Photographer's Profile

ERIC PIJNAKEN

France

Short biography Eric Pijnaken Growing old he tasted what it is to feel truly alive. It helps to be more open to the world, with less prejudices and even more discoveries. However he did not become a saint. Born in Rotterdam during wartime in 1942, he remembers German soldiers marching on the bridge in front of his parents' house. A German guard on a wooden stool in a tree of the garden behind the house. This formed the basis for the way he later looked to the world, especially with regard to the authorities. In his youth he made a short movie about suffering around the statue (man with heart ripped off) of Zadkine in the center of the bombed city of Rotterdam. Zadkine reduces the figures to their most concise and telling form. Since that time his photo work focuses on the essential of what he sees. At young age he has been awarded for photocontests. After a careeer as journalist modern art, and later as socio-economical and political affairs as editor of a leading daily newspaper, he moved to the French province Ardèche, where he freely could enjoy the photography with many exhibitions in France, and some in Holland, Greede and Switzerland. Meanwhile he has been rewarded several times by the Tokyo International Foto Awards, and other rewards by Neutral Density Photo Awards and Minimalist Photo Awards, Fine Art Photography Awards, Monochrome Photo Awards, Spider Awards, Monovisions Photography Awards, CIP Festival Winner.