Homage Erwin Olaf is a quiet, cinematic tribute to the late Dutch master whose vision, discipline, and emotional precision shaped an entire generation of artists — including Ruben van Schalm. Created shortly after Olaf’s passing, the image was made in the same desert landscape where Olaf once worked, allowing the terrain itself to hold the memory of his presence.

At the center of the composition rests a Hasselblad on warm desert rock. Stilled yet charged, the camera becomes both an object and an echo — a vessel of legacy, discipline, and devotion to craft. The surrounding silence amplifies this sense of reverence; the scene functions as a threshold between grief and continuity, between absence and creative inheritance.

Rather than depicting mourning, the work offers something more intimate: a gesture of gratitude. It acknowledges the deep impact Olaf had on van Schalm’s early development — not only through the foreword he wrote for Paradise, but through their shared commitment to beauty, discipline, and the interplay of vulnerability and atmosphere.

Series: Don’t Stop Dreaming (2025) Medium: Archival pigment print Artist: Ruben van Schalm
See also: Into the Vast Parallel Dreams Between Skin and Stone