SHAPE MEMBERS

Leendert van Driel

Leendert, born 1946 in the Netherlands, was raised in the Antilles. After gaining a civil engineering degree in the Netherlands, he worked in the mining industry in Dutch Guyana and in the oil industry in Sarawak. Later, with a MBA, he worked for McKinsey & Co in the Netherlands and Venezuela. He is co-founder of Gilde Investment and headed the company as executive chairman. 

At present, with his investment company “1000 Steps”, he aims to stimulate entrepreneurship in arts & culture. The Netherlands, Spain and the Dutch Caribbean are the geographical areas, in which “1000 Steps” so far has been investing. He is a board member in a variety of companies and also of several foundations.

Leendert and his wife Angela, both keen artists and sculptors, built a house on Bonaire in 2000 as a studio that has become a haven and workspace for groups of fellow artists. In the same way he has invited the photographers of SHAPE.

Website: www.1000steps.nl

Christian König

Christian is born in Switzerland in 1956 and he lives in France since 2000. He has been shooting images since 1978, and became a professional in 1997. Between 1990 and 2000 he worked at the Institute of Ecology at the University of Lausanne (Laboratory of Zoology and Animal Ecology.) He has published in the Swiss press regularly, as well as in the international press, he participates in museum exhibitions and gives illustrated conferences. 

Member of the Swiss Association of Naturalist Photographers (ASPN), he was a prize winner in the the International SEPNB Photography contest in 2004-2005, and he won the “Prix du Public” in the international Wildlife & Nature photography contest at Montier-en-Der, 2002. 

He has been photographing marine invertebrates (intertidal) since 1993 at the biological station of Roscoff (France). European mammals are also well represented in his photography with more than 55 species, mostly micro-mammals (bats, shrews & rodents). 

Website: www.konig-photo.com

Henkjan Kievit

Henkjan is born in 1963 in the Netherlands. As a birdwatcher he started to study biology, later he worked for several nature conservation organisations. At present he is the director of the southern region of Staatsbosbeheer, the largest nature conservation and management organisation in the Netherlands. 

Henkjan has been a nature photographer since he was 12 years old. Starting with birds, later with butterflies, he has become an all round photographer with a special interest in landscapes (wide angle) and macro photography. His images are used in many brochures, books and other publications. In addition to taking pictures he is active in the board of the the Dutch Nature Photographers Association (NVN) and he is the current president of the International Federation of Wildlife Photographers (IFWP).

Henkjan met Leendert van Driel in may 2007 on Bonaire and together they started SHAPE.

Website: www.kievitnlf.nl

Marjolijn Lopes Cardozo

Marjolijn is born in 1949 on the Caribbean island Curaçao. When she was 11 years old the family moved to the Netherlands. Biology and wild plants especially, had always her great interest. She has worked as assistant in biological scientific research at the university of Utrecht, Netherlands. In 1990 she started with nature photography traveling to the tropics, to explore the habitats of epiphytic orchids. 
Among her images you will find lots of plants. 

Subjects and regions covered so far: tropical rainforests of the Caribbean islands Martinique, Guadeloupe, Tobago, Trinidad, and of the Indian Ocean island Réunion. In Europe mostly macro photography of plants and insects, in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Poland and other countries.

She gives lectures with image presentations. She has been active as a board member of several nature photographers associations in the Netherlands (NVN), Belgium (BVNF) and international (IFWP).

Website: www.anolimages.com

Miro Zumrik 

Miro has passed away after a tragic accident on 20090305

Miro lived in Borinka-Bratislava in Slovakia and was born in 1951. His profession was service manager of Whirlpool for Slovakia. He was dedicated to wildlife photography for a very long time. He was president of the Slovakian wildlife photographers association and vicepresident of the Czech association.

He was co-author of the book: National Parks of Slovakia; has published images in 14 other books (9 cover pictures); he was author of 14 wall calendars. He regularly contributed to 8 magazines in Slovakia and abroad. 

Visited countries: USA and Alaska,Yellowstone NP, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Czech republic, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Finland, Hungary. And most of all Slovakia. His wildlife photo stock counts 10.000 slides and over 50.000 digital pictures.

Website: www.naturfoto.sk

Rostislav Stach 

Rosti lives in the Czech republic and is born in 1960. He is president of the wildlife photo club of the Czech Hunting assotiation in Prague and correspondent for the Czech geographical Magazine "Koktejl" and for the Zoo-park in Chomutov. 

He is a photographer since 1974, since 1978 he has concentrated to photography of Czech (European) fauna. Since 2005 as freelance photographer. He has published his photos in many magazines, calendars, posters, folders etc. His database holds over many thousands of images of 350 species of birds and other animals.

He has traveled for photographing to many countries: Alaska, Austria, Hungary, Kamchatka, Lituenia, Maroc, Norway, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, USA.

Website: www.fotolovy.cz

All 5 photographers know each other from the yearly meetings of the International Federation of Wildlife Photography, IFWP