Image Focus

Everybody has their own opinion about a picture, but when you tell the story behind it, it takes on a completely different feeling. This is my daughter. Nearly four years ago, she was diagnosed with liver cancer. She's recovering now and doing well.

The image was taken in Amsterdam, on a photo walk, and as usual, my daughter was there. There was no direction involved in taking the shot. I placed her in front of the wall, in a busy spot, with people walking and talking all around her. I just said, ‘make a pose, think about something, be a dreamer.’ I didn’t want to put any heavier feelings on her; I just wanted to capture my own feelings in this photo.

The day that we found out that she had liver cancer, our whole world stood still. It is so overwhelming, you are completely stunned when you hear news like that. But the strange thing is, when we looked outside, everyone just carried on. That is the crazy thing about getting news like that: everyone goes about their normal business. People were talking on their phones, standing waiting to cross the road at traffic lights. I remember someone eating a hamburger, another smoking a cigarette. I could see people mildly irritated about nothing - having to wait at a red light. All things that were completely normal. And I wished I could have that feeling - just something normal to worry about, but none of that mattered any more.

And that is what I wanted to show and feel with this photo. It tells you everything. She is standing still, posing, thinking about her future. That is why I called it ‘The Dreamer’, because in that situation, you become a dreamer. You can only dream about the positive things. But a dreamer’s vision can also be a nightmare. You walk the thin line between being positive and negative. - thrown from one side to the other.

I took the image with the compact Sony RX1R III and its fixed 35mm f/2 lens; the lens gives a beautiful depth of field, and the size is important for street photography, as I don’t want people to see that I have a camera. The 61-megapixel resolution allows me to crop while still maintaining excellent image quality. The main technical decision for the shot was to use 1/30 sec at f/2.0. She isn’t completely sharp - there is a little movement, but the imperfection works for this image, because the whole story is about imperfection. If it were too sharp, too clean, too perfectly composed, it would not have the feeling that I wanted to convey.

I am so proud of my girl - of how strong she is, of how she stands in life, everything about her and being a dreamer. That's why I'm really proud to talk about this picture.