38 no7, Mar. 2000, p. 104. An interview with Annelie Lutgens, curator of a comprehensive survey of the work of photographer Ed van der Elsken at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany, from March 2000.
Kroes, R. Photographic Memories: Private Pictures, Public Images, and American History (2007) UPNE. ISBN 1584655933, p.137. "Frank, who helped Steichen get in touch with European photographers in preparation for the exhibition, may have known Van der Elsken and introduced him..."
The book of 101 books: Seminal photographic books of the 20th century. Andrew Roth (editor); essays by Richard Benson ... [et al.]; catalogue by Vince Aletti, David Levi Strauss. New York: Roth Horowitz, 2001.
"When Ed van der Elsken rages through Amsterdam's empty streets-those passages of film were shot in the very early morning and are run at high speed-the silence of the city is striking[...]The morphology of the city is filmed. 'This is the décor of my film. My hnting ground.'" from Jansen, A. C. M.: The atmosphere of a city centre. In: Area, 16 (1984), S. 147-151.: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)
Anderson, Steve [Reviewer]. Making images move; photographers and avant-garde cinema [Book Review]. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997. ISBN 1-56098-744-8. [Book Review] Film Quarterly. v. 52 no4, Summer 1999, p. 53-4.
"Horak's selection of artists to exemplify the entangled
relationship of film and photography is necessarily idiosyncratic. Rather than attempting an overview or comprehensive history, Horak opts for a close, circumscribed reading of the work of a few individuals who have traversed the two media throughout their careers. The artists selected, Chris Marker, Helmar Lerski, Paul Strand, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Helen Levitt, Robert Frank, Danny Lyon, and Ed van der Elsken, range from the renowned to the obscure, making the book at once invitingly familiar and provocatively broadening. The subjects of Making Images Move are defined as:
. . photographers who ventured into the field of cinema without relinquishing their interest in photography Unlike many ... who only trained as photographers before moving more profitably into the
field of moving pictures, these photographer/filmmakers have traveled across the borders of both media, learning from each mode of expression, wholly allegiant to neither"
Martha P. Nochimson. 'Review of 'Making Images Move' By Jan-Christopher Horak'. in Film Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 4 (Summer, 1999), pp. 51-53. University of California Press
"A good deal has been said about [Documenta X's] ‘over-representation’ of the 1960s and 1970s, calling it nostalgic and anachronistic radicalism. Some, however, rejoiced in its unflinching rejection of the art and culture that had become dominant as globalization intensified [...] dX reached back to 1950 or even earlier, tracing and juxtaposing genealogies and individual interventions in photography, performance, installation, and videos, often cries-crossing genre boundaries. Interesting things happen to the work when a celebrated documentary photographer of the American Depression of the 1930s, Walker Evans, is seen in the same show as a contemporary Canadian photographer, Jeff Wall, who works with large, digitally constructed photographic narratives. The variety of work on display was striking: Helen Levirt, Aldo van Eyck, Maria Lassnig, Lygia Clark, Richard Hamilton, Marcel Broodthaers, Ed van der Elsken, Nancy Spero, Öyvind Fahlström, Garry Winogrand, Michaelangelo Pistoletto, Robert Adams, Hélio Oiticica, James Coleman, Gordon Matta-Clark, Susanne Lafont, William Kentridge, Martin Walde, and many more." Miyoshi, M. 'Radical Art at Documenta X', in New Left Review I/228, March-April 1998. London: Verso.