OverAlice
Self-taught Dutch photographer Alice van Kempen (1967) was introduced to photography at a very young age. Ever since she can remember she has had a camera in her hand. Best known as a canine photographer, Alice has worked in the business for almost 30 years. She was privileged to have photographed some of dogdom’s finest. Her work has been published in canine magazines and books all over the world. The list of awards and nominations won with her photographs is long, some of the most recent ones being the Readers’ Choice Award of the prestigious Smithsonian Photo Competition, second prize of the International Photography Awards 2015 category 'Pets' and Runner-up in the category 'Portraits Series' of the 9th JULIA MARGARET CAMERON AWARD.
Next to photographing dogs she focuses on African wildlife, travel, landscape and urbex photography. There’s always something interesting going on in Alice’s world, she enjoys traveling to new and abandoned locations often accompanied by ‘Claire’. Claire is a four-year-old Bull Terrier, who doesn’t see herself as a dog, she has human traits. As new ideas are constantly streaming through Alice’s brain she came up with the idea to let Claire pose as a model in abandoned buildings. This idea resulted in an ongoing series called “Leave only Pawprints” - urbex photography with a twist or Furbex as Alice calls it.
Urbex is about exploring abandoned farms, houses & palaces, discovering overgrown industrial complexes, forgotten hospitals & disused churches. Entering an abandoned building causes an adrenaline rush, every step deeper into this forbidden place gives you a feeling of excitement and sometimes even fear. You are entering the world of the unknown, a world of darkness and shadows, peeled off paint and rotting wood. The air is thick with the smell of mildew and mould. Your heart skips a beat as cobwebs brush your face. Needless to say that light conditions are far from ideal, nonetheless Alice only makes use of existing light. That’s were Claire’s modelling skills come in, she has learned to sit absolutely still as shutter speeds of 1 or even 2½ seconds are sometimes used to create these photographs.
Functie
Artist
Woonplaats
Rockanje
