LOOKING AT THE MYSTERY OF NATURE
Have you ever felt the magical experience of being in nature and suddenly feeling different?
All daily struggles are vanishing into the earth, and time doesn’t seem to exist. It’s been proven that the presence of nature improves our well-being. It acts as a refugee for the mind, and it literally slows you down.
But coming home into your daily routine, the whole feeling quickly disappears.
Corine Hörmann is a Dutch photographer using pinhole photography to authentically capture works that encourage the viewer to slow down, reflect, and reconnect with the natural world.
Corine grew up in the shadow of an oil refinery in an industrial area near Rotterdam. She played in small patches of wasteland near the highways, climbing willows and roaming the bushes. In summer and spring, she picked flowers, unaware that the black snow (carbon black) falling from the sky was anything but innocent.
Her passion for photography began in childhood, inspired by her father’s photography and by getting her first camera at age 14. However, a tour at the National Theater in The Hague also sparked her interest in set design, leading to her internship at the theater and prompting her to study and pursue scenography.
After moving to Groningen to study at the Minerva Art Academy, she was deeply impacted by the landscapes, stillness, and tranquillity of the newly discovered rural countryside in the north of the Netherlands, especially in contrast to her industrial hometown.
On a student field trip to Lapland in northern Scandinavia, she brought a homemade pinhole camera, a technique she had discovered through one of her teachers at the Art Academy. Struck by the results, she left her scenography studies behind to dedicate herself to photography fully.
A few years later, in 1998, she earned her degree in photography. Ever since, she has created pinhole images of nature, always seeking new ways to capture reality and constantly refining her craft through experimentation, research, and an ongoing dialogue with the landscape.
In addition to her photography practice, Corine has been teaching at the Photo Academy in Amsterdam for over a decade and worked as an educator for the international photography platform Noorderlicht. She also regularly leads pinhole photography workshops at various schools and higher education.
Her photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Paris Photo, DFOTO Feria in San Sebastián, Spain, and Art Rotterdam. Her work is part of several collections, including the Dutch Photomuseum in Rotterdam.
Corine was a finalist at the International Photography Awards, nominated for the Blooom Award by Warsteiner, and shortlisted for the Hariban Award. She was also nominated for the Contemporary Talents Award by the François Schneider Foundation in Wattwiller, France. Her work can be found in numerous private collections around the world.