Hello there fellow steemers, steemians?

I'm quite new to this platform, it got my attention because off cryptocurrencies which i'm currently kinda obsessed about. ':D

Besides that i'm also a professional photographer and therefore i'd like to share with you how i got into photography and showcase some of my work

Although I didn’t necessarily wanted to become a photographer, I started a study in 2009. Photography skills, I thought, will benefit me somehow the rest of my life. Besides that I thought it would be a good way to spark my curiosity. As a child I was always interested in everything around me and how stuff works.

The expected charme of photography didn’t quite catch me. The 2nd year of my study, I was confronted with a disappointing internship. And when I heard I had to repeat a year, the doubt really hit me: should I continue or stop? I continued. I wanted to finish this study and prove to myself I could do it.

Photography is about more than nice pictures, I discovered in my 3rd year during an internship. The most important thing I learned is that a picture should tell a story. By that time my appreciation and respect for the profession grew.

I put to the test what I had learned from my study, during my dissertation subject 'heroes’ in 2013. While I was trying to figure out the meaning of a hero, I discovered that anyone could be a hero. A musician, a graffiti artist and a bartender. I photographed these three people in a heroic way in their natural environment. Without showing their face. It wasn’t about them, but about what they mean to other people.

Since than i've learned a lot more than i did during my study, by now i can proudly say i'm a professional photographer. I specialize in commercial portraiture, doing a lot of work for entrepreneurs magazines and local businesses.

Below i will show some of my work and explain why and how i shot it.

When photographing it's important to play with your surroundings. These 2 gentlemen were showing me around a food distribution centre under construction. As soon as we walked in i noticed how nice the contrast between the cold light of the construction-lamps versus the warm light from outside was looking. I wanted to play with this and asked them to stand into the light talk to each other while i could take pictures of them. In the meanwhile i look for composition and take the shot. Sometimes it is required to guide your subject a little bit by telling them to make hand movements or pose a certain way, in this case it came naturally.

These pictures are made for Growcoon, the growcoon is a sustainable alternative to existing plugs in the horticulture sector. For this assignment i got sent all over the Netherlands and a small part of Belgium to photograph farmers who are using their product.

These pictures are made for a second devision Soccer team. The goal was to create pictures for them to use on their website and other commercial outings. These pictures are made in the studio and i photographed the backgrounds of their stadium on another day. The most important thing to keep in mind with this shoot was to get the lighting right, i had put up strip softboxes beside the players to give the illusion that they were being lit from behind. I than had to make shure i had some source of light in the background shot, i knew if i could do that than the lighting would look as if they're in the stadium. There are some flaws in the photo's but I learned a lot on this project and i'm eager to do it again because i know that the next time it'll be even better.

This was the last one for now. I hope everyone liked this introduction, if so there will be more to follow :)