ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Dutchman Hans Hendriksen (1957) became addicted to travel from the moment he made his first flight to Mallorca at the age of 15. His occupation is international account manager in railway related products. In an interview Hans explaned his passion for travel:

"Besides letting myself be continuously surprise about other cultures and people, travelling is for me the best way to discover my own identity and keep an open-mind attitude. Travel experiences always increase my tolerance and confirm my most essential values in life: one should be lucky enough to be able to learn every day, discover unknown places and people and follow the path of your deepest passions".

In 1991 he began to take pictures while travelling using a Minolta Dynax 8000i. From that period he travels through Asia, South- and Middle America or Africa every year. Soon travel photography became his deepest passion in life. He learned himself better travel photography by continuously trying to raise his target quality level. As a result of this, in his opinion your last work should always be your best. Hans prefers to shoot colourful daily-life scenes. After shooting travel photos for 15 years, he decided to start-up his own travel photography company. On this site, which includes 30 photo galleries from countries on 4 continents, you find a selection of the most unique moments he witnessed during his world-wide travels. Hans characterises his work as follows:

"I'm a great admirer of the famous French photographer Henry Cartier-Bresson and think I use a similar style. Like him I'm always searching for contrasts and try to capture 'The Decisive Moment'. I also like to put some humour in my photographs and will never cut in the original composition. In my opinion Cartier-Bresson gave the best photography definition. He described photography as the virtual point where eyes, heart and brains meet. For me travelling feels like watching adventure movies from which I pick out the special moments intuitively. I take the best photographs almost unconscious, in a state of trance. It often happened that I "wake up" after shooting impressive frames and ask myself: did this really happen?".

Photos: Nicolle Clemens

Hans lives in the Achterhoek, an agricultural area in the eastern part of The Netherlands. To give you an idea about this Dutch region, he selected 64 daily-life and nature impressions for a special Achterhoek Photo Gallery.

Translated into English, the word Achterhoek means something like "Back Corner". Maybe you understand this name looking at the photographs Hans shot the last 12 years.

After working 7 years with a MINOLTA DYNAX 8000i, 5 years with the CANON EOS-1n HS and 5 years with the CANON EOS-1V HS Hans switched to digital December 2007. He now uses the CANON EOS-1Ds Mark III with the following main features:

· Maximum resolution: 21,1 MPixels (5616x3744 pixels).
· Image sensor: full frame CMOS 36x24 mm.
· Processor: Dual DIGICIII.
· Maximum speed: 5 RAW frames p/sec.
· Color depth: 14-bit (16.385 tones per color channel).
· Stored image files: RAW (22-35 MB per photo).
· Converted archive image files: 60 MB TIFF per photo.
· Weight: 1385 grams including Lithium ION battery.

During his travels he uses the following CANON lenses:

· Standard: CANON EF 24-70 f/2.8 L USM.
· Wide-angle: CANON EF 16-35 f/2.8 L Mark II USM.
· Tele: CANON EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L USM IS.
· Tele-extender: CANON 2X

His standard travel equipment also includes the CANON speedlite 580 EX II and 77+ 82 mm. circular polarisation filters B+W type Käsemann Slim Line.

On the road Hans uses the CANON Media Storage Viewer M80. All images are stored in RAW format on the M80 which has a total available hard disk space of 74 GB an holds a 3,7" TFT screen.

In his equipment are always two SANDISK Extreme III Compact Flash memory cards 16 GB and two SANDISK Ultra II Secure Digital cards 8 GB.

EXHIBITION

Hans Hendriksen presented his work during the photo exhibition "Sabaidee! - Precious Moments of Thailand and Laos" which was held in the City of Zwolle (NL) during May and June 2001. You will find detailed information about the exhibition including photo impressions of this event here.