René de Haan

René de Haan

Rene de Haan is a self-taught photographer who is working freelance since 1989. Starting off in architecture-photography, he coincidently enrolled into the Dutch filmindustry for which he began making publicity stills. Until now Rene has made stills for some 40 Dutch shorts and feature films like 'Siberia', 'Tot Ziens', 'Naar de Klote', 'Wilde Mossels', 'Amnesia', 'Monte Carlo' and 'Diep'.

He makes portraits for (a.o.) actors and casting agencies and his portraits were published in magazines like Viva, Panorama, Qui Vive, The NCRV TV Guide and Avanta. In 1995 Rene won a Kodak Camera D'Or Award for his portrait of actress Amanda Ooms. In April 2000 he had a big exhibition of 90 portraits in the Melkweg Gallery in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Since late 1999 he takes glamour and nude pics for Dutch Playboy Magazine, and since then he does more and more nudes. He has published in several magazines in Holland (Playboy, Men’s Health) and abroad (Black&White, Snoecks), and contributed pictures to quite a few photo-books.

"I still mostly shoot my pictures with my old, analog (500c/m) Hasselblad, because of the excellent quality and the square format. And the fact that it’s not a very ‚fast‘ camera, so I’m forced to work concentrated and not just‚ shoot away‘. I prefer black & white above colour. I don’t think I’m a glamour- or fine-arts photographer in the traditional way, I often say I make nude-portraits. Because it’s very important to me that there’s something typical of the model herself in the pictures, I never work with a pre-fixed image that I only just have to fill in with whatever goodlooking female body. My pictures always are a cooperation between me and the model. I seldom book professional models for my free work, and I love a natural look, natural beauty is important, so no heavy make-up or exaggerated styling!

I prefer a location above studiowork, so the location can be a part of the whole image, and to be surprised by the possibilities of the surroundings and the available light.

There is not a special „message“ in my pictures. What I’m trying to capture is the beauty and "power" of women...."

Among the countries Rene made travel pictures in are Laos, Morocco, Turkey, Bulgaria and cities like New York, Budapest, Venice and Beijing.