On assignment for National Geographic Traveler

A couple of images from my recent assignment for National Geographic Traveler – the Netherlands Editie.

I just got back from a trip in the Austrian Alps with a writer to create a story for the magazine about a specific region. Up before the crack of dawn, we were running all day then downloading and backing up long after the sunset. But that doesn’t mean that we didn’t have fun in the mean time. More to come when the story is published. (Images by Hein van Beek)

Portfolio 2008

A portfolio process is a long and painful process. Your ego will be trampled to the point where it walks out the door, leaving you crying in a dark room because IT doesn’t want to be abused any more.

The process takes many hours of culling and editing and seeking opinions you respect. Then you spend hours in front of a computer screen working on images. At which point you find the best printer you can find, (Maarten Wouters at M*G!C), the best paper you can find, (Ilford Gold Fibre), and you watch the cash take the same route your ego did two weeks before. Once it is printed you spend more hours fitting it into your book and then removing every speck of dust from the prints as if they were disease.

One of the questions you must solve is, how many images should I put in. Anywhere from 10 – 50 images can be found in a book, but I believe in the saying ‘Less is More’ and my wallet wholeheartedly agrees. Between 20 – 25 images is the maximum. Any more then that and the client needs to be a family member or your best friend because no one else has that amount of patience.

After 8 years of traveling and photographing 5 different continents, what made the cut? See Here.