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Born in Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles on January 12 1976, to parents of Antillean descent with Danish and Venezuelan influence’s, Carl was raised in the neighborhood of “Jong Bloed”, situated on a five minute ride from what soon became his playground for many years on the North Shore, Playa Canoa. His parents used to work in an electronics store where they would sell camera’s to tourists. At that time his father did a lot of photography and filming and as time went by he would lend his son some of his camera gear. It was not until his seventeenth when Carl first bought his own mirror reflex camera. Growing up surfing at Playa Canoa he soon developed a passion for surf photography and so he became the first surf photographer on the island.
As many people from Curaçao move to The Netherlands to expand their horizon, he left his roots at the age of twenty one to study Maritime Officer in Amsterdam, but this would not really work out due to the fact that his passion for photography kept dominating. It was then 1998 when he attended the Photo Academy in Amsterdam where he came in touch with different aspects of photography, such as fashion, documentary and reportage rather than surf photography.
Unfortunately after attending the Academy for just two years reality kicked in and he had difficulties facing the huge differences in climate, culture and motivation. As such, he was forced to go back to his roots in Curaçao and worked there for three years in a family owned business. In this period of time he hardly photographed, except for one Dutch surf magazine.
After having recharged at home he returned to The Netherlands in 2004 to catch up on his study of photography. This time at the The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Deepening his understanding of man’s relationship to their environment, particularly that of his countryman to the streets in The Netherlands, he developed his passion for photographing the “bubbling scene” – a typical way of dancing on the islands – and Antilleans in The Netherlands in general. He felt that that is what he was born to do and he has been doing so since 2005.
Some of his work has been shown in several magazines such as Six Surf Magazine, Shemag, Surf & Beach and he has attended some interesting cultural exhibitions such as Bubbling life in the Nuts Bank The Hague. He had also won the first price for the dirtiest photograph on Curaçao in 1996.
Carl resides in Scheveningen, The Hague.