My name is Wim van Dongen. I am a retired IT project manager and - graduated as a historian - as such I have mainly been involved in software development projects regarding access to cultural heritage, especially in the archives domain.
This website is intended to publish the 'highlights' of what I have collected ('canned') over the years via photographing, reading, researching and developing. Initially it will show my best photos taken as a hobby photographer (see: Portfolio), but I will also write something about old and new personal projects, involving - again - both history and information technology (see: Projects).
I have been photographing since the 1970s. In that analogue era I started with a Praktica Super TL2, but now I mainly use digital Pentax cameras. The K200 and K30 (with 12-24 mm, 18-135 mm and 50-200 mm zoom lenses) are my 'workhorses', but I also own the analog MZ50, P30 and Z10 with a number of lenses (including a 100 mm macro lens), plus the (digital) 'superzoom' compact X70.
Nature in all its aspects is my favorite photography subject, but I also love wandering around cities and capturing all their highlights and curiosities. In the past - especially during my studies in the 1980s - I have been using my analogue cameras also as a research tool, to photograph archival material which I needed for my projects as a historian. That material is now digitised using an old Agfa scanner, the SnapSan e50. For digitising archival material I have now a newer tool at my disposal: the ScanTent, a very useful product of the Transkribus/READ-COOP projects, which can be used with a smart phone.
You can find more information about me on LinkedIn. You can also find me on Mastodon and Pixelfed.
If you want to know more,