Our Pioneer in Perth, Western Australia: Denni van Huis

Denni van Huis is an all round creative who specialises in photography, concepts, graphic design, art direction and branding. Having recently moved to Perth in Western Australia, we catch up with Denni to find out more about life in Oz and what it is about living there that makes it creatively different and inspirational.

Through our Pioneers series, in collaboration with Nils Adriaans, we catch up with members of the Dutch Creative Community living abroad and ask them to send back personal ‘messages in a bottle’ about life away from the Netherlands.

How did you end up in Australia? What drove you to move there?

Love is what brought me here. My wife is from Western Australia (WA) where we are at the moment. Before the world went all weird we had already planned to move to WA after we lived in the Netherlands, Portugal and London together for the last 4 years and now it was time for Amy to come home. It wasn't easy to get across the pond and into Australia as a European during this pandemic. After I finally had all the right paperwork, we did our two weeks hotel quarantine and now, we are as free as a bird. Correct – there is no Covid here and it has been like that for 11 months apart from one lockdown for five days (there was one Covid case).

What makes you feel at home?

Space. The population of the state of WA is less than 2.7 million people and it is a quarter of the size of Europe (population of 746 million). There is so much untouched nature out here, you could literally drive for days, go for a hundred-mile beach walk and only find beauty surrounded by the bluest Indian ocean. It makes me feel at home even though it’s totally the opposite from what I used to call home.

What stands out the most there (professionally)?

As a lifestyle photographer, the vastness of the place is great to be adventurous in my work. Living here gives me a whole new canvas which I'm excited about drawing my first lines on.

The last couple of years most of my work has been with diverse international brands doing everything from sports: kite and wind-surfing, surfing, multi-sport brands, running. Editorial shots mostly lifestyle / fashion and that’s what I’d like to keep doing. I’m focusing on creating campaigns and taking photos for brands that look for the real feeling and send me off on a mission whether that’s for the EU or US brands I have worked for in the past or new clients. Keeping it real tickles my fancy and gets me excited to run around and chase the light.

What is your Random Pic(k) Of The Week? Or more in general, what inspires you extremely as a professional?

You said random? Absolutely loved seeing stone carver Anna Rubincam working with tools. A dance between vision and skill. It is fascinating to see her work, knowing how most of us never learned such skills in this digital era we live in, and it was not long ago the common thing to learn. Creating something that you can actually touch and reshape midst crafting is what I want to add to my skill set whether that's working with stone, painting, or crafting something out of beautiful yarra wood. Simple, working with my own hands, I’ll keep practicing!

What’s the most outstanding piece of work over there?

Humm, I could simply share one or two epic photos now that I have taken (have a look on my website for that - www.denni.nl), but I would rather share and explain my current situation which I find quite interesting with regard to the creative scene in WA (which I'm still trying to figure out). The whole scene is very small to non-existent. Back in the Netherlands, I worked as a self-employed 'Jack of all trades’ – a photographer, director and graphic designer, working everywhere which I thoroughly enjoyed for the last 15 years. Here it is a whole different ball game because the work simply doesn’t stay in the West but gets outsourced over in the Eastern states of this red rocked country. It’s frustrating maybe but I like to see it as a challenge which brings possibilities. Most of all, good creatives leave Western Australia and move overseas or to the East Coast of Oz. And the ones that stay, well, you know how in the NL the creative scene we love sharing, taking each other on the team and helping each other out with work, here it’s the opposite. Challenge accepted, I’m slowly getting my foot in the door – trust the process they say.

What ‘souvenir’ would you bring home?

Besides the classics like Vegemite and a new surfboard quiver, I would bring a bag full of “no worries” and “how's it going” – the openness and friendliness of the people. As we all know, life is fast in the Netherlands and constant. I’ve now lived a couple of times Down Under and whenever I'm back I can't stop noticing that the pace of life is a bit slower here. People spend more time outside, they live more with the sun. If you rock up to the beach at 5:30 or go to the gym, you see so many people exercising and soaking up vitamin D. Meeting friends for a coffee, going for a morning surf –finding a wave or two before going to work. The climate helps but I think we Northern Europeans can definitely learn from this and apply to the late spring and summer months. I love it.