Hillebrand Breuker

Hillebrand Breuker photographs nature, landscape and wildlife with a clear love for calm, space and exceptional light. His love of photography began with birds: hours of waiting in a hide, behind a dike or from the car for that one moment. Over the years his view became broader, but the attention to atmosphere and patience remained. In his images, he looks for a clean composition in which light, subject and environment strengthen one another.

The Frisian landscape and the Wadden area are an important source of inspiration. Hillebrand was born in Leeuwarden and grew up just outside the city, with being outdoors in nature as a natural part of his youth. The Wadden Sea, the coastline and the islands keep drawing him back because of the space, silence, changing light and structures shaped by weather, wind and tide. Friesland also remains a place to which he gladly returns.

In addition to the north of the Netherlands, Hillebrand has photographed in many parts of the world, from Norway and northern Sweden to Brazil, Africa, Vietnam and Antarctica. Those journeys feed his work, but his starting point remains the same: looking until all elements come together in an image that resonates. From time to time he organizes small-scale pop-up workshops, including in the north of the country, centred on that way of looking and photographing.