360° of Life: Zaitoon

At first it's Zaitoon's beauty and striking green eyes that draw you in, and then she starts to speak and suddenly it's not just her beauty that makes her interesting. Back home in Amsterdam Zaitoon works for Deloitte as a consultant in strategy and operations, enjoying the structure and professionalism the job brings.

In her spare time Zaitoon runs a youth group for girls called Teen Girls Club which tackles gender equality. This group gathers girls from all different cultures and backgrounds between the ages of 13 and 18 to teach various topics such as identity and professionalism.

Teen Girls Club first started when Zaitoon was giving a conflict resolution training lesson in Amsterdam and met a young girl who felt lonely and disconnected. It's unsurprising she decided to give something back and start her own group. Talking to Zaitoon it's easy to see how much she cares about others.

She said: "we teach girls basic professionalism and educate them in various topics to inform them about what’s happening in the world. It's so rewarding to see these girls grow over a period of time, it makes me so proud. They really make me feel alive."

Zaitoon's all about striking a balance in life, whether it's socially, professionally or religiously.

"Religion is a conscious choice you have to make and if you don’t make it for the right reasons then there's no point. I think it's important to be open about religion and never be defensive about it, always be open to other people's opinion."

Text: Rochelle Beighton
Click on the photos for a better view

360° of Life: Paul

If ever you need a science question answered chances are Paul Bissonnette is your guy. As a member of SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities, Paul is taking a break from his 4th year at the University of Dalhousie where he majors in Physics and Chemistry.

While here at Merit360 he hopes to produce real change through spreading awareness and implementing ideas.

It's clear Paul means business as, despite only ever commuting on his bike, he cycled all the way from Nova Scotia, Canada to Connecticut, USA, in an exciting 12 day adventure aimed at spreading awareness and measuring air pollution.

Paul's bike was kitted out with a solar panel on the back which charged his battery pack during the day as he rode. He would then use the battery to charge all of his pollution monitoring equipment at night in preparation for another day of research.

He told Merit360: "One day I was standing beside a big vessel that violently blew up while I was stood just a few inches away. This made me process my own mortality and ask myself, do I want to be working on things that might be helpful in the future, or do I want to be working on science that definitely will help people and the world in a concrete way?

Doing this crazy cycling journey was my way of spreading awareness and choosing the latter with my research."

As well as recognition around sustainable cities Paul believes in making science more understandable to the general public. This enthusiasm stems from one of his idols, Richard Feynman; a man he's always looked up to for simplifying complex scientific topics and making them approachable.

While talking to Paul it's easy to forget he's only 22, yet behind his scientific jargon is a young man who loves hiking, and rock climbing. A hobby which has taken him all over Canada and the U.S.

For more detail about Paul's journey have a look at his blog, the Cycling Scientist.

Text: Rochelle Beighton
Click on the photos for a better view

360° of Life: UN secretary General Ahmad

You wouldn't think a defender of the rights and interests of young people all over the world would be so young. Yet at just 32 years old Ahmad Alhendawi is the United Nations Secretary General Envoy for Youth, making him the youngest serving UN senior official.

As an advocate for over 1.8 billion youths, Ahmad is all about breaking barriers. He strives to make the UN more accessible to young people everywhere, believing world leaders can learn a lot from the millennials. 

He told Merit360: "What world leaders can learn from young leaders is courage - being bold enough to tackle issues without cynicism.

"World leaders can also learn to listen — to listen to each other, to be humble enough and modest enough to know that you can’t do everything alone and you need to work with others."

Ahmad first strikes you as a man of influence and positivity with a dedication to put the voices of our youths at the forefront of change making.

Yet behind his formalistic exterior is a young man from Jordan, who's looking to make a difference and implement and encourage reform for future generations to come.

Ahmad's main message to changemakers is one of humility. He said: "you should not be tempted by the illusion of cynicism, and you should not be tempted by the illusion of utopia."

Click on the photos for a better view
Text: Rochelle Beighton

 

360° of life: Sao

The first thing you may notice about Sao Sochen is that he's a monk, but you soon realise there's much more to him.

At 22 years old Sao is studying for two degrees, International Relations and English Literature, at Pannasastra University in his hometown of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

He belongs to SDG 4, Quality Education and much like his idol, Martin Luther King, Sao hopes to be an ambassador and implement free education in Cambodia through Merit360 and his own organization, the Social Monk Assembly.

The Social Monk Assembly consists of three main sectors. The first focuses on donating charitable donations to the elderly, the second centers around the environment, and the third follows what Sao is most passionate about, education.

He told Merit360: "I believe education is the route to end poverty. It is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world."

