As a social scientist I was turned into a photographer while doing research among Caribbean people in the Netherlands. Fascinated by their expressiveness and touched by their conditions I dropped criminology for the camera to make a photo book documenting the lives of Antillean people in the Netherlands and the islands where they came from. “Speransa” was published in 1998.
Working on “Speransa” brought me to the tiny island of St. Eustatius (usually called Statia), where I fell in love with its people. Statia has been a part of my life ever since, and I became part of the island's life. In 2016 I published “Statia Song”, my ode to the people of Statia.
Since a few years I’m again photographing the family that was central in “Speransa”.
