To conclude my week of guest blogging I would like to share my most recent pictures with you. I’m currently enjoying my summer break, one of the benefits of being a high-school photography teacher. With this temporary freedom to roam, my range of exploring is dramatically enlarged. All these pictures were taken in the past couple of weeks. I can never escape the feeling that my most recent work is the most relevant… I would like to thank Der Greif for giving me this guest-blogging opportunity as well as for the feature in their awesome magazine, much love.

As a follow-up on my previous post about my early career as a visual artist/person I’d like to share some of my old paintings. I’ve been a bit reluctant to share much of my old work online, yet I can’t deny my roots. The first images, the urban landscape ones, date back to my early years as a painter. All of these paintings were painted on the spot. I was obsessed with getting exactly the right colors as I saw them in front of me. This is still very much how I approach my photography these days. It’s rather confrontational that in all these years (these paintings are more than 10 years old) my subject matter has barely changed. The second batch of paintings illustrate the moving away from landscape painting, heavily influenced by my teacher Philippe Vandenberg, as mentioned in my previous post. Early on in this phase I developed some sort of a narrative, painting skeletons of little houses as metaphor for a persons' reference frame, I kept painting these houses in different ways, elaborating my narrative and ended up getting so sick of it that I decided, after destroying most of those paintings, I would never make anything with a consistent story anymore. In a way this is still how I work today, to me each picture has to stand on its own without the help of companions. To this day I still struggle with constructing bodies of work partly because of this decision. The fusion of these two styles is the foundation of my vision as a photographer.

For this blog post I’d like to feature two people who had a distinct influence on my work, Marc Maet and Philippe Vandenberg. These guys used to be my teachers in Painting while I was studying at the Ghent Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK).  Tragically both painters ended their lives, this didn’t leave me indifferent. Marc Maet was my teacher in my first year at the Academy, he was the coolest dude I had ever met. Cowboy boots, pitch black combed back thinning hair and a black moustache. We had to paint still-lives and every now and then he gave demonstrations. Whenever he picked up a brush to fix a part of a painting one could only be in awe of the confidence with which he put down a section. He was a very no-nonsense kind of guy pushing us to creating strong images that had nothing to do with concepts or vague narratives. (more…)

Petra van de Ree is another Dutch photographer I have enjoyed following over the past few years. Even though her pictures of the Spanish island of  Lanzarote (featured here) are not a real series, according to Petra, I still find something hypnotising about these images. The volcanic rocks seem to absorb any rays of light thrown at them. The photographer escaping tourist crowds to seek an underlying meaning of this place. With great accuracy she portrays a disjointed tourist perspective I often find myself messing around with, a kindred spirit. Petra also has a black and white series on her website delving deeper into the black rocks of Lanzarote, this series is called Dark Matter. petravanderree.dunked.com

Joris Vandecatseye is a Belgian photographer who has been on my radar for the past couple of years, churning out one gem after another. The pictures he recently took on a road trip through the states are just pure gold. The 32 photographs collected in my book 'LEAVE ON' were made during a 6 week roadtrip through the US. We set off in Atlanta, crossed the southern states, and arrived in San Francisco by the end of May, 2013. jorisvandecatseye.com

Today I'd like to feature some images of Dutch photographer Bart Van Damme. These pictures are part of his Maasvlakte series. I came across Bart's work a couple of years ago. Looking at his skillfully composed pictures my mind wanders off to the lowlands. The almost clinical precision of his compositions is striking. His pictures have been a significant influence to my work in the past couple of years. The Maasvlakte series is available as a book on Bart's website. studiovandamme.com (more…)

Today I'd like to share some photos by my friend Jamie Hladky. Jamie is originally from Manchester, UK, and having lived and worked in London and Singapore he's now based in Canberra, Australia. We share an outsider's perspective on Australia. Living away from Europe, Jamie has developed a visual understanding of his new home by exploration and photography. These photos are from his recent series '1,864 km'. They were taken on road trips and walks through the many small towns in between Canberra and the inland regions of New South Wales. These places are sparsely populated and sometimes abandoned, which creates a unique atmosphere for the explorer, captured carefully here. jamiehladky.com blog.jamiehladky.com