A passion
              for life

by Jenny Boot

Jenny Boot is a Dutch photo-
grapher who’s been through a lot in life and discovered her passion for photography along the way. She’s learnt that talent, which she possesses
in ample measure, doesn’t amount to much without hard work. We think she’s an extra-
ordinary young talent of international stature.

It’s all about making choices; and, of course, preferably the right choices.

At the moment I am busy with my fifth profession and fifth major course of study. I started out as a hairdresser and am hoping I will end up as a photographer: “end up”… it sounds ominous, but at last I have found what I want to do for the rest of my life. I have finally discovered my passion.

Photography. From the moment I bought a digital camera I could not stop taking pictures. Not very much of what I did was interest-
ing but that mattered not to me – this is what taught me how to

take photographs and I really wanted to spend every moment
I had doing this: taking pictures of my child, myself, sunsets. So when I was looking once more to educate myself and enroll in a course of study, it was strange that I did not think of taking photography classes. Or, per-
haps, not so strange, since I was not raised to believe I could poss-
ibly do something in life that I really enjoyed and earn money in doing so.

Through roaming the internet I discovered there were such insti-
tutions of learning as art academ-
ies, and I realised then that I could follow photography there, but why not do a study focused purely on photography? By coinci-
dence, the largest school of phot-
ography in the Netherlands, the highly respected Fotoacademie, established a new campus not far away, in Groningen, so I applied for entry. This was it! This was what I wanted to do. I fantasised about flying around the world doing shoots in New York – and other delusions of grandeur. After two years I ran out of steam because the reality was that I was not as great as I thought I was: I temporarily quit the academy and started to develop

my own style, in the genres of the nude, the erotic, BDSM, and a smattering of fashion. Now, after a two-
year break, I decided to finish my studies because I am still not as good as I envisioned, but photography