While adult kestrels are majestic hunters, it is equally intriguing to explore the growth and development of young kestrels as they transition from hatchlings to skilled hunters. I was very lucky to be around with my camera when the young kestrels left the nest. I spent an entire afternoon hiding under the goat hutch on legs, enjoying the first independent flights, their languorous gaze upwards in search of the parents, clumsy movements on fence posts and in trees.

When I returned to the Indian city of Varanasi more than a year later, you laughed loudly at the crazy child you now saw in the photo. Free, cheerful, uninhibited. That disappeared six years later. You were willing to pose to please me, but were ashamed of your younger self.

I feel as if I am living and working in a world that’s going in a direction I don't want. The feeling that I want to go backwards instead of forwards. Less instead of more. Rolls of film instead of my supersonic Sony camera (with inbuilt AI as in ‘automatic insect eye recognition’).

I am Dutch.
So I photograph tulips.

I believe it was Oscar Wilde who wrote: ‘With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.’ I would rather argue: most of the time age comes alone.

Sentimental Journal Magazine #8 is out! The theme of this issue is 'fauna' and I can't wait to see how beautifully this theme has been developed by a variety of authors, photographers and artists. The preview looks very promising.

In spite of the colder temperatures, I love photographing winter scenes, especially when the sun lingers longer at dusk or dawn. The contrast of trees, pinks skies over a lake, waterfowl looking for an ice-free place: there is so much beauty to experience in a small radius around our house!

‘Mushrooms were the roses in the garden of that unseen world, because the real mushroom plant was underground. The parts you could see - what most people called a mushroom - was just a brief apparition. A cloud flower.’ ―Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood