I am a professional dancer, photographer and actress. I specialize in portrait photography, theatre and dance photography. When I was young I got fascinated by photos of Jan Saudek and Avedon. Friends of mine showed me the world of the dark room, which felt like magic to me.

I studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

I made portraits of my sister.

Hasselblad and Fujifilm.

I want to show people what touches me in the people I photograph.

I once had the honor of making a portrait of actor Lou Landré in honour of his retirement from the theatre.

When the photo was revealed, his wife came to me in tears. She said: "You have photographed him as he is why I love him. "

That was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said about one of my photos.

People, humanity, strength and vulnerability.

Intense, honest, and picturesque.

I am very grateful for the recognition. I am also very grateful for the people I get to photograph. The prizes are confirmation of what I hope to be able to show to other people.

The winning photos are portraits from my Daylight series.

In my portraits I am looking for honesty and vulnerability. I believe that vulnerability makes us nicer human beings and that this makes the world a little more friendly and more understanding. People who show themselves vulnerable give the other the confidence that they themselves may be who they are.

I am most fascinated when I can see opposite qualities of a person at the same moment. I find this exciting because people are complex. I hope that the portrait touches something of the viewer himself.

In this series, I chose to use only daylight to make the image as natural as possible.

Every award helps to make your work visible.

Jan Saudek, Stephan Vanfleteren and Richard Learoyd.

I think one of the things I learned the most from was when people made me feel like they didn't believe in me. That made me to prove to myself that I could do it.

Always be yourself and never give up.

Always be yourself and never give up.

Being humble. I always want to keep on learning. And everybody has something to teach me.

Rogier Alleblas.

Roos Schouw (Roos@focusmedia.nl)

Diana Bokje (diana@bokje.com)

Susanne Middelberg (info@susannemiddelberg.nl)