Megan Limb

Art 1050

11/20/19

Photographer: Frank Nieuwenhuis

Frank Nieuwenhuis is a photographer who lives in Reykjavik, Iceland. He went to film

school in Brussels before moving to Iceland. He loves to explore the landscapes that are there.

Not only does he do photography, he is also very well known for his video creations. In this

paper I will only be discussing his photography. He moved to Iceland because of his fascination

with landscapes and nature’s power at work. He went to film school, so he got a lot of experience

with videography and photography, which propelled him to discover more about the

photography end with his professional career. There isn’t as much information on the internet

about Frank Nieuwenhuis’ childhood or early interest in photography, just his current film and

photography projects.

I enjoy looking at Frank Nieuwenhuis’ work because it is obvious to see the thought and

care he puts into telling a story with his photographs. He is able to find lines in everything that he

takes a picture of, and he uses those lines so intentionally to tell the viewer what to look at and

what to feel. I tend to enjoy photographers who are able to capture the world as it is in a unique

way. I don’t typically like a photo that is staged or produced with hundreds of dollars of supplies

because it doesn’t feel as real to me. With Frank’s photography, he looks at the world around

him for lines and emotion that is worth photographing.

Maybe what stands out to me the most is the realness of his photography. While Frank

Nieuwenhuis does use Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop to enhance his photos, for the

most part they appear untouched. He takes pictures of nature in a way that you can imagine if
you were to be in that location, it would look a lot like the photograph of it. Frank Nieuwenhuis

shows that you don’t need to do a ton of retouching to have beautiful photographs that can create

emotion in the people that look at them.

This style can especially be seen in his photography of landscapes. From what I saw on

Behance.net and Frank’s website, frankframesthings.com, Frank Nieuwenhuis tends to

photograph landscapes. This is, after all, one of the primary reasons that he moved to Iceland in

the first place. Frank pays a lot of attention to lines in his photography. The first collection of his

that I saw was called Lines in Landscapes, a series of photos that show how lines can define and

characterize a landscape. Even in his portrait work, I noticed that he pays a lot of attention to

lines. In a later photo in this paper, for The Fittest You collection, Frank positions the camera

and the model so that the photograph is full of diagonal lines that really convey motion, even

though the model is holding a pose. I think that Frank definitely pays a lot of attention to lines

when he is deciding what to photograph and how to photograph it. This can be seen in all of his

work, whether it be landscapes or portraits.

Frank Nieuwenhuis uses several techniques in his photography. Because he does a lot of

landscapes, most of his photos look like they have been taken with a maximum aperture, rather

than a limited aperture. This can easily be seen when you look to the edges of the landscape

photos and see that they are still in focus with great detail. In his portrait photography however,

he leans toward the more traditional limited aperture, making the background blur behind the

subject of the photo. Another technique that Frank Nieuwenhuis uses is the Rule of Thirds. This

can especially be seen in the last photograph where the water is on the bottom third line of the

photograph, emphasizing the superiority of the mountain as well as it’s monstrosity in

comparison to the small iceberg. The Rule of Thirds can also be seen in the second photograph,

with the beginning of the sky on the top third line.

Examples of Frank Nieuwenhuis’ work

Lines in Landscape:
The Fittest you
Iceburgs of Greenland: