About me

Growing up in suburban towns in the Netherlands, I got my first camera - a fully manual Praktica - at the age of 13 or 14. I didn't really use it that often, because as a kid I couldn't afford much film and processing - but it did teach me all about the physics of photography. When I was seventeen, I got a Pentax ME Super with a nice set of primes, a 28-70 zoom, and a Sunpak flash, which really got me going.

A few years into my professional career I started traveling a lot, going to many places in Europe, the USA and Asia. To keep a visual record of my trips, I got a point-and-shoot - my first digital camera - and after two months I was so frustrated by its limitations that I purchased a DSLR. That's when photography started becoming more than just a hobby.

Over the years, my portfolio extended beyond travel photography to that other passion of mine - the performing arts. Through that, and fueled by a move to New York, I am now also taking on portraiture and representational photography, building on education from a.o. the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography.

About my approach

I distinguish between beautiful pictures and useful pictures. Useful pictures have a representational, promotional or documentary purpose, but do not have to be great art; and beautiful pictures have great esthetic beauty, but have little utility beyond a gallery (or my bedroom wall). And very few pictures have both, which is what I call great pictures.

I aim for great pictures, but for each shoot that I do, I know whether I need to err on the side of beautiful or to err on the side of useful. But no matter whether I end up with a useful, beautiful, or a great picture, I am a sucker for realism, light control and image quality, and go to great lengths to make sure that the final product is as technically perfect as possible.

Some words on composition and framing: I tend to use strong formal elements - compositional choices and vantage points that force the subject and its context into a geometry, in order to either unite or juxtapose them. I rely heavily on the classic golden ratio and rule-of-thirds, but instead of using that to position the subject, I sometimes use it to position its negative space.