It is time to say goodbye to my website on www.pbase.com. Normally I find it quite unpleasant to say goodbye, but luckily it’s less difficult when something new comes instead…
Since I have focused more and more on macro photography over the past years, I thought it would be a suitable thing to set up a new website that is entirely dedicated to my specialism, macro photography.
Also I decided to quit my monthly picture. But.. no worries, I’ll keep you informed on a regular basis with new pictures and all kind of novelties in my brand new ‘news’ page.
Many thanks go to René van Dam (RvDam) who built the website for me in such a short time. I am pretty sure I can speak for the both of us when I say we worked like crazy to have the website finished before my solo exposition in Germany (more about this in the coming news section).
Surely my ‘eye for detail’, which is of such a good use during photo shooting, must have driven René desperately from time to time… Nevertheless we can look back on a successful co-operation and I hereby proudly announce my new website to be online!

Nowadays, when you talk about a photographic portfolio, people automatically think about a digital portfolio. Your best selected pictures on a screen, on your computer or on social media platforms. That’s all fine of course, but today I’m talking about the real thing, about a printed portfolio.

I come from the analogue era. When I started with photography ( some 22 years ago…) I mostly shot with black and white films. I developed these films myself and I printed my own pictures. I learned among others about contrast and density. I knew the films, the grains, and the papers. I knew the effects of a thin or heavily exposed negative upon the final photo. And no, I for sure did not like the smelly and unhealthy chemicals nor did I like the dark. But I was in touch with my photos from the beginning till the end and that felt good.

Of course I also did some color shooting back in these days. The processing of color negatives and the printing of  color photos was however too expensive and complicated to do by myself, so I had to outsource these handlings. The print results often were disappointing though. The negative was something you couldn’t edit so it was kind of limited. The photo lab often used corrections you had no control about. Therefore I was relieved when finally the digital cameras showed up. Especially since in the meanwhile my preference for color photography had grown. Now I could shoot and edit my own color pictures. The thing is that the processing of the images was often limited to the digital editing of my files. The need for prints became less important because with the digital cameras there came the computer and the internet instead to show my pictures. The photos therefore only seldom were printed on paper. In other words, in the end the process was not complete and I had lost touch with my final prints.

And then there was this colleague at work who frightened me with terrible stories about our digital photographic future. Now I don’t want to scare you but there could be a possibility that somewhere in the future we can not open our precious and well preserved digital files anymore, for all kind of reasons. Gone are all your photos. Unless of course…. you have decent prints of them. The traditional prints could therefore be a very important form of back-up or rescue. I slightly panicked there. OK, this was it. Now there was no escape anymore. I had to print my own portfolio. And so I did…

The first thing, the selection of my pictures, was great fun. How nice is it to sit behind your pc and see all your favorite pictures of the last 13 years or so pass by. In addition to the selection there was also some re-editing to do. Also very much fun. Then there was the printing. I figured I wanted the best possible print so I made some tests with different photo labs including the one where I work. Now as you might know my photos contain a lot of ‘blurry’ parts. These ‘blurry’ parts turned out to be really difficult to print. The test results showed that the well-known Durst Lambda print on Fuji Christal Archive paper gave the best results. Unfortunately it took me some time (three months) to receive all prints from the extern photo lab without stripes in the print or scratches on the surface of the paper. When it comes down to the final prints, they have to be good of course. I already knew I am a very precise person, now the photo lab knows too… 😉 And last but not least there is the portfolio presentation album. I had almost given up hope to find a real good looking one till the same colleague as before showed me the albums of Pina Zangaro. No more old-fashioned black canvas but modern light design. I chose for the semi transparent Vista Mist version in A3 portrait format, which is made of acryl and aluminium material.

I am very happy with my portfolio now. I can only recommend every serious photographer to print one as well. It takes you some time, effort and money but it pays off so well.

My selection in small format of 10×15 cm.

Looking for well matching combinations.

The assembling of the presentation album Vista Mist of Pina Zangaro.

Still assembling…

Filling my album with the final A3 format photos.

Still filling…

A sneak preview.

Happily finished.

All pictures were taken by Edwin Giesbers.

It is Christmas Eve. While the world outside feels a bit restless with refugee flows, fear for and threat of terrorist attacks, deforestation and climate change, I try to find some inner peace. I find it in this picture. The importance of friendship and brotherhood is indescribably. Sometimes a picture can tell more than one can say.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy NewYear.

It is this time of the year again. My challenging macro subjects have disappeared. No more flowers, no more insects and no more toadstools. And frankly I don’t mind that much. There is a time for working and there is a time for resting. About a week ago Edwin and I visited the beautiful Wadden Island Texel. The weather was rough but temperatures were oké. Excellent for relaxing and enjoying nature. Photography surely was not on top of my list. Except…. the day we visited Ecomare. Ecomare is more than a seal sanctuary. It is also a sea aquarium, a bird sanctuary and a nature museum. My heart was directly stolen by the young common seals. Once they were weakened or abandoned. They were found and Ecomare rescued them. Now in a little bassin these sweet and inquisitive pubs were patiently waiting for their return to the Wadden Sea, one day in the future. It looked as if they felt save, at ease and protected in their temporary stay. Like being in mothers womb again. They just totally represented my feeling of wanting to cocoon. Enjoy little seals and good luck with your return to the great sea!