Personal Background
Lars Van De Goor is a famous Dutch photography who has inspired lots of people with his work. Lars was born in the year of 1964, on a houseboat in the middle of a farmland with vast nature and wildlife around. Growing up surrounded by nature, really gave him that connection to take pictures of the beauty all around Europe. His first passion was music and he actually didn't join the photography world until 2007. The interesting art of music already gave him some of the composition needed to succeed in photography. Since September 2017, Lars and his wife, Annemarie, exchanged there home in Lochem, Netherlands for a mobile home that could travel. They wanted to start a new way of living and work by traveling Europe, taking pictures of the beautiful woodlands and nature filled areas. Lars Van De Goor has also achieved many outstanding awards. He was the winner of the Hasselblad Masters Award category Landscape/Nature in 2016 and was also a finalist in the Hasselblad Masters award in 2010. He also achieved first prize in the 'Season & Weather' 2016 Trierenberg Super Circuit and also a gold medal for the 'Streets and Paths' categories of the same prestigious Trierenberg Super Circuit that same year.
Style
Beginning to look for composition in his early photography career and getting positive feedback, Lars learned that even without prior training, you can always still be involved in photography. This influenced him to truly feel that you are never limited by rules, which led to the creation of his own unique style. The creation of his style started from developing lots of over/under-composed and blurry image, which gave some photos this almost unreal, mysterious look. Growing up and living around nature, he was influenced to take pictures of nature all around him, which is where the landscape part of his pictures came from. He was also inspired by Dutch landscape painters, to add more of a luminous look in the background of landscape. For example, behind the trees or bushes in his landscape photos, is a slight fog, blurry look, or even sunlight breaking through . This adds to his style of mysterious encounters with nature and incorporating light and shadows in it. Lars Van De Goor also doesn't do any major editing skills, like added filters or drastically changing the photo. He only does simple editing like added more brightness and contrast, developing these raw images of nature.
Philosophy
Another special characteristic of Lars Van De Goor is his philosophy. He believes that the most important thing to know for photography is to have fun, enjoy what your doing, and not be worried about others work and comments. I feel like his philosophy is more on a personal level because he is a pure example of what he believes. Lars is traveling across Europe with the love of his life in a mobile home, doing what he loves (photography), and developing all these beautiful images, creating memories. Lars wants people to do what they feel is right and not just do what others say or want. This adds to another one of his beliefs, that anyone can join photography and it doesn't matter if you have training or not. Look at Lars for an example, he joined photography with a simple camera and no prior training, but look where he is now with all his awards. In Lars' photographs, he would travel deep into Europe's woodlands and let nature do most of the work. He grew up around nature and wanted to show beauty behind it, and he definitely did so. In all his pictures, he never did certain things for what people want, it's what really stuck out to him.
Influences
Lars Van De Goor really put perspective into my thought process when taking my images. Lars does tons of scouting in one area to find the perfect place and time to take the photo. Instead of just snapping quick and easy photos, I know walk around the area, look for interesting angles, and just take my time which will increase picture quality. Lars also influenced me to incorporate more nature and the rare encounters that you can find. For example, an animal staring right into your camera lens or a mysterious thick fog in your landscape. Lars Van De Goor was a main reason of why nature landscape photos really stuck out to me.
The image on the left, is "Cold Is Coming" composed by Lars Van De Goor. The image on the right, is "Early Winter" that I personally composed with influences from "Cold Is Coming". One clear similarity between the images is the snow on and around the trees. I also, changed the brightness and contrast to mimic the frost like look on the trees, to give my images that cold, freezing look like Lars did. Another similarity is the pine trees in the background that are covered in snow. Although these images have a lot of similarities, there are still some differences that make my own photo unique. Obviously, these pictures were taken at different locations. Lars' picture was taken somewhere in the woodlands in Europe where my image was taken on a trail in the woods behind my house. Influenced by Lars I just wanted to take an image that reflects some of my memories which makes me happy. This was one of his key philosophies which I accomplished. Overall, I think "Early Winter" is my best nature/landscape photo I've taken so far.
The image on the left is "Sunny Winter", taken by Lars Van De Goor. The image on the right is "Bright Winter", personally taken by me with influences from Lars' photo, 'Sunny Winter'. The first similarity is the snow strips on the trees and branches. For my image instead of standing back and getting multiple trees, I chose to take a close up and really get details of the tree and snow. Another similarity is the colored tree leaves in the background. While I was looking for perfect place to take a similar picture, I stumbled upon this place in the woods behind my house. That brings a difference though because clearly I didn't just travel deep in the woodlands of Europe in same spot where Lars Van De Goor took his. Another difference is that the angle in which the sun is shining at is different in the pictures but I feel like this unique feature looks better in how my image was set up. Overall, I think these pictures are both visually pleasing and have unique features that make it there own.
The image on the left is titled "Frozen Cathedral", by Lars Van De Goor. The image on the right is my own image, "Snowy Paths". A clear similarity besides the snow on the ground is the path that looks like it never ends. Both of these pictures give me the feeling of wanted to go outside and just adventure. Another similarity is the darker brown trees on both sides of the trail. Although, I wanted to make pictures similar, I wanted to make mine unique in a good way. One difference is the location and type of trees are clearly different but that still doesn't take the thyme of the similarities away. I incorporated sunlight into my image instead of just all white and brown. Personally, I love colors and in Lars' image, I felt it only had two. So in my photo I have colorful leaves in background that aren't too distracting so you still see the influences from other image. Overall, I am very happy with this image and adding my own twist to it, really gave me that special connection.
Artist Statement
Overall, I really enjoyed this project about learning and creating my own version of Lars Van De Goor’s nature/landscape photography. I am very pleased with how my pictures turned out and am still amazed with all of Lars’ photography. A big takeaway from this project is just have fun and enjoy what your doing, and eventually success with come. I also learned that you should be unique with your work and don't just follow others. If you do what you think is good, not just based off of others views, you will get that special connection to photography. Lars Van De Goor really changed my views on photography, in a good way, and I don't plan on stopping just because class is over.