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Interview Landscape
Jeroen Hofman
Photographer Jeroen Hofman is well known for his high-angled Dutch landscape photography. I'm really happy he agreed to this article for I love his work.
- Tell us a little about your background – what path led you to becoming a photographer?
I actually always wanted to be an advertising illustrator until I was 16. I did collect a lot of photography, which I cut out of magazines to make collages… Through an internship at a photo studio, I quickly came to the conclusion that my path was there. After that school for advertising and presentation techniques, I went to the art academy in The Hague to study photography.
- Can you tell us a bit about your love for the Dutch landcape?
The eternal line on the horizon, the flat landscape, and if you wait long enough, sometimes four seasons pass by in one day. If you wait long, something beautiful arises. In fact, the Dutch landscape is so beautiful because the variation in cloudy skies is so breathtaking.
- For those unfamiliar with your work, can you tell us about your process?
I often make landscapes from a slightly higher position, often between 15 and 25 meters. This way you can see how beautiful the layering is in the earth's surface. People in the landscape then work as a tool to indicate the proportions. I work from a ladder or a cherry picker, which I often rent per shoot. It is a very slow way of working.
- You’re widely known for your landscape photography but you also do portraits. Can you tell us a but more about how you approach your portraits?
Portraits always have something stately about them for me…. it could almost be a statue. In both my landscapes and my portraits I look for a certain degree of peace. Photography is also a way for me to switch off my brain for a while.
- What defines a good picture for you? Or what are you looking for in a picture?
That's a difficult question... Often I look for a 'punctum' in an image, in itself Susan Sontag (On Photography) was simply right, a photo often only becomes special through a small effective element that draws your eye. I usually find images special when I see that it is something completely different from what I make myself.
- Which other photographers, artists or creative people are you loving at the moment?
On the advice of Nadav Kander I once stopped collecting photo idols in my head... then you work more freely yourself. Otherwise they just look over your shoulder. Lately I also tend more towards painting as a source of inspiration, from modern to contemporary. Maybe if I have to name one photographer who is going through an enormous development then it is Bryan Schutmaat, we are also at the same gallery in Amsterdam, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen. He is one of a kind...
© Pictures by
Jeroen Hofman