Featured #19: Rachid de Wind
Personal Intro Hi my name is Rachid de Wind, born and raised on Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles. For the past 4 years I’ve been living in the Netherlands. I’m a 28 year old portrait and fine-art portrait photographer and I shoot film.
Story As a child I never really thought much about photography. We never really owned a camera back then if I can remember correctly, we used to buy disposable cameras if we ever went on vacations and needed to take pictures.
My passion for photography came quite late in my life. A little more than 3 years ago a friend needed some help shooting at an event. Knowing just a little about photography I gave a helping hand. Shooting events turned out not to be anything for me. What I did notice is that I loved capturing the individuals at the events more than I liked shooting at the event. So I ventured into Portrait photography and I loved it.
Goals & Achievements For me the greatest power that photography has, is the ability to show my subjects their inner beauty. Most of the people I photograph are not models and don’t have the confidence that they are truly beautiful people. My goal is to make every individual that I get the honor and opportunity to photograph, see themselves the way I see them, perfect in their own unique way.
What for me felt as a great accomplishment, is when I saw some of my photographs I took, hung on the wall of the person I took that photograph of. This means for me that my work is good enough and also that the person loved their portrait enough to show it to everyone.
Camera Bag & Process My main camera is a Mamiya RZ67 Pro II with a Mamiya Sekor Z 110mm f/2.8 lens. I have 3 backs for this camera, a 6x6 and 6x7 format and also an instant film back.
I use the 6x6 the most because I love the challenges the square format brings to the table. The simple fact that your normal rules of composition change with a square format makes this one of my go-to backs to use. It get’s me thinking more about what it is I want to capture and what is the story I want to tell with the photograph.
My secondary camera is a Pentax K1000 with a Pentax-M 50mm f/2 lens. This is my flexible 35mm camera, which I use when I just want to get out and capture the world around me and don’t want to carry the beast of a camera that is the Mamiya.
I switched to film from digital because I noticed that I was not really stopping and paying attention to my subject. I was just taking as much images as I could and hoping I have one that stood out. But with film it forced me to slow down, take my time and study the situation and my subject before I even burn that first frame on the roll of film.
I love shooting black & white film not just because I can develop it easier myself at home, but more because it takes away all the distractions that colors can sometimes be in a photograph. It let’s you focus more on composition and light.
Projects Every project I do, every portrait I take is special to me, simply because I get to learn more about a person and also about myself as a photographer. For example, with my Beacon of Light project I learned that natural light can be used in so many creative ways to create such magical and captivating image.
Being a self taught photographer I try to learn more and more every day by doing different and out of my comfort-zone projects, so I can apply these to my portraits and also my fine-art work.
Advice to others There is no such thing as failure in photography. Everything and everyone you photograph is a lesson learned for the future. So shoot as much and as often as you can and learn, learn, learn!
Links!
Portfolio: www.rdewind.com
Facebook: www.fb.com/rdewind.photography
Instagram: www.instagram.com/rdewind
