Ik Willem #1 Feb. 2016 | Page 41

South-America >In your autobiography you state that everyone is the same. How do you think this reflects in your photography, and how do you realise this? I try to pick out the something recognizable from every kind of world. I try to show the humane part of every person. This way I try to expose the things people might miss at first sight, by doing this I unconsciously portray a part of myself. Above all, I try to be open and honest and hope that they will treat me with the same courtesy. If I photograph a “gang” I try and live the subject. This way you evoke a strong bond of trust and really be right in the centre of it all. You and your camera enter their daily life, and it is exactly in these normalities that you’ll discover universally recognisable features of the human kind. Emotion, Family and life itself. >What goes through your mind when someone takes a hand full of bullets out of his pocket? Rotterdam Los Angeles Life. That’s just life. I like to stay neutral in these kind of things and not judge people. I don’t feel fear because I approach, and treat them with respect and because of that, they treat me with respect as well. Tilburg >How do people react when you’re standing in front of them with your camera? Especially in threatening situations? They don’t see the camera. I’m one of them. Together with my camera. 40 www.imstacii.com “I want to create heroes in our generation”