I wanted to be a film director
When I was 15, I had my future all figured out. I was going to bring great stories to the filmscreen.
I loved writing stories, drawing, taking photos with my mom’s camera, and occasionally filming with my dad’s 8mm camera. My younger brother and sisters often modeled or acted in front of my lens. I could spend hours making audio recordings, mixing and editing music, coming up with plays, learning dance routines, organizing lip-sync shows—you name it. I had a passion for acting, dancing, and entertaining. I enjoyed creating and imagining things, and I loved seeing my audience (mostly parents and their friends) enjoy what I put together.
I pictured myself going to film school after high school. So, at eighteen, I confidently applied to the only film academy in the Netherlands.
Unfortunately, I was rejected.
I was too young.
What?!?
I didn’t understand it at all. When I asked for more details, they said I hadn’t made any short films.
I still didn’t get it. Isn’t school where you learn and do these things?
Apparently not. The average age of students at the film academy (this was in 1991) was 26, and they already had experience making videos.
Oh…
Ouch…
I was devastated. I hadn’t considered any other school and didn’t have a backup plan. The one amd only film academy in the Netherlands could not place me. I spent a year working full-time in a restaurant with snackbar and took a video course in Eindhoven in the evenings.
On the train, I met a girl from Boxtel with a similar story. She wanted to go to drama school but wasn’t accepted either.
We talked about our dreams on these train rides.
The following year, I went to the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Faculty of Art, Media, and Technology. In my second year, I heard about an exchange program, and I just had to go! In 1993 I was in the United States at Ball State University.
Bright side
The professors pushed me hard, and I learned a lot about film. I wrote extensive papers analyzing films by genre, storyline, editing techniques, such as building tension, action, and scene direction, and differences in directors.
Besides film, I studied photography and enjoyed a wonderful time in America among grad. students from all over the world.
Back in the Netherlands, I graduated with a self-made short thriller and started working as a camera operator for the Amsterdam news station AT5. I lived in the capital again and learned to create visual stories without a storyboard and right on the spot. They had to be broadcast on the news that same evening.
Sometimes, I saw my train friend, Yvon Jaspers, from Boxtel appear on TV in the show ‘Het Klokhuis’.
Married
My boyfriend Jeff from America led me to make different career choices. We married in ’96, I moved back to the US. After a year and a half in beautiful Savannah, Georgia we returned to Amsterdam. I gained more TV experience, now partly as a producer and floor manager, until I became a mother at age 27. I found that balancing motherhood and building a career didn’t go together well. My dreams had to wait.
Meanwhile, I saw my friend from Boxtel presenting the popular Dutch TV-show “Farmer Wants a Wife.” That made me happy; you don’t need the right education to find a place where you feel at home. It inspired me to know my time would come.
I gave birth to five children, of which three are alive. As a mom I freelanced in photography and had fun as a choreographer for musicals and theater productions. Jeff was frequently abroad and just when I thought I’d have time to take my photography to the next level, my mother passed away quite suddenly.
That major blow brought me to where I am now. I feel fulfilled as a memorial photographer, teacher, and coach for other photographers. I see that I have managed to establish myself as the leader of my own life, doing what I love despite all the twists and turns. I didn’t become a film director, but with every photo reportage, I decide the story I create. I determine how I fill my life and earn my money. I feel entirely at ease.
Through setbacks, through misery, and with perseverance, you might achieve even greater heights. Especially when you want to learn from the challenges and events in your life.
Yvon Jaspers went internationally to matchmake farmers and found her own niche, different from what she ever envisioned, but became quite famous with the TV show having a spin off in other countries.
I want to share my experiences as a memorial photographer with you. I love to tell you about this beautiful profession and how it makes a difference.
Farewell photographs do so much. I believe they can:
Heal Hearts & Minds
Please follow me on this path and learn more what it means.
Have a great day!
Boukje Canaan
P.S. I would love it if you had a question for me. What is it you wonder about or want to hear (more) about? Please submit anything in the comment box beneath. You will always get an answer.
