Frans Kemper
A photographer who thinks with his eyes
It’s me and me alone
Hi, I’m Frans Kemper, a retired corporate gipsy and a professional stranger.
"Born and raised in lovely Amsterdam and spent almost three decades racking up air- miles and living in different parts of the world. After seven years in The Netherlands Antilles, ten years in the USA, 18 years in Brazil, and a short stop in Jamaica, I settled in Egypt. For now..
My dad photographed the family with an Agfa box, that’s where I got the fever... He let me use it and I was sold. But boy oh boy, it was an undertaking at that time. My first owned camera was an Olympus Pen EEE with a retractable lens, followed by a .... and then the legendary Nikon EL2. Long time later the Nikon F4S and too many lenses and other useless stuff... I slowly jumped into the digital age, still paying the chiropractor bills from dragging the useless stuff and glass I “knew” I needed in order to make a decent image. Until one day it hit me. (I’ll spare you the why’s, what’s, who’s and where’s) I went on a multi city trip with my camera and 50mm lens ONLY! Freedom at last. Gosh, what great fun that was. Amazing feeling. But 50mm was a bit too narrow for my crazy mind, so with a stop at 35mm, I settled for 28mm.
My view on street-photography: The flow of life, see it happening and freeze it before it’s gone and will never come back. My eyes think, not my brain. My hands react and make the image, not my camera. The flow of life is for me the essence of the so-called street photography. It comes to us in every aspect of life, filled with emotions, every day and anywhere. I can only do it alone, undisturbed. Not bothered by any company, how lovely it may be. It’s me and me alone. Does that sound egoistic? Maybe so, but that’s how it works for me. It’s emotional for me, as is the flow of life.
Group Exhibitions
In this artistic series Frans Kemper wanted to highlight the state of perennial loneliness that every human being feels. No one can enter another's head ... We can only know what’s in our own, but even then, not very well. The series is symbolist, using the number seven as the number of days of the week, the seven heavens of Judaism and the number seven as a magic number. A disturbing interpretation that struck all the judges.
Batsceba Hardy
ProgresFestival, Milano Ottobre 2022
It’s the flow of life in all its emotions
