Coastwork
An unplanned trip to Texel turned into a small field study of a coastline unlike any other. Being there, in the wind and water, brought back my fascination with the ocean and its edges.
Writing
A growing archive of observations on photography, movement, systems, creative work, and paying closer attention to the world.
Featured
How to tell stories online
For years I thought I was simply exploring and taking photos. Only later did I realize I was repeating a pattern: go out, collect, return, interpret, publish, repeat. This issue maps the loop that turns wandering into a creative practice.
Mexico, a retrospective
A look at a country I like a lot, but no longer love. And "it's not you, it's me" I want to tell it, if countries had ears to hear it. Because it really is me and who I am today. But, who knows, another 10 years might do wonders.
Newer Topographics
Why take it upon myself to dedicate my time and energy towards a goal that isn’t even clearly visible from the beginning. Will it matter if I don’t? What do I contribute, do I want to contribute? Why? To what? Again, why?
It's all out there, right now
A good beach has white sand, they tell you. Preferably as finely grained as possible. Like a powder that's sprinkled on the edges of the land. The frosting on the cake, if you will.
The glorious, life-invigorating act of walking
When I first landed on Craig Mod's website and read he describes himself as a 'writer, photographer, and walker,' I was a little confused. What the hell does it mean to 'be a walker'?
2025 Recent posts
✦ August
Closer #021
To bring the 2025 series of Closer to a fruitful end, bestowed upon us is the opportunity to revisit its first editions. A newly release GPT-5 Prompting Guide breathes new life into our previously tried tests.
2025 Recent posts
✦ August
Closer #020
GPT-5 is out and underwhelming. Our mini six-week experiment has come to an end. There's only five more regular editions of this newsletter before we wrap up with some preliminary conclusions in edition #25.
2025 Recent posts
✦ August
Closer #019
GPT-5 is out! That's just in time for the last edition of our 6-week experiment using the same image. I'm curious to find out of this new model brings any improvements.
2025 Recent posts
✦ August
Closer #018
The second-to-last edition of this experiment within an experiment, where AI gets to not only describe the image, and then generate an image based on said description, but also determine how to describe the image. Succes, finally?
2025 Recent posts
✦ August
Studio update, cats, sharing your work & organization
We're back to work with rediscovered vigor and, hopefully, new-found focus.
2025 Recent posts
✦ August
Crossing
A walk from one edge of a city to the other — west to east, north to south. A straight line through a place to see what connects its opposite sides.
2025 Recent posts
✦ July
Closer #017
After this week, there's two more editions of the same image being described in different ways. Thankfully, because it's not bringing us anywhere. But that's interesting to note in itself too.
2025 Recent posts
✦ July
Closer #016
We are sixteen weeks into this experiment, and I'm unsure if this is still providing value. This is the third week we let AI decide how to prompt and the results are... well, you be the judge.
2025 Recent posts
✦ July
Closer #015
Week two of our 'experiment within an ongoing experiment' where AI is not only doing the image description and generation, but is also deciding the prompting to get to that description.
2025 Recent posts
✦ July
Closer #014
Hey, so, thought: you know how we're already generating AI-images, based on AI-descriptions of real life images, right? What if... we also asked ChatGPT how to properly ask for those descriptions? Would that make it better?
2025 Recent posts
✦ July
Closer #013
I'm reconsidering my approach, but I'm not sure I'm willing to change it. Not right now. These are still interesting times we live in.
2025 Recent posts
✦ June
Soul searching in Greece (again)
Tears of relief as I'm waist-deep in the ocean, trying to see if I can dance still. I can, I think, I CAN, I scream. So that's how we make our way over the island. Curious to learn, relieved the fire still burns.
2025 Recent posts
✦ June
Closer #012
Imagine a cat behind a closed door, only paws and nose peeking from under the small crack between the door and the floor. Now imagine it again. How different are those results? Quite a lot, as it turns out.
2025 Recent posts
✦ June
Closer #011
We all know things can get weird in AI image land. But what if you give it a weird image? Will we get twice the weirdness or will they balance each other out?
2025 Recent posts
✦ June
Closer #010
SHOCKER: Asking AI for a direct replication of your work will give you a direct replication of your work. But does it really?
2025 Recent posts
✦ June
Building a daylight studio
This one is for my Amersfoort folks. It goes Tjommies, OostWest 1, OostWest City, Van Zanten, OostWest, Van Zanten, OW, VZ, OW, VZ, Tjommies, OW, VZ, OW, VZ, OW, VZ
2025 Recent posts
✦ June
Closer #009
Learning that it's the imperfections of our actions causing things to feel real is one of this week's biggest take-aways. And that's something I think we should ponder on for some time.
2025 Recent posts
✦ May
Closer #008
Eight weeks in. Time to evaluate early results and recalibrate accordingly. What other directions should we take this experiment in?