To go beyond the obvious.
What lies beneath?
What is the undercurrent of a peaceful sea or river?
What is tugging my sleeve to come closer and see what is mostly unseen?
All my life I have been intrigued by what lies beneath.
It helped me unearth secrets never told. Therewith I helped people to pick up the pieces and move on, make things better.
As a photographer I’m drawn to the subjects that tug my sleeve. I‘ll do my research, dig in deeper, watch for movement, wait for the photo that wants to be taken.
Make visible what lies beneath and make the un-seen, seen.
LIVING IN A WARZONE FOR THIRTY YEARS
Thirty years of warfare between 1969 and 1999.
It is to live under the constant threat of death, mutilation and loss through violence. It is to live with the drama of your loved ones’ brutal death and the loss of your home and belongings.
It is also nevertheless, a life that simply wants to be lived.
How do you, as a person, as a family, as a community, come to share the memories and come to face the grief and devastation? Commemoration, alone and together, gives the deceased the place they deserve.
A UN-FORSEEN SHIFT
It is January 2020, and I’m in Cambodia for one last time.
All arrangements have been made for the book’s release in collaboration with Monument Books, as well as for a book launch and several exhibitions.
On January 28th, Cambodia reported its first Covid-19 infection.
From that moment on, the pandemic started spreading all over the world.
By March 16th, the Netherlands were in lockdown.
From the start, I roamed the empty streets with my camera and a 50mm lens. I‘m not really into taking pictures of all these beautiful buildings, with no people in sight. I tried to capture the eerie stillness, the ghost town of Amsterdam.
LIVING IN A WARZONE FOR THIRTY YEARS
In a field, in a flower stall, represented in still life, painted or otherwise – most of the time, flowers shine in full glory
Flowers are discarded when a loss of beauty sets in.
I save these flowers from the trash can. Their shape changes as they age, just as it does for people when we get older.
It all started with the tulips, then came the peonies, followed by some other flowers. I set up a tent in order to make my macro-photographs of aging flowers, still beautiful.
The chaos on my kitchen counter was complete when I even started taking pictures on the electric hotplate (though in this case, it wasn’t hot of course).