Sao is thankful to Soriyany Sam, an American Khmer refugee from Oregon who encouraged him to pursue higher education.

Like her he hopes to direct people to education through support, motivation and hope. There's a tranquility and certainty to Sao that makes you believe in his goals no matter how ambitious they seem.

When he tells you he wants to expand his network at Merit360 and open his own school in the future to provide free education, you know somehow he'll get there.

Click on the photos for a better view
Text: Rochelle Beighton

360 of Life: Jerry White

Hey, i'm in New York! YEAH! Im currently documenting the awesome Merit 360 event, expect a lot more in this series in the coming two weeks!

Life:  Jerry White Executive co-chair of Global Covenant Partners

Right of the bat, Jerry is present. His energy, movement and speech captivates a room and fills it with an inspiring sense of positive energy.

In 1986, at just twenty years old Jerry lost his leg while hiking in Northern Israel. As he followed the footsteps of the biblical prophets he unknowingly entered a landmine and stood on a grenade.

After losing his leg, and almost his life, Jerry fought hard to become the man he is today- an activist. Everyday Jerry campaigns for the removal of landmines and for it's survivors to rebuild their lives.

Jerry is a man who actually influences other people. When he talks you not only listen, but you get to thinking. In a short matter of time his words can have a lasting impact on how to better yourself and treat others, especially those with disabilities, equally. 

In May 2008, his book, I Will Not Be Broken: 5 Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis, inspired readers around the world with a detailed account of his injury, his recovery and his work on banning landmines with Survivor Corps.

By day he's out making the world a better place, by night he slips out of his role as Jerry White, enthusiastic changemaker.  Retracting into his more introvert, relaxed, self, to charge for the day to come.

Click on the photos for a better view
Text: Rochelle Beighton

 

Life: Mr isaac

I have known Isaac for quite some time. Whenever I do something new I almost always end up working with him, which is a joy. I have always liked working with this cheerful artist and entrepreneur. I don't see him very often, but there's also a good side to that; when not seeing one on a regular basis it is a lot easier to see one's progress in life. And Isaac grew a lot, as a musician, but also now as a businessman discovering a new world within a large corporate. 

Isaac made a long journey, born and raised in Uganda he found his peace in music, living in Holland. To many, Isaac is a well known and respected person in and around Haarlem. Especially when you have seen him on stage. He hosted and played various music gatherings where  he worked with a lot of talented artists, which all come together for the shared love of music and the respect for Isaac. 

I photographed Isaac many times. We're used to working with each other. I know what he likes, he knows how I work. But as people tend to change, Isaac changed. For the first time I see, next to the artist, a businessman. He gets a little distracted from time to time, because hey, a good businessman is always working. I notice that it is a little harder to get to him. Until he grabs his guitar and starts playing. I didn't ask him to, he just plays.

I see him wander away within himself, forgetting everything around him, beautiful. Life. 

Thanks to Barista cafe Haarlem for having us
Click on the photos for a better view

Life: Churchman timen lalkens

“Dixitque Deus fiat lux et facta est lux”

 Ideo possum cum luce pingere

At a wedding last week I met Timen Lalkens in the beautiful St. Bavo cathedral in my home town Haarlem. That very morning I had decided to begin my series, “Life”, and started my search for interesting stories. Encountering Mr. Lalkens felt very comfortable. Timen is a formal, wonderful and heart-warming person.

We had a good chat, in which he offered to show me “his” beautiful cathedral, where he does guidance every Wednesday. He did so after I admitted it was my very first time inside the cathedral. I realized he was the ideal person to start my series with, and today, he proved me right.

Timen is a singer (baritone) , a poet, a registrar (of weddings in Haarlem & Heemstede) and a host in the two beautiful Bavo churches in Haarlem, but most of all, he strikes me as an epicurean. “To enjoy life” seems to be written on his forehead, whenever he talks about the things he loves.

I just let him talk. And I learn. He shows me the beautiful stories in stained glass, the amazing carvings and all the fine details.

He shows me, for the first time in my life, the beauty of faith. When he speaks about those stories, they come to life. Also for the first time in my life, I consider reading the bible. I realize, however, that the way the bible is written is probably not one for me. So he speaks, and I simply enjoy.

Thank you, Timen.

Click on the photos for a better view

Greeceland

To me, one of the most beautiful things about photography worldis that no photographer is exactly equal to another.  Obviously, one can adapt to the style of one he or she likes, but the exact timing and framing of one’s shot defines the exact style and feeling of the photograph.

There are many who have said that there’s always at least a tiny part of the person behind the camera visible in every photo taken.
Expanding that thought can lead to the assumption that the span of life of how a photographer feels is actually visible in his or her work.

