A little while back I shot a couple of images of Emile Roemer, the leader of the Socialist Party in Parliament and at the same time, my boss. I wanted to shoot pictures of a different kind of him, as he is usally portrayed full frontal on a white background. The decision to shoot portaits on black was easily made, but wanting something different from the usual portaits with someone who is so often in front of a camera isn’t the easiest.
However, I set off on my mission and quickly had Emile remove his tie & jacket to shoot some more personal shots. With just one light and having him sit down, I managed to get some very lovely pictures, saying so myself. Later on during the shoot, I had him put the jacket back on and we had a good laugh. The shot you see on the right is probably my favorite and by the looks of it the
favorite of the publisher too as they printed it on a full page in the magazine.
Now, how that came to be? During the christmas gathering of the party we had a few drinks with everyone and somehow my pictures came to the table. Very quickly they asked me whether they could print them with an interview they had done with Emile and well, this is the result. The second image is on the next page by the way.
The printed version just came in and I had to share it with you guys. I’m very happy with the result.
Number two of my picture sets of the Candyskull shoots, Angele.
Since a couple of days I had been really looking forward to shooting some of these beautifully painted faces. MUA Kimberley that I had worked with recently set up a shooting event for a whole bunch of models, MUA’s & photographers with a ‘sugar skulls’ theme. Thanks to Dick who kindly let us all use his very lovely and large studio. Today was the day and I ended up shooting a couple of different models in little portrait shoots.
Over the next couple of days I want to post these pictures, and today I want to start with the first shoot I had, the one with Anneke. I have known her for some time and she had seen my camera before, so the nerves she had before shooting were quickly out of the window and Kimberley had done a great job on the facepaint. So, without further ado, here’s Anneke!
Upon a little tip from Justine (see earlier posts) I got a message from Liedewien who missed shooting a whole lot because while living in London she doesn’t have the time to shoot. She was in the Netherlands for the holidays and decided to come by for a shoot.
We had a little run in with the studio equipment, so we decided to work with some alternatives and we had a great time!
Sweet Justine had been to the studio before and she wanted something different. This time she thought to do something more along the lines of ‘Twilight’ vampires. So, together with MUA Kimberley we set off to arange this. This is some of the stuff we came up with.
It was a very long and tiresome week, but boy did I have fun. Hours were spend guiding people past the mailbox of the glass house and hours helping people registering cheques. It was the best of fun to sell ‘Lingoliebollen’ with Lucille Werner and JP, answering the phone in the church, in the little callcentre in there, to hear the stories of all those people giving money to hear a record played and that final moment in the double row with the DJ’s passing through to the stage with the grande finale. The crazy amount of over 12 million was gathered this year and I had to cry, right there and then in Enschede.
Hopefully I will be able to do the same thing again next year, for it was awesome and I hope to see Leeuwarden go all the way! But for now, I want to finish with just a few moments, a few pictures to show you guys my week of Serious Request!
It’s been a while, but Myrthe came to my studio in Oktober. Due to a lot of stuff I had on my hands, I haven’t been able to post these pictures before, but I do want to share them with you all, as her beautiful hand made dress surely is a winner. To shoot something else I shot her in her daily clothes as well.
The chair we used in the photographs was donated by a friend who found it (together with its twin) in the streets and I’ve been happily shooting with the wonderful chairs since. They look so good in these shots I think! So what do you guys & girls think?
For a year now I have been working for the Socialist Party and only recently, after getting our new studio, I got the nerves to ask Emile Roemer whether I could have some of his time to take some portraits. Knowing him as a person would make the portraits I had in my mind a whole lot different from the ‘usual’ portaits I normally see on the billboards and I wanted to take a little time to portrait the ‘real Emile’. Up close & personal.
Last night I got the opportunity and this is what I shot…
Sometimes you have someone in the studio who thinks they don’t ‘stick in pictures’. It’s a photographers term really, but what it means is that they think they can’t look nice in a photograph. Last night I had Marjolein who asked before whether she could have a look around in my new studio if she was in the neighborhood. My answer, as always, was ‘of course’, as I always love sharing what I do with others.
So when I was shooting with Nadine (pictures will follow tomorrow) she helped us out, thought of some good ideas and we had fun altogether. But when I finished my shoot with Nadine, I told Marjolein to sit down in front of the light I had setup and pose for a picture.
She started to giggle and laugh and told me again she wouldn’t be good in a photograph. I told her that I thought otherwise and joked around a bit. Within maybe three minutes I had shot the portrait you see on the right. It’s hardly post processed and I think resembles her as a person pretty well.
So, after finishing the shot I sent her the image on Whatsapp (this morning) and basically she had to recall her ‘I don’t stick’ statement for she loves the shot.
Those are the moments I really love doing what I do. The moments that make my work as a photographer special. Seeing beauty in things, especially in people, when others don’t seem to see it. It makes me happy, being able to show people like Marjolein they can look pretty in a picture and with shooting these images, people like Marjolein in this case make my day! Probably without them realising this, so with this update, thank you and all you beautiful people that let me shoot you!
Because my model dropped out pretty last-minute Debbie decided to come by and fill in. We both had a long week allready and just headed off to do some light work. For a quick shoot in the studio, we had a good time chatting and this is what we ended up shooting (among other things).
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