People nominee

I traveled to Cuba for a personal photo project starring the people of Cuba. Together with a local guide and translator, I spend five days in and around Havana and it's backcountry on the lookout for interesting subjects to photograph. These images show some of the people I've met and portrayed during our trip, who allowed me a glimpse into their ordinary lives.

Jeroen Nieuwhuis was born in Oldenzaal, the Netherlands in 1991. His first encounter with photography came through his passion for skateboarding. The day he turned 11 years old he bought his first camera with his birthday money. This was a 0.2 megapixels digital camera the size of a box of matches. This ‘digital’ camera had no screen on the back and a internal memory of 20 images. With that camera, he began capturing his friends and trying to recreate the images he saw in the skateboard magazines. After a few years, he got his first DSLR camera for his 15th birthday. By reading blogs and watching photography tutorials online his interest expended from skateboarding into a more portrait and commercial style of photography. By the age of 21, Jeroen teamed up with his friend and cinematographer Erik and started NEW DAY studio. This collaboration made for some large international clients to join forces and within the first few months, they were shooting for Heineken, Philips, Johnnie Walker, and other large companies. An extra kickoff for the studio in 2013 was Jeroen’s winning image category image at the Red Bull Illume photography contest gaining international attention to his work.