Rather minimalist, mainly looking for light and shadow, beautiful scenes rather than a story often. That is also what I sometimes find lacking in myself. Maybe I should go after a story rather than just looking for something beautiful. Sometimes I want to do something different, but I always end up with the same thing.

Unintentionally, I think so. If I walk down a very busy street it doesn't attract me. I always look for one or a few somewhat solitary figures that are a little aberrant, make you feel a little uncomfortable. I'm somewhat inspired by a number of artists like Wayne Thiebaud where I'm especially a fan of his work with unusual figures that he depicts in somewhat strange situations. I'm also a fan of Edward Hopper, he also often shows some lonely figures, people who are exactly from another world.

One of my first photo books was one by Phil Penman, a street photographer from New York. But really, I mostly have books about other visual artists rather than photographers. Recently I was asked to give a talk on street photography in Olso and then I bought myself some books, mainly to see what other street photographers have to say. One of the questions I asked myself was: is my street photography actually street photography? After all, I am waiting for a scene, for something to happen. Some other street photographers just don't do that and rather take candid pictures of a scene occurring before their eyes.

Yes, I'll give an example. Last week in Antwerp, I was in the neighborhood where there are a lot of Chassidic Jews, who of course are very photogenic with their hats and so on. Then first I walk around to see what looks interesting and where the light is good. Then I keep waiting until I see something interesting and sometimes that can take quite a long time. But I also sometimes just walk around, usually without a plan. Then when I come to the same area I see something totally different again. I tend to return to the same neighborhood more often, also because then I gradually know where and when the light is beautiful. Still, sometimes it is also fun to go to a city I don't know at all and just walk around and see what happens and what comes my way. My boyfriend lives in New York and I go there every four or five weeks. Then I plan to go to the Westside, for example, but on the way I come across something nice and then I abandon that plan and end up going somewhere else altogether.

In the Jewish Quarter it did happen that suddenly someone was standing next to me thinking I was photographing the security cameras. When I showed them the pictures, people are usually reassured. I once had the police come to me in Antwerp. They had seen through their cameras that I had been standing there for an hour and asked what I was doing. I then also showed them my photos and it was fine. I have never been approached really aggressively.

The lens I use most is a 24-70mm 2.8 from Sigma. I also tried a 50mm before but then I missed my wide angle and when I use a fixed wide angle I miss the fact that I can zoom in.

I really like going to Williamsburg in New York, there is also the Chassidic Quarter there. It was cloudy that day so I didn't have much inspiration but through that one photo I discovered that you can take good photos even on a cloudy day. There were some school buses parked and I saw the scene of the photo in the reflection of the windows. Photographing the reflection allowed me to take pictures of people without them realizing I was photographing them. I then took a lot of pictures until someone came to me and told me not to take pictures of their buses because they are private property.

I left without being sure I had a good picture. I did feel there was something in it but because of the gloomy weather, I had not immediately noticed that one image. When I saw that photo afterwards, brightened it a little bit and converted it to black and white, it suddenly became a different image.