I was born in 1962 in Amsterdam, though of British ancestry. After an initial career in professional audio electronics, and many a wandering subsequently (such as attempting to be a writer and a musician), I decided to do for a living what was finally revealed to me I am best at and, more importantly, enjoy most. I enrolled to Fotoacademie Amsterdam, from which I graduated cum laude in 2003. During my student days, and the years to follow, I volunteered as a photographer and editor for a magazine for the homeless, which set my course. Right after graduation I started working as a photojournalist for Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant and it’s weekly Volkskrant Magazine. Until 2020 I was affiliated with Academie voor Beeldvorming, an artists’ collective that aims to visualise societal developments by means of Art. Aside from my activities as an independent photographer I have been working as a mentor and tutor at Fotoacademie Amsterdam and Rotterdam from 2005 to 2019, and occasionally as a guest lecturer elsewhere.

Each and every photograph is just a simple two-dimensional illustration and has little to do with reality itself. Regardless of the setting – whether it be a controlled studio setup or a disturbing real life event – there is no way the spectator can reconstruct the veracity of photographic depiction. As a photographer I am true to the principles of classic documentary photography, while at the same time I aim to create images that raise doubt and confuse the spectator. Is this picture staged or is it not? I’m strongly influenced by Late Gothic and Early Renaissance painting (Paolo Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Massacio.) Hence the absence of perspective and plasticity in many of my pictures. A deliberate choice for an evidently unrealistic style, in more than one way ressembling the modern cartoon.
We cannot – not ever – capture the essence of our experiences objectively.