Meet Thomas Pels | Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Thomas Pels and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Thomas, what habits do you feel helped you succeed?
Photography is a creative outlet for me and more than work. I like to go out with my camera, stroll through a city, listening to good music and then create images that spontaneously come to mind. When I come home and start editing the photos and I am satisfied with the end result, it’s already a success for me. And then when I post the photos on my social media and I get a lot of positive reactions to them, it really gives me a good and satisfied feeling that not only me but also my followers are liking the pictures that I made.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Before the corona pandemic, I completed an event study and was looking for work in that sector. During the pandemic, the entire event sector has come to a standstill and that’s why I saw the opportunity to delve into photography. Photography has always interested me and I enjoy being creative, so I started studying photography and develop myself in that area.

During this period I started working a lot to build up a photo portfolio. I have been able to photograph various companies and entrepreneurs for their website and social media, for example. I found out that I liked photographing architecture the most and I started to focus on that completely.

I mainly photograph architecture and when I walk around in a city and I see certain buildings or locations, they inspire me to start photographing them.

I live in the Netherlands and I went to America for the first time last December and during my visit a whole new world opened up for me. Everything in America is bigger than here in the Netherlands. When I was on my way to our apartment in Miami and was sitting in the car driving between all the high buildings, I couldn’t wait to get my camera and photograph this beautiful city.

I also look a lot on Instagram at other photographers who also photograph architecture for inspiration. I like seeing all the different photography styles and that motivates me a lot to do my best to distinguish myself from them.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If I can welcome a friend outside my hometown of Hoorn, I will gladly show him the historical places of Hoorn. For example, the harbor where I like to photograph. I will recommend restaurant Hendrickje Stoffels to eat there because I used to work there and the food there is fantastic.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to give a shout out to Alisson Carriel. Alisson is also a photographer that I met in Hoorn. Alisson works on such great projects, like People of Hoorn. In this project he puts creative people from Hoorn in the spotlight with a small interview and a photo report. He puts these interviews online on his social media and his website, which receive very nice responses. I’ve had the pleasure of working together with Alisson a couple of times, which I really enjoyed.

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Image Credits
Thomas Pels