Jan van Leijenhorst

I was born in the Netherlands and now live in Evanston, Illinois with my wife (who was born in Japan). I am “semi-retired”: was an international banker and lived in several countries in Asia and Europe.

I started to take photographs at a young age with my dad’s Kodak box camera, but I did not become serious about it until my early twenties when I took a correspondence course at the New York Institute of Photography. I had a darkroom and printed and enlarged my (b/w) photographs). In the years that followed I shot mostly slides (some of which I had digitized recently). I had a Canon camera with several lenses that I sold a few years ago.

I entered the digital age some 6 or so years ago, I took a Photoshop course, bought a (Olympus) DSLR and have been a “serious” amateur photographer since. I belong to a local photography group where we critique each other’s images once a month. I photograph mostly landscapes and flowers, but am trying to develop a more personal style. I am interested in photography that goes beyond traditional images in particular abstracts and impressionistic images. But I have not done much work in that area yet.