About

Basic Details

Age 53; born in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), grew up in the Netherlands, lived in Australia for 18 years and now live in Sacramento, California. Divorced, three adult kids.

Interests & Hobbies

Photography (of course), camping, travel, road trips. I collect masks from places I visit and have a wall full of them. I also run a photography meetup group with 90 members and I give HDR and Adobe Lightroom workshops for local camera clubs.

Favorite Bands/Music

Anything from JJ Cale, Mark Knopfler, Dire Straits or Colin Blunstone. Andea Boccelli’s “lighter” work, Ottmar Liebert, Julie London, Coleman Hawkins, most of the so called “Classic Rock” greats, many of the 80s hits, but also light classical and smooth jazz.

Pet Hates

Packaging you can’t get into – sheez, who designs that stuff?!?

Favorite Foods

You can wake me up at any time for smoked salmon, which I am happy to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Love Thai food, good old Australian meat pies, the odd garlic prawn on the BBQ, Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Salad, Chicken Fajitas and Dutch Cheese (especially the mature crumbly stuff).

Computer Setup

A 14.4” HP Core 2 notebook
A Core2, Quad CPU HP with two Samsung monitors, 8Gb of memory and
Two 1TB external disk drives and
Two 400Gb external disk drives.
A Canon PIXMA Pro 9000 printer.

My Favorite Equipment

My Canon EOS 5D
EF 17-40mm f/4 L
EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS
SIGMA 150mm f/2.8 APO Macro DG EX HSM
Manfrotto Tripod and Monopod
Manfrotto Ballheads
Induro Carbon Fiber Tripod
BlackRapid R-Strap
Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly
Visible Dust Sensor Loupe
My iPhone
Illford Pearl Paper

My Favorite Software

Adobe Lightroom 2
Adobe Photoshop
Dynamic Photo HDR
Photomatix
Thunderbird
Firefox
Topaz Adjust, Topaz DeNoise, Topaz Detail
iTunes
Artisteer

My Favorite Websites

DPReview, Pandora, Yahoo, Bing, Digital Pro Talk, iStockphoto, Shutterstock

The serious stuff

I have worked in the publishing industry since 1980. This experience is global, as I have lived in the Netherlands, Australia and the United States and have worked with publishers in many other countries in Europe and Asia.

I “grew up” professionally in the areas of page and graphic design, workflow management, color reproduction and digital asset management. I have taught, designed, marketed and installed many solutions that deal with graphic content, production and management, experiences that have provided a solid foundation for the digital photography era we are currently in.

I have always been on the forefront of technology from the very beginning of digital production (remember that 30 years ago there were no PCs or Macs). As an early adopter of technology, I have had the pleasure of helping and guiding publishers through their growth from main frame-like, proprietary, systems to modern web-based and Adobe-based solutions.

While I have always been a photographer, it was not until the emergence of digital photography that my areas of expertise converged. Applications such as Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Lightroom and Bibble Pro, coupled with the RAW format are not only in use by photographers, but also by publishers of newspapers, magazines and web sites, thus bringing together my two areas of interest. Digital photography is therefore a natural domain for me and it was no surprise that my photographic endeavors have blossomed in the past few years.

Nature and travel photography is what I enjoy doing most. Work in a studio, while intriguing, does not really appeal to me. I would much rather be out in the outdoors in the pursuit of that awe inspiring landscape, or exploring a new place I’ve never been before. I consider myself blessed that I have lived in several different parts of the world and have been able to travel extensively.

Albert

This website is dedicated to my three children, Rens, Aaron and Natalie, who have brought me much joy.

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