Tell us a little about your background – what path led you to becoming a photographer, and to doing what you’re doing today?

My father owned an auction house that auctioned classical photo books. During my teenage years I used to be an assistant during the viewing days. I vividly remember leafing through first editions of photo books by Ed van der Elsken. They felt like a portal to a world that didn’t exist anymore. It really sparked something in me. My practical introduction came when I began using my father’s Leica—a camera he purchased in his twenties to document his travels to Central America. That Leica became a gateway for me to explore photography firsthand and ultimately laid the foundation for my first series, Puebla Rasa.

Can you tell us what the project ‘Puebla Rasa’ is about?

The project consists of a photo series that I worked on during the spring of 2023 in the Mexican city of Puebla. All images were exclusively shot with the same Leica CL that my father purchased in the mid-1970s to document his travels in Mexico. The photo series features portraits of men who belong to the same generations as my father (early 70s) and me (early 20s). The rest of the images captures the city of Puebla in relation to the passage of time. In doing so, it attempts to form a bridge between the two portrayed generations. It was as if my camera allowed me to relive my father's memories, but in the present moment, through my own visual language.

Can you tell us a bit more about your approach for this project?

When I first had the idea of working on a project in Mexico with my father’s Leica, I made it far too overwhelming for myself. I tried to approach it with a strong conceptual focus, insisting that every photo I took had to carry significant meaning. This mindset ended up paralysing my entire photographic process. However, when I arrived in Puebla—the city where the entire project was eventually shot—I simply started taking pictures. I tried to let go of overthinking why I was taking each photo and instead relied on my intuition and emotions. It wasn’t until I returned to the Netherlands, after completing my journey in Mexico, that I had the photos developed. Not being able to review the photos while shooting allowed me to maintain a certain playfulness and enthusiasm throughout the process. I like to think this sense of playfulness and spontaneity is visible in the final images.

Can you tell us a bit about the process of self-publishing. What made you decide to self-publish? What were you biggest challenges in the book publishing process?

I approached the process of self-publishing my first photo book quite naively. As a designer by profession, I felt confident in handling the process myself, especially when it came to aesthetics and layout. I knew what resonated with me and complemented my photographic style. However, I had never really worked on a photo sequence before, where the goal is to create a narrative through a series of images. A photo sequence is a storytelling form in itself, one that’s difficult to quantify or easily explain why something does or doesn’t work. It relies heavily on intuition, and mastering it took me a significant amount of time. In fact, I ended up creating about 25 different sequences before I finally felt confident about the one I had put together. What I learned through this process is that it’s all about iterations. You need to allow yourself the time to revisit the series repeatedly, laying it out anew and reflecting on how it feels each time. Gradually, patterns begin to emerge through these iterations, and you work your way toward a final sequence that feels right.

What does photography mean to you?

Photography is, at its core, an exercise in curiosity for me. It simply keeps me present!

Which other photographers, artists or creative people are you loving at the moment?

I keep coming back to the portraits of Dutch photographer Celine van Balen. They have a certain integrity that I admire. I also love all the work of Gregory Halpern. It carries an emotional honesty and a sense of mystery that makes me go back to his books every week. I’ve also been appreciating the visual language of Jack Bool. His photography has a certain warmth and optimism that I really like.