There I was sitting in the pond, with only my upper body above the body. I sat there for hours. My family declared me crazy. But it was the only way. This is how my photography journey started.
I, Loes Heerink(1989), am a Dutch photographer and storyteller from the Netherlands. I write all the text on my website so I am going to write this section in me-form and stick to the facts. As I am not terribly good in writing about myself.

I bought my first camera when I was 17 and I never put it down. I remember saving money and going to the store to get one. The reason I wanted a camera was because I really like animals. My parents have a ditch behind their house where there is usually a lot of activity. Frogs, butterflies and so on. A male flat-belly dragonfly flew around, that was particularly pretty. I wanted to take a picture of it so I could also look at it during winter. Needless to say. That didn’t go very well.

The damn dragon fly was flying all over the place and was frightened by me being there. Eventually I figured out he was flying in some kind of pattern. So I decided to get in the water and wait. Hours passed. When it finally sat down I took the shot and I was so happy! So happy I got it on camera! That feeling is the reason I never put the camera down again. Looking back it is not the best photo, but this photo does mean a lot to me! I remember a lot of the feelings I got when getting the shot. So most of my pictures mean something more to me than what you see in the shot.

The beginning

I didn’t start photographing for real until 2014. I was working for a couple of magazines and NGO’s in Vietnam. My first photo collection, Merchants in Motion, got a lot of publicity and got turned into a book. In Vietnam I also worked on the series Shops of Vietnam. Which I never really got to finish. Maybe one day in the future!

Loes Heerink now

Right now I am living in the Netherlands. I work for Moneybird as a Community and Marketing Specialist. In my spare time I am working on the series Farmers and Growers. In this series I follow farmers all year round to show what their work entails. I hope this series reminds people of where our food and produce comes from. Amongst the farmers I follow is a dairy farmer and a blueberry grower.

Expositions

I can’t believe it! But there are some establishments that want to hang my work for expositions! Stoked! This are the places my expositions taken place:

• De Watertoren (Hengelo – the Netherlands) – Merchants in Motion – December 2018
• American Embassy (Hanoi – Vietnam) – Merchants in Motion – March 2019
• La Purgatoire (Paris – France) – When flowers save us – June 2019
• Bibliotheek Hengelo (Hengelo – the Netherlands) – Merchants in Motion – November 2019

Publications

I feel very proud, privileged and fortunate of my works publication! Here is a short selections of publications.

• Landleven – September 2019 – Farmers and Growers
• Tubantia – April 2019 – Interview Farmers and Growers
• Conde Nast – December 2018 – COVER!
• Holland Herald – October 2018 – COVER!
• Metro Nederland – February 2018
• Lufthansa
• Flow Magazine
• National Geographic – December 2016
• The Guardian – November 2016

Contact:

If you want to know more about me, don’t know why haha, feel free to contact me!