He knew when to stay, until the light faded

On losing someone who made everything feel like bonus time.

I recently lost one of my closest friends.

His passing came after a very short and intense period. Sudden in its speed. Heavy in its impact.

His name was Jelmar van Belle.

If there is such a thing as a soul companion, he was that. We traveled the world together. We shared a craft — me as a photographer, he as a filmmaker. But beyond the work, beyond the images and the films, he was simply a beautiful human being. Always calm. Always thoughtful. Always positive in a way that was contagious without ever being loud.

On the invitation to his farewell, someone wrote words I want to quote here:

“Jelmar, a storyteller, a connoisseur, always caring for others. He knew when to wait, when to move, and when to stay, until the light faded.”

That describes him better than I ever could.

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We first worked together in Paris. Then New York. Then Morocco — two weeks in a car together, driving from Marrakesh through the High Atlas into the Sahara. He filmed everything. Not just the landscapes or the photographs I was making, but the doubt, the frustration, the moments where it wasn’t working and I didn’t know why. He had an instinct for what was real. He never imposed a story. He waited for one to appear.

The film he made from that trip is one of the most honest documents of how I work. You can watch it here. It’s his film, not mine. That’s how I still think of it.

Over the years he made many more films — about my studio, my process, the world I work in. They live here. When I watch them now, I hear his thinking in every edit, every cut, every choice about what to leave in and what to let go. If you want to see the full breadth of what he made, his work is at jelmarvanbelle.nl.

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In 2020 we sat down together for a podcast conversation. We talked about how we met, about the Morocco trip, about what it means to make work that feels like your own. But the part I keep returning to now is when he talked about his illness.

He had leukemia at fourteen. Twice. An anonymous bone marrow donor saved his life. And from that point on, he said, everything felt like bonus time. He was working on a personal documentary — about gratitude, about the search for the person who gave him those extra years. He wanted to make a film about what it feels like to owe your life to a stranger you will never know.

He never got to finish it.

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I think of the two weeks we spent driving through California. Ten hours a day in the same car. Not a single moment of awkward silence. Only exchange. Only curiosity. Only presence.

That is rare. Genuinely rare.

For ten years I had the privilege of calling him my friend. I will carry our adventures and our conversations with me for the rest of my life. I will miss him for the rest of my life.

And yet — somewhere beyond this visible world — I am certain our paths will cross again. In another life. In another moment. In another place.

My heart goes out to his dear girlfriend Maaike, to his family, his parents and brothers, and to everyone who stood close to him, or whose path he crossed.

Rest in peace, my friend.

@jelmarvanbelle — 05-12-1984 – 20-02-2026

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