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PHOTOGRAPHY
Abel Ponger
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FOTOGRAAF AMSTERDAM | PORTRET FOTOGRAFIE DOOR ABEL PONGER
“Abel’s images hold an almost tangible intimacy. Through his use of light and stillness, the portraits seem to carry a sense of timelessness.”
Beautiful words written by my graduation mentor at the Dutch Photography School. Hi, I’m Abel and I create portraits. Feel free to scroll through the site and explore the images. In the business section of my website, you’ll find more about my services and working method. Don’t hesitate to get in touch.
See you soon, and enjoy.
I build my images systematically with a strong sense of direction. When shooting outdoors, I love searching for the right spatial qualities. These are usually places with good (soft) light, where interesting planes or lines appear and where clear colors or patterns come through. For environmental portraits indoors, I start by removing (almost) all furniture and objects, and then I carefully redesign the setting. I try to keep my images as flat as possible, with minimal perspective. In my view, this makes them calm and easy to read — which I personally find pleasing to look at.
My work is mainly influenced by the photography of Koos Breukel. I also draw much inspiration from the environmental portraits of Bert Teunissen and Arnold Newman. In addition, the work of Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, and Dutch photographers such as Jitske Schols, Frank Ruiter, Ernst Coppenjans, and Sander Troelstra are part of my study material.
For assignments, my go-to camera body is a Nikon D810 with a Sigma Art 50mm f/1.4 lens. I use this setup about 95% of the time. The remaining 5% I shoot with the Sigma Art 35mm f/1.4. In the studio, I work with two Elinchrom Three flash units, two 400w D-Lite Elinchrom flash units and two 100w D-Lite Elinchrom flashes, combined with Elinchrom Deep White umbrellas (105cm and 125cm). My backdrops are usually Savage paper rolls.
For post-processing, I mainly work with Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop, using a Wacom tablet. During company shoots, I tether with Tether Tools, in combination with Lightroom and Camera Raw.
Outside of assignments, I shoot exclusively with a Sony Xperia 5 V smartphone, paired with Adobe Lightroom.