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Bert Vliegen
I am a landscape photographer and live in Den Helder, a small town in the northwest of the Netherlands. I use MF and LF film cameras and my favorite film to work with is Fuji Velvia50. I explore my creative boundaries by learning from the photo’s I make which for me works really well.
Back in 2004, I had the opportunity to visit Australia. Together, my girlfriend and I travelled from Sydney to the Blue Mountains, and the coastal track from Brisbane to Cairns.
It was a truly wonderful trip and we had numerous awe-inspiring moments. In photographic terms, it was the film age and I had a simple Nikon F50 with a cheap zoom kit lens on it. I bought some regular Kodak (negative) films which I used during the trip. My level of photography in those days, to be honest, wasn’t high and I didn’t have much knowledge about the different type of films that were on the market.
But during the trip, heavily inspired by the beautiful surroundings, I started to develop a more critical photography style.
At the end of our trip, we stayed for a couple of days in Cairns. From there we made a day trip to the small village of Kuranda, which lies some 30 km North of Cairns.
Kuranda is a beautiful picturesque village and located at the terminus of the world famous Skyrail and the Kuranda train. When we walked through the streets we saw a gallery. Because of my growing enthusiasm for landscape photography and nature, we took the opportunity to visit it.
Once inside a friendly staff-member welcomed us. She took the time to explain the work of the photographer. To be honest, I had never seen such beautiful work before! There were some photographs which reminded me of the Australian landscape I had just observed.