Saskia Kerkhoff | Dutch Look Photography

Photographer Saskia Kerkhoff (1962, Amsterdam) has been a visual thinker for as long as she can remember. She skips through life analytically and is amazed by the diversity of people and their habits. Through these reflections she always gets new ideas.

Before Saskia chose the camera, she put her ideas on canvas and paper and initially, during her studies at the Free Academy in The Hague, she opted for the autonomous direction of painting. After her third year of study, Saskia met a photographer who inspired her to use the camera for image research. Soon she fell in love with the camera and Saskia decided to go to the Photo Academy in Amsterdam. Here she learned, among other things, to shape ideas and concepts autonomously.

Saskia is always looking for inspiration and her ideas for free work come from a rough, yet undeveloped plan. She just gets to work with models and attributes and sees what emerges. This is very liberating work and the opposite of Saskia’s daily work in which her photography revolves around quick recognition and/therefore marketable image. While creating free work, an autonomous attitude and action is very important to Saskia. As if she is in a film that she directs herself and that is paused for a moment. She draws inspiration from clichés, habits and behaviour. All this preferably with a typical Dutch wink. Saskia is influenced by everything she sees, feels and experiences with a great love for the Netherlands.

Nicky: I really like the cheerfulness in Saskia’s work and her original, authentic attitude.