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My story

Most photographers tell the story of how they started photography as a child. I was one of them. Now we have access to instant pictures every day, but as a child of the 1970/80s I grew up with the tedious and exciting process that is film photography.

Using a Polaroid camera was very expensive back then, and I was only allowed to take a picture once in a while. My Dad gave me my first toy camera when I was maybe 3 years old and learned that every picture matters, because it costs money to develop, and the film roll ends eventually.

I wasn’t tall enough to look over the balcony railing, so I used the camera to see what lay beyond. I also documented moments of a holiday I never wanted to end.

From passion to job

I trained to become a professional photographer at a time when digital cameras were just beginning to become a thing. However, it took me a few years until I could afford a decent camera myself and found transitioning into the digital world after 20 years somewhat difficult.

Even though I now could take thousands of free photos, something was missing and seemed gone. Maybe it was this little element of surprise, the moment when you find out if your roll developed into something good or came back blurred, wrongly exposed or maybe even empty.

I think it was this constant sense of dread that created a discipline in me, to really think about what I was doing, but with digital I just took pictures without planning much, and so they were just not good.

Yes, I could have stayed entirely with film, but unlike today, film became less and less available and processing more and more expensive. There was an uncertainty if it would survive at all. It had to be digital or the highway and as bills had to be paid I ventured into other fields of employment for nearly two decades.

Starting over

Over the years, Photography became a hobby and I just wasn’t satisfied with what it was doing to me. I admire all these great photographers out there (Roland & Sabrina Michaud, Ryan Tatar, Robert Mapplethorpe to name a few) who take the kind of pictures I would like to see on my walls. I experimented with lots of different camera model and makers, thinking if only I can find the right camera I can start to take the pictures I want.

During a trip to India in 2019 that was on my bucket list for a very long time, I was forced to take pictures very quickly, because we kept traveling to a different location every day. I wasn’t trying to take great pictures, just memories I could take home.

It took me almost a year to look at them again on my Computer, and I then realized that documenting this journey was something I would love to do again, but better. As I prepared for another trip, the Pandemic arrived, and with it came great personal loss.

I started to rethink everything. I took a few online courses as refreshers and for inspiration and realized that it wasn’t the digital process, it wasn’t the wrong camera model, it wasn’t the motifs, it was me. I had to change my approach and start over. So I did.

Moving forward

I bought a house and I got a dog. We spend every day outside, come rain or shine. It gives me time to think and look. Really look. I thought everything around me was boring and uninteresting, then I took the camera with me and trained myself to see again – and the images I brought back from the dog walks weren’t as bad as I thought they would be. It rekindled the flame I thought was long gone.

So on different occasions I now take a different camera with me (pocket or DSLR) or just one lens (prime or zoom) as it challenges me again, like it did back when I was using film.

Sometimes less is more. It’s all part of the process.