Photographer Kees van de Veen is the winner of the Silver Camera 2020. He won the prize for photojournalism with a series about Piet Franssen from Tegelen, who was admitted to intensive care in Assen during the first corona wave. The jury calls the images “honest” and “intimate”.
Franssen had just lost his wife when he himself became ill. He ended up in the ICU with corona and died not long after. Photographer Van der Veen followed Franssen and his family from hospital admission to the funeral.
“This was all about last year: saying goodbye to loved ones too early,” the jury said. “Especially the image of the daughter holding a telephone to her father’s ear just before her father’s death with his grandson on the other end of the line, made a deep impression. The grief we know from the weekly figures is made here personally. “
“It was incredible how open they were and allowed me to be at such an intimate moment”, Van de Veen responded at the announcement. “I hardly dared to take a photo of the daughter with her father on the phone.”
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