Hi, in case
you are wondering who this guy is, let me introduce myself. My name is Hans Martens. I was
born in the south of The Netherlands, very close to both Germany and Belgium, were I lived
most of my life. About twelve years ago I moved to a small city in the middle of The
Netherlands, very close to the Oostvaarderplassen nature reserve, where I still live.
As you can see in these pictures, I am fond of animals. Here I am playing "Crocodile Dundee" in The Gambia (with a wild crocodile), on a trip to West-Africa. In the other photograph I am playing with my favorite big cat, a beautiful cheetah (captive). The one with the rhino's (wild) was taken in South Africa.
I have lots
of different interests, but mainly wildlife, photography and traveling,
preferable all three of them combined. So far I have been focussing mainly on Africa and
its wildlife. I have been fortunate to be able to travel many times through about a dozen
countries in northern, eastern, western and southern Africa in the past twenty years. I have
visited Sri Lanka, India and the beautiful underwater world of the Maldives.
About fifteen
years ago, in august 1996, I was able to fulfill one of my dreams and went to South Africa
to do an officially accredited Field Guide / Safari Guide Training. A couple of
years ago I persued another dream as I enrolled in a reasearch master in Wildlife Management from the University of Pretoria. Of course
I do photography in Europe as well, concentrating mainly on
birds. My favourite places are the Greek island of Lesbos and the Portugese (eastern)
Algarve, as well as my home country The Netherlands.
Photography
has been a passion of me for many years. When I was 14 years old I bought my first reflex
camera, a Praktica MTL-5. At highschool we had a darkroom but no photography teacher, so I
learned everything the hard way from books and personal experience. The first years I
mostly photographed aircraft, specially military jets. Gradually I also got interested in
model and portrait photography. Many years I have been a member of a model photography
club. Twenty years ago in 1991, I finally made my first trip to Africa (Kenya) and it made an everlasting impression on me. The great enthusiasm and love for
nature I had as a child came back to me. Then I realized that Wildlife Photography was my
greatest passion and meant more to me than pursuing a career in business. Sometimes
you need to go far, to find what is closest to you.....