I have a professional background in teaching and developing educational material. My specialties are photography courses and workshops, creativity workshops and talks about several photography related themes. My intended audience are professional and amateur photographers, artists, as well as people or organizations interested in creativity and the effects of images on our behavior.

Since 2008 I have been developing educational material and in-house workshops for both individual course participants and customers in the professional field. Besides that I work as a photography teacher for various educational institutes such as the Nederlandse Academie voor Beeldcreatie (former Fotovakschool) and the Hochschule für Technik in Stuttgart.

Teaching photography means to me: discovering, together with others, how (photographical) techniques and images can best be used to express a feeling, idea or story. My goal is to make people enthusiastic and more aware about the power of self-created images and to stimulate a critical attitude towards visual material in common. I do this by sharing knowledge about the way humans perceive and process visual information. I explain and show how the principles of composition and image design work, in order to control the intention behind the image. These are important tools for an image maker to be able to transfer and emphasize the message behind the image. This could be an positive or a negative one.

Besides that, I would like to learn other people to look more consciously, to be able to interpret the image flood that surrounds them in daily life, in order to fully understand and see through the messages behind them better.

In addition to that, I want to teach people how to create and manifest their own wishes, dreams, ideals and fantasies through images, by for example, using a photo camera. Being involved in the production of an image, enables the photographer to appreciate the technique of taking photographs and the image as a medium by itself, more. During the act of photographing, the image will show itself with all its expressional possibilities to the conscious photographer.
My lessons, courses and workshops contain the following topics or themes:
• Basic photography and getting to know the camera
• The possibilities and impossibilities of editing the Image
• Photographic design and the composition of an image
• Analog black and white photography
• The old photographic technique Cyanotype
• The image and its effect on our perception
• The development of creativity
• The use of images in (corporate) communication

Photography
What fascinates me about the medium of photography is that it is a combination of mechanics, physics, chemistry and human perception. The sense of time, light, space and the personal interpretation of the situation by the photographer create an added value to the image. Moreover, as a photographer you are invited to observe situations, to look around thorough and to act thoughtfully.

At the same time you have the power to decide for yourself at what point in time you will take action to capture the image. You are therefore able to ‘play’ with the concept of time. Besides this, there are countless possibilities for a photographer to shape and change his own idea of ​​reality freely, with the help of photography or photography related techniques. By using the medium of photography photographer is able to develop his own individual imagery, because the photographical image has common ground with the visual world that surrounds us every day.

Contact
For now, courses and workshops are only in German or Dutch. For groups or on special occasions, a bespoken photography program in English can be offered. Please contact me for more information.
On www.maartjeansems.nl you can find current workshop information.