Welcome to the website of Ineke van Beekum

Walking, nature, dogs, photography, these are my personal keynotes. When I was born in the Dutch village of Rijnsdorp, in 1958, our village was situated freely in an open land of bulbfields and meadows. As a child, I could roam where I wanted, not far from our house. One could feel part of nature at that time.
At the age of ten, I got my first dog, and I could take it for runs in the polder.

From that time on my passion for dogs was born. After two mixed-breds it was time for a pedigree dog: a Bouvier des Flanders. Soon another Bouvier joined us. I got my first reflex camera, an Olympus and took lots of pictures of these two Bouvier boys.

In 1989 the first Curly Coated Retriever entered my life and this special breed captured my heart. With the Curly Coated Retriever I entered the world of hunting - which gave me another view on nature - and I went to shows at home and abroad. Of course I took as many pictures as possible of Curly Coated Retrievers.

In 2004 I bought a digital reflex camera, a Canon 20D which opened a new world for me. No more need to spend a lot of money on buying and developing films, for the pictures come directly onto the screen of my computer. Only the best went to the photo shop to be printed. The second advantage: a lot more opportunities for experiments, the results of which can be viewed directly with the computer. This way of learning in practice, together with studying books, gave me wonderful opportunities to expand my expertise in photography, especially regarding dogs.

Canine photography, this is the mix which brings everything together for me: walking, nature and dogs. A bonus is the often very pleasant contact with the owners of the dogs. In the meantime a lot of other breeds have started to fascinate me. Again and again it is an engaging challenge to capture the essence of the breed and the individual character of the dog in an image.
This website offers you the opportunity to view some of my pictures - of course only a selection of an ever expanding collection.

Ineke van Beekum

Index