René Kuipers

I'm in between an amateur and semi-professional portrait photographer based in the Netherlands. My main job is working as an electrician.

I love to make portraits! I used to do landscape photography, until i made some portraits at a dance school of a friend of mine. Now i have my own studio, and only do portraits now. I also like to do dance photography, i think my main interest lies mostly in Ballet and modern dance.

I have a bit of a dark style. I really like the light from the old masters, like Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Vermeer. I often use Rembrandt-like lighting in my images.

When i started photographing in this dance studio, i realised that i was good at making portraits. So i am still thankful my friend asked me for this job.

My job as an electrician makes me interested in technical aspects, and i was also interested in camera techniques. I took a study in photography in 2009, i learned a lot about lighting and camera techniques and that really helped me understanding photography. Nowadays i use internet to get new ideas, like Instagram/pinterest. And i work with dancers a lot.

The image that made me win, was something i've tried before. I really like to use photoshop, and the idea was to make a series of images from two sisters. I photographed them in different poses and combined them together with photoshop. I had an image in my head which came out excactly how i wanted it to be. All the "sisters" are looking in adoration to the one in the center on the chair. The background is a photo of an old painting, i merged that in too.

I'm very precise when i make composites like these. Sometimes i'm working on pixel-levels that nobody probably will notice, but i noticed something, and then i have to adjust it.
Maybe that helps to raise the quality of my images? In this case it worked haha.

Sometimes i run into old buildings at my work, where interesting backgrounds can be found. I take photo's with my phone, later i can use these backgrounds to put a model in it with photoshop. In my studio i'll make sure the lighting conditions for my model are the same as it was in the earlier photographed location. It's much easier to make it look realistic, when the light is coming from the same direction. I'm currently working on a series of models in abandoned buildings in that way.

I always try to draw to viewer into the eyes of the person i photographed, i want them to be captivated by them.

I always look at people if i see something in their eyes that makes it interesting for me to take a portrait of them.

I just like to make nice portraits of people, i don't always have a story behind the image.

It's always nice that your work is recognised when competing in a contest. You always hope for a prize, but i'll never take it for granted. This was a big surprise, the level of the competition is very high!

Lately i've been trying analog photography again! I bought a Yashica MAT124G TLR camera from 1983, and shoot portraits with it in my studio. It's a total different work ethic then working digital! I take more time to compose my image, and i have to check the settings multiple times, before taking the photo. I only have 12 images on one roll of film! But i really love the way some of these image come out of this beautiful old camera.

Well, since i have won a price, it is absolutely a positive experience! I like the website too, and communication is good also.

Do what you like to do, and learn from your mistakes! Use the critique you get to improve, your work will get better from it eventually!