I am a fashion photographer by profession and don’t get me wrong I love my job but it does leave me empty as a creative person at times since fashion photography these days strongly rely on digital enhanced productions. The so called “impossible image”.

For the last few years I ventured more into fine art photography as well, still with strong overtones of my fashion influence but my subject matter has shifted towards the person I photograph instead of the clothing or commercial aspect of the image.

Secondly, I stick to an unwritten rule I have made for myself; not to retouch or manipulate fine art photos. The images have to be used the way it was shot. I don’t make use of any Photoshop filtering (airbrushing) for the models or rather “real women”. I shoot in digital raw (digital negative) and I will colour correct and play with the development settings only.

I think, it also has to do with my own personal view of my photos. I would like to look back years from now at a photo, for example, of my girlfriend and see what she really looked like in her early years and not looking at a photo of her that I know I manipulated for the sake of commercial perfection. I want to see every little scar and beauty spot, exactly the way it was shot. It makes for warmer images as well.

The “perfection” for me now is capturing the “imperfections”.

With fashion work I always forced all my shots into an ISO setting of 100 or less to achieve that ultimate sharpness and clarity in photographs for possible retouching purposes. Any setting over 100 was a no-no. I only recently realised how many great shots I missed because of this stupid rule; “Not enough light for ISO 100 – No photo”.

My favourite subject is people, especially women and I don’t think it will ever change.
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