Dutch bicycles Print

Already as a small child, looking at the world as an animated place, like children do, I loved to pretend I was looking at it through a camera. I did not own a camera and was not familiar with photography. I would pretend that I was filming or photographing things around me, while playing, going on walks or travelling from Holland to beautiful Scotland with my Scottish mother. For a long period it became a second nature to me. The era of the digital camera was a revelation to me. When I started picking up a real camera, I found that I could actually catch on camera what I saw. It felt that I got back my child’s eyes and the animated world with it. This was very exciting to me and inspired me to continue photographing, apart from making paintings and sculptures. I also realized that what distinguished me from others, were my own eyes and what I saw. These eyes would guide me on my further path as a photographer. I get my inspiration where the everyday moment and place come together with my cultural knowledge and interests, with texts from literature, with images from the history of art and music, with figures from literature and history. My topics are varied and range from realistic to abstract, from nature to industry and from raw to picturesque. But it is the Dutch light which inspires me most of all, the way it plays with sky and water, the quality of purity and playfulness, radiance and lightness it gives to the photograph. Using a moving camera, I minimize any manipulation of the photograph and let it speak for itself. It’s all about catching the moment, the light, color and forms, rhythm and movement and about the effect of tranquility, titillation and exhilaration the image provokes. Taking the photograph, as an artist I create a moment together between me, my camera and whatever presents itself. For the viewer on the other hand the photograph creates a moment of freedom to create his or her own experience, which will be different each time he looks. The viewer can go back to an event, time or place, a sound, a color or a scent and enjoy a moment of pleasure and harmony.