Dog & Company

When the world was confronted with the Covid pandemic, the associated "social distancing" rules had a direct impact on my photography. Photographing close to people was no longer possible. For me this is a big thing as I prefer to shoot people from very close by. After a few weeks of photographic frustration, I decided to take a different approach: instead of focusing on people, I went looking for dogs on the Scheveningen beach and boulevard, which is close to where I live. And for safety reasons I made sure that the dogs were between me and their company. This approach soon grew into this project "Dog & Company", which to me, is a story about getting close. Not just to the dogs, but to people as well. Time and again, as soon as I asked someone if I could photograph his or her dog, most of them started to tell spontaneously about their 'company' and the special relation they cherished. Funny enough, I often felt that in this way I could get closer to people than ever before: Not so much physically, but more so emotionally.