Gemmy brings out not only the beautiful but too, the extraordinary. Her fine art photography never fails to transport me to a strange world were moods and feelings are oxygen. See one of her works here.
If she had been born in the 17th century, she most probably would have been a painter; actually, she does paint, in fact, she was painting well before she discovered photography as her new art expression. That was before she gave birth to her first daughter before she met her husband and had another four children; before she ran out of space in her home to maintain an artist studio. So what can you do with no more paint brushes and canvasses but with five kids, a husband and an unforgiving urge to create and release a mummy’s stress? The answer came to her by accident when she visited the zoo and started taking pictures of the residents. Aware that she could do much more with her camera, she started experimenting until she found exactly what she needed: a workshop on “like-painting photography” a technique that uses painting backgrounds for photography.
With her photography work, Gemmy has developed a new and unique approach to her first passion for painting and drawing. Her love for the light effects used by 17th-century artists has led her to use lighting techniques that make her pictures look and feel like old masters paintings, thus recreating the softness of oil painting; she uses dark and light contrasts to create depth to create “nowadays portraits in the light of the past”.
With Gemmy, everything is about feelings; mostly serene moods. “The most important thing is to make a translation of what goes on in your brain and put that into an image”.
Unconventional
Unconventional is a surprising series of striking portraits with a message that certainly aims at redefining Beauty with its expected standards. In her own words, it’s about “being obsessed with looks and fitting in” while “finding your passion is way more important in this life”.
Figments
Have you ever felt, when visiting an old house, an irresistible feeling of connection with families that lived in it in the past? With the Figments series, Gemmy definitely pulls my heartstrings as she develops “a story about one room through different time periods and with different residents”.
The Artwork
Fine Art Portrait photography is hard work. Gemmy says that she does not use a lot of gear, but the preparation for modelling and Photoshop precision techniques are essential to the results of her incredible portraits.
She uses a Nikon D850 (she started with a simple Nikon) which she selected for its accuracy and offers a higher number of pixels.
Gemmy Woud-Binnendijk is a Dutch artist who studied multimedia. Her work is now widely published. She is Official Brand Ambassador for Nikon. You can see her at work on Youtube and register for her online tutorials.
One last word from Gemmy: “Your create for yourself and not for some judge at a photo contest”
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