A Set of Sketches
Using my camera as a sketchbook, I travel remote country lanes to tell stories of faraway tales, gathering components like pencil drawn sketches.
I want to capture the smell of nettles in the spring rain, the sound of the skylarks high above the fields and the taste of freshly picked peas from a kitchen garden. The feeling of cooking over an open fire in the farmyard while watching the free-spirited wild ponies dancing in the summer grass on the hill, having purple stained hands from picking wild blackberries ripened in the late summer sun.
My work is always sketch-like, driven by feeling. I capture what I see, but more importantly, what I feel, the soul of a landscape, the natural world and the people who live in it.
I want to pass on the tales told at a farmhouse kitchen table and those told by the shepherd working high in the hills with his five dogs. I want to tell the stories of the small farm-to-table producers working the land and finding regenerative ways to do so and those of the artisans who have been passing on their skills for generations.
My technique is pure and natural; the subjects and lighting follow the rhythm of nature. Each image is a sketch; nothing has to be perfect, as long as it captures the essence of the moment and the images tell the story I want to tell. My camera is merely a tool, my sketchbook to tell the story.
My journeys always lead me back to my own farm, where growing vegetables and keeping animals connect seamlessly with my creativity. The rhythm of the seasons and the quiet moments spent tending the land in a regenerative way inspire every part of my process.
I want to celebrate freedom, the freedom that is found in the simplicity of the land and the stories that unfold with it. These stories are everywhere and they shape my life, my photography, my writing, my love for seasonal, homegrown food and cooking it.
Be wild, be free and search for adventures and stories, they are everywhere.
Roadsides full of pink willowherbs and cooking hotdogs over an open fire.
My BIO
I am Anna and I work as a photographer and journalist for various magazines, creating stories in images and words. My work always has a rural touch to it.
And because of my love for cooking and seasonal homegrown organic food, I also create culinary features from start to finish, developing recipes, cooking, styling and photographing all dishes myself.
My base is our beautiful farmhouse where I grow my own vegetables, keep chickens, dogs and gypsy horses, and where I spend a lot of time outside and in my farmhouse kitchen. From our rural home I travel to find stories, either close by or further away, but always in the country, England being my favourite destination where I feel very much at home.
Ever since I graduated from the renowned ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem (Netherlands) years ago, I’ve been working as a creative professional. I worked as a freelance designer and graphic designer for various international fashion brands like O’Neill Europe and Tommy Hilfiger amongst many others. When traveling the world for my work in the fashion industry, on often extensive trips, I always took my camera and every spare moment I spend wondering around sketching what I saw, with my camera as a sketchbook. In the meantime, I studied photography at the Academy for Photography in Amsterdam giving me all the tools necessary to create the story I want to tell. That story was clear to me from a very young age.
Growing up in the country I spend a lot of time outside as a child. We had a big kitchen garden, an orchard and two ponies. From a young age I had a small vegetable garden myself where I grew lettuces, chives, carrots and strawberries. Cooking also was part of my life from a very young age. I loved watching my mother in the kitchen, standing on a small chair so I got to see everything she did. I started cooking myself from a very young age too, apple pies, cakes and pasta were family favourites although I sometimes drove my mother insane. And I loved drawing and painting and simply making stuff, and writing stories.
When I was 7 years old, I went on my first big adventure. My grandparents took me on a 6 weeklong trip, traveling around Norway in their small caravan. We travelled the Nordic country roads in the summer sun, with roadsides full of pink willowherbs and cooking hotdogs over an open fire. My parents had bought me a small camera to take with me. To me the link between travel and photography was born.
Nothing much has changed essentially.
Now I am working with several magazines as a photographer, journalist and I am developing of culinary series too, having done a lot of work for Seasons Magazine (Netherlands) over the past years, and several other magazines in the Netherlands, UK and Sweden. You can find a selection of my publications here:
I am currently working on 2 books including stories and recipes and I am working on a series of fine art prints.