A week with, then another week without, a son – this photographer makes the effects of a divorce palpable with photos

December 29, 2023

‘If he has just been with me for a week, those first days after he has left are so confrontational. Then the books I just read to him from are still there. There are toys lying around on the floor. His elephant watering can is near the sandbox where he was messing around the day before. I get everything out of sight as quickly as possible. It’s hard for me to see his stuff all the time. Without him they have so little meaning. It just stands there. I close the door of the empty nursery. I don’t want to be there.”

Documentary photographer Milan Schellingerhout (37) and his girlfriend broke up last year. In the contact arrangements they agreed that their now 3-year-old son will be with her one week and with him the next. This means: packing or unpacking a large bag once a week. It also means: one week a house where a child runs, chats, laughs, cries and whines all day long – while the next week it is quiet, peaceful, orderly, one breakfast plate on the dining table.

Photos: Milan Schellingerhout

“You live two different lives. I’m still not used to it. It’s a matter of saying goodbye and switching gears every time. I started taking pictures of it to give it a place for myself.”

It is the first time, Schellingerhout says, that he has made a series that is about his own life and that is so intimate. He made a series about the homeless in Arnhem, for which he received the silver Paul Peters Photo Prize in 2021, an award for socially committed photography in the Netherlands. And he made series about the residents of the many Arnhem park houses and, further afield, about mass tourism in the Alps, a silver mine at an altitude of 4,000 meters in Bolivia. “As a documentary photographer I am always focused on the other. I want to tell something about other people, how they live, what they are doing. They are the center of attention. It’s exciting that it is now my own story. Still, I tried to hold on to my professional view and also approach it as a broader subject. Many parents experience this. Hopefully they recognize something in it and perhaps even find support in it, that they know: I am not the only one who has to go through this.”

Photos: Milan Schellingerhout

In addition to the loss of his son, Schellingerhout says, there is also sometimes the feeling of having failed, of not being good enough as a parent. “Those kinds of thoughts are all discussed. At the same time, we both know, my ex-wife and I, that it is better for us and therefore also for our son. He is more relaxed now, there is more relaxation. You must always put your own feelings and interests aside for his well-being. And: when we are together, that one week, then we are really together all the time. I can’t just ask someone: take over for a moment, go out at night. That is sometimes difficult, but there is also something very nice about it. Spending time with him so intensively creates a special bond.”

Especially that moment when his son is picked up and sits in the car and waves at him, and Schellingerhout then knows that he will not see him all week, “that is really difficult, yes.”