short bio
Next to being a photographer and aspiring filmmaker, Iʼm a professional creative nerd with 15 years of work experience at the intersection of marketing, design, and software development. This gives me a vast wealth of creative and technical experience to draw on.
I donʼt believe in doing just one thing, and love to learn.
For as long as I can remember, Iʼve had an undying need to create stuff. As a kid I was always busy writing, drawing, model building, recording radio shows with my sister, or shooting movies with our videocamera. Iʼve also always had this drive to want to figure out how things work, which resulted in a love for science, mathematics and technology.
I spent most of my teenage years behind computers like a proper nerd. My interest in visual effects and Star Wars got me spending all my spare time learning 3D animation. After a few years of that I discovered Photoshop (4), which got me into photography. I also learned HTML before most people, and had my first web design company aged 16.
I live in Rotterdam with my amazing wife and our 1 year old daughter.
filmmaking
One of the internet startups I was involved in over the last few years was an e-learning company producing online courses. We built our own 100 m2 green screen studio in an old warehouse, created virtual sets in 3ds Max, and shot on cheap HD consumer cams hooked up to a Blackmagic recorder. All very guerilla style, and I learned a lot from supervising post-production and directing.
Iʼm currently focussing on getting more experience with the language of cinema and directing by working on short films with and for other aspiring and professional filmmakers.
design, the web & business
Making a website for my 3D stuff in the mid-ʼ90s taught me the importance of user interface design. I used 3D to make buttons feel real, and learned HTML so I could make it work the way I wanted. My first company was born out of this!
During university, I ran another business: a webshop selling movie merchandise. Because of my focus on the user experience, within a year, I had the most popular webshop in that market nationally. I later sold it.
Since graduating Iʼve spent 10 years working on complex web applications, combining design experience with a deep knowlegde of web tech, standards and usability. My clients ranged from government to advertising.