“Normally I would never have brought a camera, but this time I just happened to have a simple compact camera with me. Walking through Maastricht and the surrounding area, I found it very nice to take pictures of the environment, but also of the lines of, for example, parasols on a terrace,” he recalls.

So, he began focusing on the ‘small nature’, and subjects such as flowers and butterflies started to appear more often in his images. He says: ”At some point, I discovered that I was more and more inclined to photograph in parks and other places where there are flowers”.

”While I initially walked through the city with my camera and took my photos there, I found it confrontational to involve people in this. It also turned out that I like photography even more if I could withdraw completely into my own little world. The tranquility of nature turned out to appeal to me more than the hectic pace of the city. I also found focusing on ‘little nature’ much more fun and interesting than walking through a city, for example. Photographing flowers and butterflies gives me peace of mind. I also loved the amazement to see nature so close”, he says.

“A flower that moves a lot is more difficult to photograph sharply than a stationary flower. To take a nice picture, it is also important that you have good light. You mainly have that beautiful light in the morning or in the evening. The harsh light of the afternoon is not optimal for my kind of photography,” Bob shares.

“If you want to have the best chance of meeting a butterfly at rest, it is best to photograph them before they have warmed up or just when they are cooling down again. Many photographers therefore photograph butterflies around sunrise. That may mean that you are already walking outside at 4:30 in the summer. Because I find it difficult to get up so early, I often photograph my butterflies around sunset when they have found a place to sleep for the night,” Bob says.

”If you use a large aperture, the area that you get in focus is relatively small. So much of the picture will be blurry. I also use a few tricks in this blurry area to accentuate it even more. For example, to keep clutter or twigs out of the picture, I clean them up or camouflage them with, for example, a transparent plastic bag or a light-colored autumn leaf. I also almost always use a parasol so that the contrasts become softer where the shadow falls. You can play with this shade. To get light bulbs in the foreground I often use pieces of aluminum foil that I then shine with a flashlight. The light bulbs in the background are created by light that falls through a bush, for example. When you use a large aperture, you no longer see that bush in the background, but only the light that comes through. That light causes those light bulbs in the background”, he explains.

“With my photos, I try to make the world a little more beautiful than it already is. I make it into a kind of world I want. So I’m not just registering the environment, but I’m trying to make it look even nicer”, he shares.

”For example, is there a bush nearby that the light does fun things with? I also look at colors that are close to my potential subject and at what distance these colors are from my subject. If they are too close to my potential subject, I often don’t like that because they are too emphatically present. But if they are too far from my subject again, they are not sufficiently in the picture and I don’t want that either. I now have so much experience with this that I can do it quite quickly”, Bob explains.

”Where a photo was something special in the past, it is now part of our daily existence. (…) It often seems that contemporary photography is mainly a positive representation of one’s daily activities and has partly taken over the role of a diary. In addition to this everyday form of photography, I think photography has also acquired a more artistic function. Photography is no longer just a recordable thing, but has become a more creative thing”, he says.

”When you start with photography, it is first smart to discover how your camera works. Try to move away from the automatic way of shooting as soon as possible. Then it is a matter of shooting a lot to further discover what your preferences are, which subjects you find interesting, and how you would like to photograph these subjects. If it then turns out that you really want to continue with macro photography, you can, for example, borrow a macro lens to find out whether this is really it. Because the purchase of such a lens is a considerable investment, I think it is smart to borrow or rent it first”, recommends Bob.

Bob’s photographic journey shows us that passion may be found in unexpected places. When you delve deeper and discover what resonates with you, your passion might expand and take shape into a unique form of art. Bob’s work inspires us to discover our own passions and appreciate the splendor of nature.