Photo: Ronald Peeters
Peeters is a Biology professor at the Odulphus lyceum in Tilburg. He learned how to observe as a biologist: focussing on the details and the characteristics of organisms. He uses this perspective and passion on biology in his hobby. ‘Through photography I became more and more fascinated on the effects of light in a picture’, Peeters explains. ‘The first photograph in my series Tuscan microcosmos, was sheer luck. The light was beautiful early in the morning, when my shoes were soaking wet from dew. I focussed my camera on some moss, but the little drops of dew created big circles on the pictures. Something happened with the image which made me incredibly curious.’
What do you do to make these pictures?
‘All the photos in Mystic Lights are shot in the morning. It’s not like I walk into nature and take a picture of the images I see with my eyes. The images come to me through the camera. I know where I want to shoot a picture, and I go outside when the light is nice. I put my camera on a tripod and I continue to snap pictures until I think I have enough of high quality. I usually take 20 to 25 pictures and keep the best of the series. The light changes incredibly fast. When I take two pictures in a short amount of time, the images are completely different.’
Because every image is taken up close, it is always surprising how they turn out to be on screen. Most of the time the dimensions are no bigger than a box of matches. Sometimes I see details I didn’t see before. This is what excites me.’
Do you know what types of moss you shoot in your pictures?
‘I have a chart but I don’t know the types by heart. I’ve known a lot about plants during my education, but I know that my knowledge is fading. I don’t mind though, it has no added value to know the species I’m taking photographs of. I have spoken to some moss experts in the Museum of Nature in Tilburg, to check if I had put the right types of moss in the discriptions of my pictures.’
You’ve shown your exhibition to the public in many places, what responses are you getting so far?
‘Mystic Lights is my first expose and the response to it has been great. People think it’s brilliant. And I can look at my pictures all day long too. To me, this is a sign of photography turning into art. I like to visualize the things that are so near. You can travel the world for your photographs, but I’ve taken all of these pictures within a kilometer. So I am picturing a world people don’t know about because it’s so small. Many people say that my photographs look like landscapes, but they’re actually a close-up.’
What kind of response do you hope to get from the scientists at Wageningen UR?
‘I want to display a different reality of nature and science. My images are pushing you to look closely at them, because you can’t see clearly what they represent. Amazement is a good catalyst for deep and thorough research. I hope to cause some amazement with my photographs. To get people out of their daily routine.’
Peeters was interviewed earlier by RTV Baarn (video is in Dutch):