For me, photography is mostly about showing the viewer something they may not have seen or cannot see with their own eyes; this could be a memory from the past you might want to see again or take a closer look at or something very small that looks even more spectacular close-up. Even as a child, I loved taking pictures, especially in the zoo where, if my parents would allow me to, I shot many rolls of film with animal pictures (we didn’t have digital camera’s back then). At first, they gave me my mum’s old 35mm Kodak camera, which of course wasn’t the right focal length to take the close-ups I wanted to make. When I got older, I saved up my allowance and birthday money to buy my first camera with a zoom lens.
Photography became serious business when I started working as a journalist for a local newspaper, during the last phase of my Master Business economics. Of course, I enjoyed the investigating and writing side of the job, but if I’m honest, I especially liked the fact that I was able to take the pictures accompanying my articles. Sometimes I did feel a bit silly with my DSLR camera, pretending to be a news photographer, when I didn’t really know how to set up my camera properly. Therefore, I decided to go to the Fotovakschool Rotterdam for a basic course in photography. After only the first lesson, I was completely sold and proceeded with their professional photographers program. In 2012 I obtained my certification and I’ve been working as a photographer ever since.