I was born in Flanders, Belgium, into an artistic family; father painted, was a fantastic piano player and writer of poetry and prose.
With the grandparents on outings there was always a camera. I was allowed from a very young age to take photographs.
I grew up with art, painting, drawing and photographing.
Inspired by seeing how the colours of flowers stood out against the black painted borders, on the bottom part of the walls, on typical Flemish farmhouses, I made soft pastels and oil paintings; flowers on a black background.
As my interest in photography grew I started to experiment. I had black velvet paper and always fresh flowers in our home. I tried photographing them on the black velvet. So the journey started.
Then I wanted to know more about lighting. That was 25 years ago. Flowers seemed the perfect subject matter, because of their different colours, shapes, textures, great variety and 'characters'.