For example, I am on Crete, Greece right now. Most of the people see only the beautiful white sandy beaches, the blue sea, the palmtrees and for some the busy nightlife.

Whenever I visit a place or country I want to go beyond what first meets the eye. Beyond the beautiful tourist part. I want to see how people live and what their habits are.

So I go driving, walking, riding on a bike. To see, to explore, to feel.
I visited some small towns, and drove across high mountains. I went into the trees, and stepped on holy ground.

What I actually capture is how all of that beauty makes me feel. I see rotten things, forgotten things, old things. In my mind, they represent the beauty of  life. They represent the life that has once been, history.  The actual details that make me feel like that, are the things I want to take photos of. Chances are very slim that other people see the same things while walking the exact same path I do.

To others, it is just junk, representing nothing but stuff they want to stay away from. They might prefer taking shots of only the blue sea and the beautiful people around it.

Both ways of seeing things is just fine.  This, to me, is beautiful. It also makes you realize everyone is different and unique, which is just fine.

Weekend with the Broncolor Siros L

Since I started my travels in photography world I have always liked the use of flash in daylight. The extraordinary feel that it gives the viewer because he or she doesn't directly understand what he is looking at, amazes me. 

I have tried various kinds of ways to bring flash outside. At first I tried strobes, but actually never liked working with them. I wanted to go bigger so I bought myself a big battery to use studio flash kits outside. This heavy thing weighed about 15kg, so wasn't really pleasant to bring along to shoots. 

The build quality was also not that good, and it broke down after using it for a couple of months. 

I kinda pushed away my love for daylight flash, because of lack of good, affordable solutions. Years later another photographer pointed me at the extremely good price/value - performance of the flashes he was using, the asian built foxflash. 600 w/s (studio like) units with a built in Lithium-ion battery, that lasts about 300 flashes at full power. These monsters only cost around 600,-.  An eye opener. I have been using two of these units for a lot of my work in the last year. Downside of these flashes is the lacking of straight output temperatures and the recharging time of around 4-5 secs on full power. 

While looking at the downsides of these two baby's, and the amount I use them for almost all of my work, obviously I started looking at alternatives in higher segments, price and quality wise. I soon realized that for me the only actual option was the ProFoto B1. Perfect beasts to be used in a lot of different environments. I had talked to my camerastore Cameraland about lending me a demoset. I then waited, and waited. For the sole reason I actually already knew that I was going to like it. But hey, for the 2000 dollar price tag you gotta love it. When I finally decided I was up to the resistance part, I went to Cameraland to talk about it some more and see when I could start testing them. 
Then he told me about the Broncolor Siros L, that was just released. Wow, only a bit more expensive, but a lot better built quality , and broncolor light. I didn't hesitate, and skipped the testing of the B1's and went straight for the Broncolor Siros L. 

Transcontinental was so friendly to lent me their demo set, for a weekend. And I got on with it. 

Lets start off with a brief look at the specs, which are truly impressive. Broncolor decided to go for two versions, the 400 w/s and the 800 w/s. 
The flash has two modes, eco and normal, which define the recharging time and flash intensity. 
-- eco-mode: 0.04 – 1.9 s
-- normal: 0.03 – 1.2 s
Number of flashes per battery charge: 440 at full energy , and 220 for the 800 w/s.

The set is delivered with a nice trolly, which fits two heads. The set included a softbox, umbrella and a standard reflector (not the one you want). Triggers are optional. 

The trolly itself is really nice. Very good quality, sturdy. Getting the flash unit out immediately feels like your actually have a peace of artwork in your hands. It's build quality is just amazing. Everything feels like it can handle pretty rough day to day work without falling apart. The unit weighs 4,5 kg, including the battery. So it is quite heavy. 

I do lots of different work, so I wanted to test it for different stuff. Starting with a portrait studioshoot on friday evening. In the studio I usually work with Bowens 800's, which I'm quite ok with. 

Shot with the Sony 90mm f2.8 mounted on a Sony A7rii. Eventually I ended up using the bowens as a backlight. 

I tried the location-dish, didn't like it. Tried the umbrella, didn't like it. Tried it, ironically, with the ProFoto deep umbrella (190cm) and ... loved it. 

I also used it outdoors, also side by side with my Foxflash 600,- competitor. Next to the obvious conclusions of the lack of recharging speed and output temperatures of the Foxflash it also gave me a new insight. Because of the position of the flashring on the Broncolor, and the diffusor in front of it, the way the light spreads gives it a more natural feel in comparison to the Foxflash. Using flash, but when used right, not directly seeing it as flashlight. Nice!

