Wim de Vos, cameraman/photographer, 4 Emmy Awards and 1 Peabody for CBS news and CBS 60 Minutes.
Born in Enschede in the Netherlands, I've been a photographer since 1971. I learned the art of taking pictures from the old master himself Henk Brusse. Went to Munich-Germany in September 1972 were I enrolled from a photo academy (Bayrische Staats lehranstalt fuer Fotografie) which I attended for two years. In December 1975 I moved to South Africa and started working as a Photographer for the just started TV station. After a few months I promoted to film cameraman working with a CP16, the Soweto student uprising on the 16 June 1976 was my first big assignment as cameraman, I worked for the then South African SABC TV news for just under 2 years, then started filming for the German network ARD doing news and documentary's...after that in 1982 I started freelancing for NOS, ZDF, BBC (South Africa and the sports boycot), French TV, ABC Australia, PBS and NBC untill landing at CBS were I still am today, filming news, 60 Minutes, 48 Hrs and show-side pieces.
On the 17 June 1986 I was deported from South Africa allegedly for breaking the emergency laws, and flown to London were my family and I still live today.
Just about anything that has happened world wide since 1976, I've covered for news from the Soweto uprising to the war in Rhodesia now(Zimbabwe), Angola, Mozambique, from Rwanda to Sierra Leone to Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Iran, China, India, Afghanistan, the Berlin Wall, Romania, East Germany, Russia, Israel, Presidential summits, several winter/summer Olympics and much, much more.
In early 2002 I picked up still photography again while on assignment in Afghanistan, were I bought a cheap digital camera at a US military PX shop at Bahram airbase for just $95.-, a little thing that I could take pictures with because I thought it to be a good idea at the time (in Kabul the old man sitting in front of the shutters and the golden mosque to name but two are the results). I have since "moved up" to a better small size digital camera because that's all I have space and time for. At the moment I take pictures with a Panasonic Lumix 12mp with Leica lens, the results can be seen on this website.
A Note About The Images,
I post process all images in Photoshop PS7 and now in CS4. I tweak contrast and saturation. I dodge and burn. I adjust curves and I do BW conversions. I correct for lens distortion and more. In short, I use a digital darkroom. I am not one of those who believes that what comes out of the camera is the final product. There is nothing you can do in-camera that can not be done better and with greater control in Photoshop. The digital darkroom (glass of red wine in hand) let me do everything I used to do in the wet darkroom but without the chemistry, paper safes, print dryers, and working under red lights. The bottom line is that every image you see here came from my Canon ixus 3.1mp later I used the Canon ixus 5mp and at the moment a Panasonic lumix DMC-FX100 12mp with a leica lens, small camera's that I can wear on by belt, however, before the digital age I used a Kodak instamatic with a 35mm 400asa Kodak film, all photo's are post-processed in PH7and CS4. Some are printed as large as 1.75x1.25 meter and even in this very large size the print kwality remains very good indeed, most others I print A3, A2 and A1.
On the 17 June 1986 I was deported from South Africa allegedly for breaking the emergency laws, and flown to London were my family and I still live today.
Just about anything that has happened world wide since 1976, I've covered for news from the Soweto uprising to the war in Rhodesia now(Zimbabwe), Angola, Mozambique, from Rwanda to Sierra Leone to Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Iran, China, India, Afghanistan, the Berlin Wall, Romania, East Germany, Russia, Israel, Presidential summits, several winter/summer Olympics and much, much more.
In early 2002 I picked up still photography again while on assignment in Afghanistan, were I bought a cheap digital camera at a US military PX shop at Bahram airbase for just $95.-, a little thing that I could take pictures with because I thought it to be a good idea at the time (in Kabul the old man sitting in front of the shutters and the golden mosque to name but two are the results). I have since "moved up" to a better small size digital camera because that's all I have space and time for. At the moment I take pictures with a Panasonic Lumix 12mp with Leica lens, the results can be seen on this website.
A Note About The Images,
I post process all images in Photoshop PS7 and now in CS4. I tweak contrast and saturation. I dodge and burn. I adjust curves and I do BW conversions. I correct for lens distortion and more. In short, I use a digital darkroom. I am not one of those who believes that what comes out of the camera is the final product. There is nothing you can do in-camera that can not be done better and with greater control in Photoshop. The digital darkroom (glass of red wine in hand) let me do everything I used to do in the wet darkroom but without the chemistry, paper safes, print dryers, and working under red lights. The bottom line is that every image you see here came from my Canon ixus 3.1mp later I used the Canon ixus 5mp and at the moment a Panasonic lumix DMC-FX100 12mp with a leica lens, small camera's that I can wear on by belt, however, before the digital age I used a Kodak instamatic with a 35mm 400asa Kodak film, all photo's are post-processed in PH7and CS4. Some are printed as large as 1.75x1.25 meter and even in this very large size the print kwality remains very good indeed, most others I print A3, A2 and A1.