Whenever I get a call from Agentschap Wegen & Verkeer, I know it’ll be interesting. This time it was no difference. It wasn’t working in a tunnel or a shut-down highway, but a portrait series of Mo and his colleagues.

Two years ago Mo, an agency employee got a cancer diagnosis. His colleagues were not just sympathetic to the news, but decided to join the fight. They all moved their shifts around so they could bring him to his chemotherapy, stayed in close contact and helped wherever possible. Today, Mo’s declared cancer-free, but not completely recovered. But, his connection to his colleagues is stronger than ever.

I sometimes have the tendency to over-do things. But, for this I wanted to travel light, and keep it simple. So, I packed my ThinkTank Airport 2.0 with a Profoto B2 and the OCF 2′ Octa with grid. I looked for the right locations in the atrium of the Herman Teirlinckgebouw where my light could augment the ambient light.

Incidentally, Mo was wearing a dark sweater, meaning I wanted to do a low-key portrait. With the existing light just a bare minimum I went up to 1/2000th on my Hasselblad X1D, and shot this portrait, which is absolutely one of my favourites this year.

Mo, shot for AWV

You can read the entire interview (in Dutch) here.