Ilse Schrama often chose nature, people and religion as the subject of her photography.

Initially she worked as a documentary photographer and made reports about Buddhism in Laos and Myanmar, Islam in the Netherlands, Iran and New York and ancestor worship in Vietnam.

She then switched to digitally editing photos from her own archive, developing her own poetic graphic style.

With the series 'The Orphic Desire' she depicted the longing that people have for love and for children. In the series 'The Garden of Eden' she wanted to depict both the biodiversity in nature and the sexuality of animals and humans.

With her latest series 'We're part of the natural world' she created fictional rooms (as a kind of portrait) for scientists who research ecosystems and who are actively involved in nature and the environment. She created rooms for David Attenborough, Jane Goodall and even Greta Thunberg, among others. And she collected striking statements for these portraits.

“If we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.” (David Attenborough)

Ilse Schrama (1964 - 2022) studied Dutch Language and Literature at the University of Amsterdam. In 1993 she started as a documentary photographer. In 2000 she worked for a year for Magnum photographer Steve McCurry in New York. After that she developed in the direction of autonomous photography. She has a number of books to her name, including Buddhist temple life in Laos (2006), Het Orfische Verlangen (The Orphic Desire, 2011) and A bright night in the garden of Eden (2016). www.ilseschrama.nl