Hello my name is Maikel Lonis
Of course, it all begins at the start. My interest in nature started at a young age. My grandparents lived in the largest forest area in the Netherlands, so I spent almost all my youth growing up with nature surrounding me. Then, I started to get fascinated by what I could find in the forest.
During my exploration, I started to feel the need to document nature to share my findings with others. So, I bought my first camera, a Canon A80, a simple point-and-shoot camera. I brought this camera on every nature trip, searching for the smallest animals. More and more, I fell in love with photography and nature, especially the combination of those two. So, in 2005, I bought my first more "serious" camera: the Samsung Digimax Pro 815.
A new world opens up with the possibility to zoom further and document more. So, I started taking some photo courses and learning the basics of photography. This made me realize it's not about pressing the shutter button with the correct settings. Also, it's not about looking in the right direction. It's about actually seeing moments and telling a story. So, with this in mind, I was looking for a more creative camera setup. And I bought the Olympus E-410 camera with some four-thirds kit lenses. What a happy egg I was. With this combination, I started to learn photography, and besides taking photos as a way of learning, I went out looking for second-hand books about nature and photography. That's why I now have 400 books about nature, I may a bit too enthusiastic, but it is a fantastic source of knowledge about animals and photography.
When time moved on, I started to get interested in bushcraft, so I spent a lot of time bringing my knowledge to the field and making some trips to South America. The first place that I visited was Colombia. What a fantastic experience, what a gorgeous place in this world. And what hospitality I received, what a terrific time I had. During the years after it, I visited Cuba and multiple European countries everywhere I brought my camera. At the same time, I was thinking more and more about starting to do something in photography on a professional level. This thought stayed in my head for a long time. Meanwhile, I began to work in logistics, and in the years after that, I spent a lot of my time doing wildlife photography and making fantastic trips to the North Cape and Iceland.
At this time, I started to get the opportunity to test many camera systems, from Nikon to Canon Pentax to Fujifilm and Sony, Olympus (OMsystems) and off cource Panasonic, passed my hands, and all the brands worked great. Still, some systems fit my style of making photos the best. This time, I also got some small assignments and photo projects. So, for a long time, it meant working in logistics and being busy with photography on a semi-professional level.
But now it is time to start something I have been busy with for so long. I want to share my passion. I want to share my vision of this world with all of you. On my YouTube channel, I will take you on my journeys in nature and oncoming trips. In addition, I will do reviews about photo gear with a focus on Wildlife photography. So follow me on this adventure, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and follow me on Instagram. Also, on this website, I will make blogs about my findings and other photography-related items.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my photographic story.