Éric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut: Be ready to dive into the new world of Nouvelle Vague with Sarah van Rij. Her stories need no actors or text, let your imagination flow and let her photography do the rest.

You are a visual poet to me, but how would your mom describe you? As a kid, as a teenager and now?

Thank you for the compliment. My mom always says she sees me as a tinker-bell fluttering around, other then that, I think she’d describe me as social, energetic and someone who has an eye for detail. My mom told me she knew I would do things my way. She never really worried.

Is there a quote from a film or book or a song that sticks to you until this day?

I loved the Talking Heads when I was 17/18. Especially the song „Feet on the ground“ and „Head in the sky“. Both titles then kind of became my life motto, even if it sounds a bit cheesy. I think I even had a tumblr page called like that. I’m a big dreamer. I think dreams help to liberate, small dreams are important too! But I’m definitely also someone who has their feet on the ground, keeping things real and being aware of which steps I think are good to take next.

What are your three favourite flowers?
Tulips, sunflowers and blossom, but that’s not officially a flower, I think.

You have a strong technique as a photographer: what would you like to discover next in terms of technique, light, layers and working as a photographer?

I love working with natural light and don’t think you need the best/expensive gear to make good photos. If you have a good eye one should be able to create with an iPhone too. So until now, I’ve worked in a pretty low key way and enjoyed working with the real and the natural. But I’m open in exploring different sorts of gear and would love to learn more about studio light as I think it’s incredible fascinating what can be created with it. Since the Covid-19 and quarantine life, I’ve started making more still life photos. I think this is very good for me and interesting as it’s a different way of approaching shapes and light. Maybe I will try and score my first studio light somewhere soon. Who knows what will come out of that.

You barely do portrait - why is that?

Very funny you ask this question. I had many conversations about portrait photography the other night with my father in law, who is a painter. It was only until a few years ago that he started painting portraits. He said to me: wait and see, one day you’ll be interested in taking portraits. Until now I haven’t been very much interested or felt drawn to it photographically wise, of course I enjoy all the different human faces and expressions, but not to capture it. I’m not that interested in looking at photographic portraits that much. Maybe my father in law is right and at some point I want to go there. Now that I think of it, I’m curious how that would look.

Future is …

strange at this point, due to everything that’s going on. I hope we learn something during this period, that can be personal, but also in the bigger picture of our societies and the way we treat our planet. But the future is also exciting, not knowing what will be next. For now I’m living in the moment more then ever and in a strange way days are flying by.