News
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Instagram #15
May 1, 2015
Who would you rather have as your neighbor? A father who would sacrifice his own life for a chance of a better future for his children, or someone who would send that father on the first plane back to poverty? Or should the question be; who would you rather have…
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Instagram #14
April 30, 2015
This time last year, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutten refused to meet with the Dalai Lama after being pressured by the Chinese government. Instead our Minister of Foreign Affairs Timmermans agreed to only meet with the Dalai Lama in his capacity as a spiritual leader, demanding the topic of…
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Instagram #13
April 26, 2015
“Compassion… asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.” -Karen Armstrong “Have compassion for everyone you meet,” Lucinda Williams sings, for “you do not know what wars are going on down…
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Instagram #12
April 24, 2015
In the seventeenth century, in the wake of The Enlightenment, the Dutch Republic was the only country in which freedom of conscience was enshrined in the law, resulting in the influx of refugees of all possible religious backgrounds
In 1890 the New York Times published the first of over 700…
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Instagram #11
April 22, 2015
What if her name was Bas?What if she had a sister named Shirley who was her best friend?What if she liked football and her favorite team was Ajax?What if she wished she’d paid better attention at piano lessons?What if she wished she had chosen to study physics over art?What if…
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Instagram #10
April 20, 2015
A Ghanaian man speaks about his 9 month’s detention after being arrested while working a cleaning job. Because communication with his family in Ghana wasn’t possible during this time, it was not until his release, months later, that he learned his big brother, who was like a father to him…
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Instagram #9
April 18, 2015
‘After ten years I packed my bag and went home. Then I saw that he didn’t grow up with me. I was trying my best; buy him things. But that was nothing, because he really needed the mother’s love. And I realized when I went home that I didn’t really…
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Instagram #8
April 17, 2015
The difference between one undocumented and one documented migrant, is often a brighter future for generations to come, both here and in their country of origin. Lucky enough to have both a documented mother and father in The Netherlands (who, with their legal status, are allowed to make a living…
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Instagram #7
April 17, 2015
What does it take for a mother to decide that leaving her child with a relative, so she can make the perilous journey to the global north in order to better the chances of her child having a brighter future, is a better choice than taking her chances back home…
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Instagram #6
April 16, 2015
The wife of an undocumented Ghanaian migrant, whom she hasn’t seen for 7 years, takes care of their three children in Ghana. Her husband in The Netherlands, has been struggling to financially provide for them ever since he lost his cleaning job after being arrested (and detained for 9 months!)…
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Instagram #5
April 16, 2015
When this Ghanaian mother, after years of legal procedures, finally obtained her documented status in The Netherlands and was able to bring her three daughters to come live with her, the oldest daughter had just turned 18 and was no longer granted asylum based on her mother’s legal status. What…
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Instagram #4
April 15, 2015
Like with so many things in life, you often hear only the success stories. In the case of Ghanaian migrants that were able to find jobs and security abroad, these success stories come in the form of houses they build back home in Ghana. Projects that often take many years…
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Instagram #3
April 15, 2015
Grandmother of three stay behind migrant sons. She hasn’t seen their father, her son, since he left Ghana to come to Holland over 15 years ago. With the little money the father makes with cleaning houses, he has been able to put his oldest son through college in Ghana. @basniemans…
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Instagram
April 15, 2015
Yes, so I finally set up an Instagram account and challenged myself to post at least one photo a day. Come find and follow me:
https://instagram.com/basniemans
#photosarebullets
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Instagram #2
April 14, 2015
‘The two oldest ones, they have phones now with which we can Skype. So last week was the first time we Skyped. It was the first time in nine years that I saw moving images of my children. Before, they sent me pictures with Whatsapp. When I left Ghana they…
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Instagram #1
April 14, 2015
‘It was one morning that they told us he would be traveling to Holland so he could raise money for us to become a big person in the future. We were hoping that one day we would join him and all would be fine. We were so very happy, tears…
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Test Shoot Agnesz Anna
April 11, 2015
Last Friday Agnesz and I spent a lovely afternoon scouting for locations in Rotterdam to shoot the artwork for Agnesz Anna’s upcoming new album. Although we haven’t yet found the perfect location, we took advantage of the first real springday of this year and did some test shots.
http://agneszanna.com
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Holding Hands Across Borders; shortlisted
April 1, 2015
After first being chosen as part of the Editor’s Pick for LensCulture’s 2015 Exposure Awards, our project about Ghanaian immigrants living in The Netherlands and their stayed behind families in Ghana, is now on the shortlist for this year’s Visible White photography contest by Celeste.
View entry
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Austrian Mist
March 28, 2015
While on holiday in Austria last week, I realized that not snowboarding for a day has its perks when I changed my snowboard boots for regular boots and took to the trees behind our apartment.
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Manos Unidas
March 13, 2015
Friends from Managua I met while traveling in Nicaragua last year, have started a new company to help students from around the world find internships and housing in Nicaragua. To promote their new website they shot a video to explain how it all works and asked me to edit the…
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Hung out to Dry
March 12, 2015
STICHTING NOODOPVANG DAKLOZE VREEMDELINGEN UTRECHT (foundation that provides emergency shelter and legal guidance for homeless refugees in Utrecht)
Yesterday I shot the first photo for an ongoing project for STICHTING NOODOPVANG DAKLOZE VREEMDELINGEN UTRECHT (foundation that provides emergency shelter and legal guidance for homeless refugees in Utrecht). In this conceptual…
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Mike Wojniak
February 11, 2015
I just got back from joining Mike Wojniak on his South-West tour through the United States. We drove 6000 kilometers in 21 days and had the time of our lives.. the span of which, as a consequence, will probably be a few years shorter due to all the partying. But…
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ZNA
October 30, 2014
Yesterday my good friend and infamous electronic music artist Hans van Vliet (aka ZNA) came by for a shoot to create artwork for his new album.
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Creeping
September 28, 2014
Yesterday we shot the artwork for Agnesz Anna’s new single called Creeping. Special thanks to Femke de Geus (aka Missbehave) for styling, make-up and hair.
agneszanna.com
MissBehave
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World Animal Protection
July 23, 2014
Humans are genetically programmed to see human like features and expressions in everything around us. Think of clouds and how often we see faces in them. But I never realized how strongly this is the case with pigs, until I got the chance to photograph them last monday, from up…