During the shoot, I was reluctant. I wasn't sure the difference was so huge it was worth paying over 3 three times more than my current flashes. Yes, it is fast. Yes, the graphic geeks show only minor abbreviations in temperature. But i want to actually SEE better photos!! Directly after the shoot I uploaded, and checked, and the jawdrop that I didn't expect to happen, happened. 

I got home, and couldn't resist shooting more.  These were taken with the 55mm zeiss mounted on the A7rii. 

In my humble opinion, when testing something unique for the first time, its quite hard to actually grasp what is different. When using the Siros L my Sony A7Rii comes to life under any given circumstance. Subjects pop out, the 40MP do their work by really showing the optimal clarity in all the fine details. The brilliant diffuse light makes the 14 stops of DR blow you away. And for me, this shows especially in the eyes.

A big part of the work I use my external flash for, is during weddings. I shoot roughly 40 weddings per year. During the photoshoot I use flash on a regular basis. I do not just always use the flash, I let it depend on the location, weather and preferred style. 

I was shooting the wedding of Annelieke & Mark on saturday, they wanted to go to an industrial location for the shoot. Good opportunity to put the Siros to the test. For most of my wedding shoots, the use of flash is primarily fill. I usually do not like to give the photos an unnatural look. In Holland the weather usually is quite unpredictable, because of this I only rarely use natural light. When I use external flash, i can guarantee 100% sharpness, nice skin toning and very usable DR in the portraits. 

Second shoot location was under a freeway, at the underpass. With only natural light a quite impossible location. Good spot to actually use the full power. For both of the following shots I decided to bounce the flash of the underpass in the direction of the subject. Obviously bouncing made it look a little less "flashyphoto" and delivered a nice drop shadow underneath the car. because it was broad daylight, and the distance from the underpass (which I was bouncing from)  to the subject was around 10m, I really needed every bit of the 800 w/s to keep the background from spiking. 

On sunday it was time to recharge the battery. It took me about two hours to fully charge, and get going again. During the sunset we decided to take some final test photos. I realized I had gotten used to using the Siros and adapted my shooting style, in only two days time. Where i normally only shoot every 3 or 4 seconds when shooting with flash , I started shooting way faster. 

It makes you realize at what level you get used to your gear and change the way you work accordingly. Because a lot of my work is done with flashkits that are not remarkably fast, I tend to always shoot quite slow (wether i'm using flash or not), opposed to a lot of other photographers that have a different style and shoot multiple frames per second. 

The trigger also easily controls the flash intensity. So without actually walking back and forth towards your flash unit, you can radically change your shot in seconds, to give it a dramatic look.  Broncolor also released an App which controls flash intensity aswel. Especially when using multiple units this is a very welcome feature. During my testweekend I did not use the App. Obviously the app is a very welcome tool when shooting with multiple lights. 

The next shot was actually taken only seconds after the above one. Giving me total flexibility in the kind of image I want to produce. Obviously changing the shot (when shooting with flash) is always possible. But in my experience the walking back and forth to change this radical in shooting style most of the times is not something I choose to do. Mainly just because I feel there isn't enough time.

On monday, I returned the Broncolor Siros L demo unit to Transcontinental. And I started wandering about a conclusion.

A few things come to mind quickly. 

It is breathtaking fast. Shooting portraits hardly will bring you to situations where you are actually going to use its recharging power constantly. Are you going to use it for shooting action (sports) or moving fashion, then this is the speed you will love. The Siros will always be by your side, a speedy friend you can always rely on. The psychological part of actually never having to doubt about the speed, works well in the mind of any photographer.

It's light is always the friggin' same. Every photo, every time.

The battery life is ok. 220 flashes at full power is not a lot. Obviously you will not always use it's full power, but still, 440 flashes at half power, it's still not always good for the day. So  you will probably need an extra battery to be safe.

It is expensive. I use a second light a lot. The beautiful kit with two heads costs 4000,-. 

But, most of all, it is just breathtaking beautiful light. It's quite hard to back this up with figures, graphs, scientifical facts. When you're looking at any photo shot with the Siros, when lit properly, you'll stay. And look. And say. Wow. This.. Is unbelievably beautiful. 

GRI convention ' 16

Over 1600 sustainability leaders and practitioners from across the globe convened in Amsterdam, the Netherlands for three days to discuss the key challenges and opportunities on the path to a more sustainable future.

Read More

Comic days in Haarlem

Every year fans of comicbooks come to Haarlem to visit lots of small vendors that have all kinds of comic books for sale. Some very rare

Read More