"Farmersland" ©  Theo Berends, 2006   l   "The Journey" ©  Theo Berends, 2006

Theo Berends - Photography/Digital Art (Currently resides: Nieuw Amsterdam, The Netherlands)   :::   WEBSITE :::   EMAIL

I show that the secret exists...
"Respect and emotion: the two words that describe my manner of working. A subject deepens itself if it's approached respectfully. One can look at a stone and "just" see a stone, but one could also realise that this stone is thousands of years old and has had incredible experiences. If this is your way of approaching a subject, you will receive something in return as a photographer. The image produced will become richer and more beautiful. Many objects reveal their secret only after four or five times, and even then it's impossible for me to tell the secret of that landscape, that town, or that woman. However, it is possible for me to make a picture that shows that the secret is there. I'm not sure whether secret is the right term, but what else can you call it? Mysticism? Alliance?""I photograph on the basis of emotion. The ideas for many of my photographs arise on the spot or during a session. More often than not, a shot entails only the beginning of a process. I linger about what I felt during the shooting, about why, about the backgrounds or the history of the subject. The new information and the new feeling connected with this is added to the photograph at a later moment. For this goal, I make use of modern computer techniques, but I also sometimes scratch the negatives, pile up negatives, or I cut them to create new elements. I keep working on a photograph until my feeling tells me "this is perfect now. For me, photography entails a voyage of discovery. When I look through the viewfinder, I can put the world in a framework and make it according to my feelings. That's the world I photograph. That's all there is to say."