ABOUT ME

My name is PHOGM and I’m a pseudo-artistic cinematic image maker from Hasselt, Belgium.

“It’s really all about movie scenes & cinematic lighting. And nudity, tell them it’s about nudity. They’ll listen, you’ll see…”

Here’s a few more things that you may like to know…

…about me…

I’m a 40-year-old dreamer, husband to my wonderfully supportive wife and father to my 3 awesome boys. (They really are, you’ll see!) Both my father & my grandfather were photographers. So I guess I started off as a model, posing for a living. 🙂
Images have always fascinated me. European comic books and all kinds of movies followed each other almost back to back during my adolescent life. Started making pictures as soon as I got my hands on one of the family cameras. A Pentax and a Hasselblad, both using film of course.

In June 2017, I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Hasselt after participating in the ‘specialisation programme’ which led to the exhibit ‘Awkward’. There’s a small home studio in my house that I can use for portraits. You can hate me for it, but I’m a Canon guy. I don’t do roll film anymore… I’m so sorry. I have a lot of lights and a lot of printers, but now I’m just bragging.

Playing music & boardgames and reading graphic novels are other thing I do to kill time. Teaching and programming are supposed to pay for a living. (They do, don’t worry.)

“But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairytales again.”

— C.S. Lewis

…about photography…

In my opinion, the staged and constructed image is so much more compelling than a serendipitous one. Gregory Crewdson & Alec Dawson are a huge inspiration to me.
I strive to capture the drama of everyday moments that just aren’t real. Stories filled with wonder & emotion, created consciously and painted with light. Scenes made only for the purpose of photography, not simple snap-shots that were stumbled upon.

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”

— Ansel Adams