Keeping the Passion Alive

Yesterday all members of the Belgian Association of Professional Photographers were invited to an open air exposition by Filip and Ria Santens. I met this amazing dynamic duo at the European photography congres in Valencia earlier this year. They turned the quit street next to their shop/studio and their garden into an expo to mark their 30+ years in the business.

After a glass of bubbles and a chat with some old friends we went to the town hall for a lecture by Filip and Ria.

Filip will probably never be an actor, politician of stand-up comedian, he therefore usually prefers to remain in the shadow (with a camera and a long lens). But if you’re a photographer like Filip, you can have the images speak for themselves and that’s exactly what he did. Especially his personal travel photography was incredibly impressive.

Filip and his wife are completely complementary. I’m sure Ria’s part in the succes of their business is huge. Ria is the kind of person that puts everyone at ease from the first second on.

These kind of lectures are often long and boring ego trips but that was certainly not the case here. Two slideshow of a couple of minutes each, a bit of explenation and some flowers, were all that was needed to make this an interesting evening. An added bonus was that it allowed us to hit the bar pretty early. But first Tom got to show his cathedral of a body to Isabel. 

We also got to see the book about an expo in China with work from a lot of Belgian photographers. Here is  Ake with one of her amazing pictures.

Tom invented a snoot for pop-up flashes.

A professional Association is all about networking and connections. And some seemed to have pretty impressive connection because we’ve spotted this camouflaged (I suspect Nikon) prototype. All references were hidden behind gaffer tape, so we didn’t see much.

But it sure had a huuuuuge lcd.
Edit: Just to make it clear, it’s a FAKE! Tom just spotted two pieces of gaffer tape on my flash (holding a gel, you can see it in the picture above) and wanted to play Chase Jarvis. Sorry if it wasn’t very clear that this was just a little joke. If Tom would have a real secret prototype, I’m sure he would be shouting it of the rooftops. 

And there were even more surprises.

Pieter then tried if the Joe McNally trick. could stabilise a beer instead of a camera.

Jean enjoyed the view.

Right before we drove home, I hopped into a refugee camp to take this National Geographic cover picture.

On this event the new board of the association was presented to the public. Maybe I’ll write something about it later. I can already tell you that you know at least one of the new members of the board

Filip and Ria, keep up the good work and enjoy life!