About me, my photography and this website

“I observe and tell visual stories about people”

Hi, Hoi, Hallo, Grüezi, Bonjour,

nice to see you here, my name is Vincent de Groot. I’m a Dutch independent photographer living in the center of Europe where the Swiss, French and German borders come together.

My work covers portrait, street and reportage photography. In all areas people are the common subject I am telling visual stories of people, their feelings and emotions.

Portrait

With my camera, I visit many places on the globe where I meet people. I see them and try to understand how and for what they live. There might be differences related to culture, religion and tradition but when it comes to emotions and feelings people all over the world share common needs they strive for. Happiness, recognition and respect from others are common even when the way how they enjoy and show those feelings and emotions might be very different. We all deserve equal rights but, we should never forget: We are all unique personalities and all are making our world colorful.

I like to discover personalities and emotions which, at the first moment often remain hidden. Words in a common language are not needed to uncover them. Exchanging a glance, a short smile, a gesture; a kind of “flirting” reveals them in a natural way. With the portraits I show here, I share the precious moments I had with those people.

Street

Street Photography is very different, here it is all about the hidden beauty of every-day’s scenes happening in the streets. Moments where people become performers in their environment. Frozen motions are resembling a feeling of an elegant dance which may continue at any moment in your imagination.

Reportage

The portraits and street photography are short encounters, a single image tells the viewer a story about the people. Some aspects in life need a series of images to tell a more complete story. On the website I show various reportages dealing with culture, religion and tradition, again people are in the center.

Future   

The people who happened to cross my path taught me that nothing in life is more interesting than feelings and emotions. In this process I grow older and make me hopefully wiser and humble over time.

Traveling will continue, there is a lot to discover. Meanwhile my photographic style is evolving; it all started with Black and White. By leaving out color I could put more focus on the moment and feelings transported by the photographs. After reviewing existing work and a long consideration I decided to publish color photographs as well.

Licensing and assignments

If you want to license my work or need me for an assignment use the contact form here on this website.

Exhibitions, Awards & Publications

Solo exhibitions

  • 2011: Casa de Mali – Palau Robert, Barcelona (Spain)
  • 2010: Associació de Veïns Barri Segle XX – Terrassa-Barcelona (Spain)
  • 2009: Au Soleil – Biederthal (France)
  • 2009: Associació Demé – Terrassa-Barcelona (Spain)
  • 2008: Cara e cultura negra – Teatro Nacional Claudio Santoro, Brasília (Brazil)
  • 2008: Job Factory – Basel (Switzerland)

Group exhibitions

  • 2013: Lewisburg Literary Festival (USA) – Literary Laundry Room
  • 2010: Yeiser Art Center, Paducha (USA) – Paducha Photo

Awards

  • 2011: Second price Accenti Magazine (Canada)
  • 2009: First price UNICEF (The Netherlands)
  • 1987: First price (The Netherlands)

Publications 

  • 2014: Wallstreet International Magazine –  Article about photography
  • 2013: Pittsburg Jewish Music Festival (USA) – Multimedia part of the Dybbuk Opera by Ben-Amots
  • 2013: Endress+Hauser (Switzerland) – Art calendar (A2)
  • 2013: Endress+Hauser (South Korea) – Desk calendar (A5)
  • 2012: Café Philosophy magazine (New Zealand) – Magazine cover
  • 2011: Just Jazz (Germany) – CD cover and booklet
  • 2011: SIPA News magazine (USA) – Columbia School of International and Public Affairs
  • 2011: Accenti Magazine (Canada) – Magazine Cover
  • 2011: Business Insider (USA) – Web article
  • 2010: NGO flyer (Sweden)
  • 2010: Leaflet and website (United Kingdom)
  • 2009: UNESCO (France) – Flyer
  • 2009: Antilipseis magazine (Greece) – Article

Gear

Several years ago, I suffered from the G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). Healing takes time but, at some point I managed to get over this. Nevertheless I can tell you that today, I am a happy user of Fujifilm X cameras and lenses.  Before I used Canon 5D and a Panasonic FZ50 in Mali… At the end of the day equipment is not that important anymore.

Website Design & Credits

Sometimes people ask who did the design of this website. Let me describe how it I did it and give some credits.

In general I tried to use as much as possible standard components and avoid own development. The main components are:

On top of the Byblos Pro theme there is a child theme and I’ve made several CSS adoptions to make everything look consistent. 

So now what do I recommend you on making you own website?

After surviving the G.A.S. today I’m having the widely unknown W.D.S. (Website Design Syndrome). I am suffering from this since my first website. Sure, I do have some software development background this is from over 20 years ago and tried to use this. At a certain point you should accept, skills last not for ever and technology is evolving. To make it short: Development of this website took far too much of my energy, energy that probably could be better used for the content. Today I recommend you to have a look at Squarespace, and focus on content and your creative work and don’t get into the W.D.S.!

Up