5 Questions with Liam van den Berk

I'm originally from Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, and recently moved to Auckland, North shore.

Q1. What made you first pick up a camera?

Scraping my skin and peeling dirt back as a road worker, I left school at a young age with no qualifications for uni, and my parents decided I should take on a trade, so I did, I started off with plumbing as an apprentice, and was fired shortly after by my boss, then became a drain layer for a roadwork company, I feel like deep down this was a great learning curve for me, to truly think about what I would like to do for the rest of my life, and this definitely was not it. 

As a kid I would spend almost every other night watching the original star wars, star trek, ET, Bladerunner, and gaming my little heart out on the first Xbox, and configuring lego castles, this clearly meant I must have some small of creative backbone, so back to my late teens now, I ended up purchasing a GoPro hero 3 and started filming and taking photos of my friends attempting tricks of all kinds, and exploring abandoned buildings and forest with one my best mates Connor Pritchard.

This led to the next chapter, shooting every week with friends and people I knew through other people including the odd insta stalk or tinder match.
Whatever opportunity I could take I would go in guns blazing with my 5DMK3. 

Mostly people, I liked the dopamine hit, and or rush I would get from other appreciate my work, I had never had this from any other area of life, so I applied for Uni with my Instagram believe it or not, even though I had no grades to show, my portfolio was half descent, and I noticed they had a scholarship, so I applied and managed to win top prize. Aka Uni entrance supplied!  (To see Liam’s Uni Instagram @mrvandenberk)

I spent a year here, then figured out that I could learn much faster in the real world, so I left and found people whom where in the indistery, and wrote a goal list of brands I would like to work with, currently to this date i have worked for all of them, Im proud of this but I feel like it's just the start, I'm ready to step into the world of cinema, my main goal is to work on Documentaries, Movies, High End commercials, witch is becoming harder as COVID has blown New Zealand's next chance of progression. 

Q2. What does success look like to you?

True Happiness, and constantly striving towards the bigger picture in life. 

Q3. What is your desert island lens?

ARRI 35mm T1.9 Master Anamorphic Lens PL Mount.

Q4. Which shoot for you stands out as most memorable?

Honestly I could never nail this down to one shot, so i'll write down a few; most recently Icebreaker shoot was a well rounded family friendly crew. I think this combined with the beauty of all the beautiful locations I have been with them. Hawaii, Vegas, LA, Thailand…. All of these trips were insane, and I mostly miss the people I traveled with on them, so many historical moments that I'll treasure.

Q5. Which photographer influenced you and your style the most?

I myself am, truly inspired by Roger Deakins, and Emmanuel Lubezki, these creative minds are more less cinematographers/directors.

You can find more of Liam’s work here Instagram