about me

 

I live in The Netherlands, happily married to my Muse (Michelle). Because of the many contacts I have with non-Dutch speaking customers and interested parties, I present this website primarily in English. 

 

Over the last ten years I have tended to move from mainly reading about life (study Modern Literature, University of Amsterdam) to mainly watching the life directly (daily occupation now is photography). There are days when I don't touch my camera, but then I work on viewing photographs from other people or studying the many books on photography. Or I am teaching the ins and outs of photography to others. See my courses on Photography on this website (in Dutch). My favourite subject is Portraiture.

 

What I have in mind while photographing other people, is avoiding the risk that I expose them how I myself would like them to be. And also how they themselves would like to be. The challenge is not to have opinions or to make suggestions, but to penetrate into the real self of the subject. It's rather trendy these days: not to be yourself, but to brand yourself. In that case I say: make a selfie and distribute it all over the world. But don't ask me to participate in that. I am interested in how you are. Not in what you would like to be. My inspiration in this? Rosanne Olson's wonderful photo book This is who I am.

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My photoshoots are usually focused on female nudes. I noticed that some recipients of my pictures don't appreciate the way in which I portray my models. "Male gaze", I hear them say, "insult to women", "oppressive toxic behavior".  Yet I have never asked a model to simply portray feminine glamour or sensuality in front of my camera. Those are the outer factors, and I want to touch more than that, more the inner self. I always realize that my models are not objects, but self-determinating actors with their own feelings and emotional perceptions. It is up to me to stage and arrange in such a way that I can 'capture' those particularities.

          

My models reveal sensuality, sometimes they are downright erotic, but while posing, they direct themselves within their own boundaries.

Their appearance is a phenomenon we can fall back on in an unexplainable human existence. My photography is a continuous process of finding an acceptable (not necessarily accepted) presentation of a reality that is not packed with moral and esthetical prescripts, a reality that is not ‘known’ or contemplated.