In many ways.
In essence one could say it saved me.
There was a time in my life where work caught up to me and in short it wasn’t in a good way, I used photography as a way to get out of this period and it never left one could say :D

Photography also made it possible for us to travel all over the world to teach workshops and shoot great locations and of course meet cool and interesting people with the same passion.

As a creative person I always have the drive to create and this started for me with recording music (something I still do and you can find me on your favorite streaming service under Frank Doorhof), but photography is a perfect way to relax and be super creative at the same time. You don’t even need a model, just your phone and you’re ready to find interesting things to shoot. There are so many things you can play with, even a paperclip on your desk could make a great shot.

Photography has changed the way I look at the world, always looking for a creative way to capture it.

Why fake it when you can create it
This has been my moto from the start, why use Photoshop if you can do it on set. Which doesn’t mean I love Photoshop. Or in other words get it right in camera.
There are 3 choices in life.
Give in, give up or give it everything you got.
I’m without a doubt a fan of the last option.

And finally something I learned from Steve Vai (one of my favorite guitarists)
There is NO failure.
Everytime you don’t achieve what you want is one step closer to what you want, plus you learned a very valuable lesson, don’t do it like that again. And that is much more valuable than just achieving the end result at once.

Most are just mind sets, but they can have a huge impact on how you work and most of all how you deal with dissapointments, and in creative businesses with people that are aiming for perfection especially that last one is a life/sanity saver :D

It really varies per person.
Sometimes I shoot for the karakter, in other words that my model/client recognizes themselves in the shot. The nice thing for me is to add elements that will make the endresult fitting for the purpose.

A good friend of mine (Peter Hurley) said once “the difference between working a the golden arches and walking the red carpet is the photo we make as photographers”, he probably said it slightly different but I 100% agree with the message. In my own work I always try to talk to my client/model and see what kind of person they are, what is their function, or what is the function they are looking for and that is all information I use during the shoot to get the image he/she needs.

But I mostly love to work with karakters that are build from fantasy or movies/comics. This gives a lot more freedom and also triggers a lot of creative switches. Lensflares, color, sets, styling that’s the part where you can literally create almost everything you want, and with the new Ai functions the sky is the limit. Although I don’t like the text to image images you see popping up everywhere. Ai can have a huge impact on our creativity in a very positive way, you just have to find a way to incorperate it into your unique work and style.

In all honesty no.
But that’s probably me so don’t feel bad if you have :D
I’ve been recording and writing music since I was a teenager and during the years we were really busy with the computer company were the worst of my life because I felt the need to create something but simply didn’t find the time. So when I had the opportunity to switch everything over to a photography business we took over a year to decide this huge step but eventuelly did it and I couldn’t be happier and I never stopped.

You can find inspiration everywhere, just look around and find interesting or new ways to shoot something, and you don’t even need a camera, just use your eyes or a smartphone. Learn to visualize your end result and work towards that goal and you will find out that when you can create what you want you will start to see even the most boring subjects and scenes in a different “light”/”angle” (pun intended).

Movies, videoclips, magazines, comics or maybe an awesome guitar they can all trigger your creative mind to create.

I haven’t hit a real creative bottleneck yet, but there are always periods where things are stressful, or you don’t feel 100% and that can limit your creativity. For some (like me) it helps to just start to create and often that will get me out of this mindset, but this (mindset) is probably the biggest hurdle, you have to have a certain mindset to create I think. But this can be happy but also sad, it will reflect in your work however, so you can also train yourself to translate those feelings in color or lighting and that will give you a huge toolbox where you can always pick something out fitting the situation.