Individually tailored course for beginners and advanced

I receive many requests for tailored tuition. For example an anniversary gift for a married couple; a group of friends; for groups of all shapes and sizes who want to learn the basic techniques in their own tempo and at a time of their choice. Or for advanced groups with a special request of a specific topic.

I really enjoyed your lessons and hope to be able to follow another of your workshops/courses in the future.
Katja

Beginners

Photos by students of the Basiscursus.

Photos by the students of the Vervolgcursus (Basis).

Advanced

I also give workshops and lectures at a high level. For photo clubs where there is already a lot of expertise. For NAFVA I made a documentary and an architecture masterclass. For the photo club in Haarlem I gave a short workshop about pinhole technique. Other subjects for other clubs in Uithoorn, Deventer and Kennemerland were the importance of format and framing an image, the meaning of composition, pinhole technique, the influence of color in image, all kinds of flash technique…

Besides teaching I coach people who have always been photographers and are looking for inspiration and enrichment. I did this for example for the photo groups InsideOut and Around the Table.

Teaching beginner’s groups involves practically oriented lessons so that all techniques are immediately understood. That means not just understanding the theory, but having put it into practice. This is the way I’ve worked for the last 20 years in the practical courses that I design for Fotogram. With the more advanced groups the practically oriented teaching involves, for example, going as a group to a special location, such as a paper mill,an oil mill, a workshop or a factory. You can also try out new techniques together. In every situation the students become more aware of the pictorial ‘language’ that they speak. Even though everyone makes photos at the same location, everyone looks differently. Thus you become conscious of other ways of telling the same story. And, last but not least, whether or not you are understandable. Or if your photo can tell its own story without the need for text and explanation.

Advanced: with stroboscopic disco flash

With a group I examined the boundary between photography and film. A great source of inspiration here is the engineer Gjon Mili and his beautiful stroboscopic flash photos. Most studio flashes have a lot of power but are incapable of rapid bursts. This disco flash can, though.

Student’s photos

Study of color in image

The role of color and color combinations in image is something that most people don’t think much about in photography. Still, it’s interesting to bypass intuition and explore a more conscious use of color. The treatise on the Art of Color by Itten and the work of Albers help with becoming more aware. One slight change in point of view might change the color combinations in an image dramatically. The eloquence of the image changes simultaneously.

I would also like to thank you for your enthusiastic presentation of knowledge about the beautiful world with and around the camera. If I have the opportunity I will certainly enrol for another workshop.
Hans

Unless you organize everything yourself, it’s just there. Color. But the role of color in image is greater than you think. One step to the side or another crop and you get another color combination. In this group everyone closely examined a couple of the different color contrasts as defined by Itten.

Short explanation of color contrasts

Color against color contrast: contrasting colors, usually primary, offset against each other:

Warm cold contrast: warm and cool colors offset against each other:

Light dark contrast: light and dark colors offset against each other:

Qualitative contrast: a saturated and a desaturated color offset against each other:

Quantitative contrast: much of one color against a small amount of another:

Simultaneous contrast: the appearance of one intense color seeming to suggest the opposite color:

Complementary contrast: the contrast between two complementary colors, colors that lie on opposite sides of the color wheel:

Panoramas

How do you approach that? What is the nodal point and how do you place your camera more towards the back of the tripod to ensure that you’ll be able to stitch you panorama accurately? And beyond the technique: what does it do for your composition if you work with such a stretched-out image? The source of inspiration here was the beautiful book Chaos by Koudelka. An inspiration not only as far as composition (a panorama can also be vertical) but also for content. The left-behind traces of people in a landscape. Beautiful and melancholy. In black and white.

Student’s photos

Interested? Please, e-mail or call me…