My first confrontation – and an instantly overwhelming one – with the way that Ed van der Elsken looked and thought was in the late 1950s, when I got hold of his book Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint Germain des Prés (A Love Story in Saint Germain des Prés). In it, he portrayed the life of a group of Bohemians who scraped together a living by begging and stealing their life, drink and love soon after the war in Paris. These photographs provided a new insight for many photographers and filmmakers – and certainly for me.