PHOTOGRAPHY IS MY PASSION Nina Noordzij

from RPS-Benelux Chapter eJounal - volume 23 - Summer 2021

by Royal Photographic Society

A SUCCESSFUL F PANEL

The RPS Benelux Chapter MEMBER

Nina Noordzij

“My development as a photographer has largely been stimulated by the increase in digital techniques”

Nina Noordzij is a member of the English

speaking Photo Club 16/24 in Villebois Lavalette in France. She is also a member of our RPS Benelux Chapter and we met during our ZOOMmeeting on 23rd March. This meeting was a good reason to ask her some questions.

What is your background and what is your relation to photography?

I studied Graphic Design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (Netherlands). Since 1988 I’m the owner of the design studio Collage, working mainly for publishers, theatres and cultural festivals. As a graphic designer, I regularly come into contact with photography. In my working life, it has therefore become part of my way of looking at things: zooming in and out, framing and editing. When I take specific photographs in this context, they are related to graphic design.

In contrast to my graphic work, for which I work on commission, my photography artworks are totally autonomous.

My development as a photographer has largely been stimulated by the increase in digital techniques. These enable me to obtain exactly the image I am looking for: to intensively edit my own photos and thereby create a new image.

Your photography is not just a file from the camera, but a result of post processing. What do you want with your alienation of your images?

I strive to share beauty. Just as in my graphic work, abstract concepts are important angles of approach when choosing a subject. Nature is a recurring element in my work. Life in the French and Frisian (part of the Netherlands) countryside gives my endless inspiration. The graphic elements that I add to my photos are characteristic of my way of working. I call it Photo-Graphique. The interweaving of abstract forms and figurative images gives my photography an extra dimension, with freedom for the viewer’s own interpretation. Reflections of architecture and nature are melted together into a new image, often with the recurring graphic pattern as the connecting element. The rich colour shades and light/dark accents create abstraction from a distance, while from close by infinite details are recognisable. My immediate surroundings inspire me, and the translation of this into an image reveals both chaos and structure on closer inspection.

When we visit your website, we see also other subjects, what is the relation with Photo-Graphique?

For some years now, I have also been photographing nudes. By seeing the naked body as a sculpture in an environment staged by me, it becomes a form within the image. New visual connections arise and it is up to the viewer to discover them.

Who inspires you and what can we expect from you in the near future?

The work of Levon Biss, Peter de Mulder, Niki Feijen, Zenna Holloway appeals to me enormously and after seeing his Zoom presentation, John Paul Caponigro certainly cannot be left out.

My surroundings have always been my source of inspiration. In the past fifteen years I have travelled extensively and my personal archive is filled with the most beautiful landscapes from all over the world but staying close to home has become the rule in COVID time, which is why I focus on 'nearby', in photography terms 'on a macro level'. A vision for the now and an elaboration for the future. To give my

photographic ambition more space, I have to reduce my graphic work. In France, I exhibit as much as possible, which keeps me on my toes and allows me to focus on my development as a photographer. I weave the graphic patterns, as if I were a spider, through my photographs. The combination of rigid graphic patterns and my photographic images intrigues me and I want to develop this further.