Lieve Blancquaert

Canon Ambassador Lieve Blancquaert is a social documentary photographer who has gained recognition for her sensitive and engaging approach to difficult subjects.

Lieve is a Belgian photographer whose work has taken her around the world. She attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, where she studied art, taking a particular interest in film and photography. She looked up to the likes of war photographer Tim Page and, after graduating, she started working freelance for various publications in Belgium, including De Morgen and Knack.

In addition to joining forces with writers and journalists, Lieve has formed long-term relationships with humanitarian NGOs such as Oxfam and Memisa; the latter is a Belgian organisation that focuses on reducing maternal and child mortality. Lieve grew close ties with Memisa during her time in DR Congo.

A triptych of projects entitled Birth Day, Wedding Day and Last Days shed light on how people around the world mark the landmark events in a person's life, from births to funerals. The success of the projects led to them being turned into TV documentaries. Now finally completed, the three projects have been brought together in an exhibition and book called Circle of Life.

Lieve has held a number of exhibitions of her work in Belgium, and images from Birth Day have been exhibited at the World Bank in Washington in support of its early years agenda. To mark International Women's Day 2017, she received a Gender Award at the Senate of Belgium in recognition of the inspiring way she has promoted gender equality. Further acclaim for her work has come in the shape of a Gold Award at the 2016 WorldMediaFestival in Hamburg for Wedding Day, and a nomination for the same project in the International Current Affairs Documentary category of the prestigious AIB International Media Excellence Awards.

You have a formal education in art. How has that influenced your approach to making photographs?
"Education offers a good playground and the luxury of time to find out what kind of photography you want to do. But, to be totally honest, life experiences have had a stronger influence on my approach."

What kind of photographer are you?
"Fast and as precise as possible. I hate it when I have to work hard on a picture after taking it."

What basic skills do you think are required by someone who wants to embark on a journalistic or documentary photography career?
"To be open to all stories. But most of all to have an open mind. We all have our prejudices, and that is the biggest enemy in this job."

When you begin to plan a project, do you start to pre-visualise specific pictures and the style of image you want to create, or do you just focus on the story and see what develops?
"Both I believe. You can think in pictures but I learnt that you have to open your eyes for all other pictures that you don't have in your mind."

Do you ever switch off from photography, or is it something that's always on your mind?
"I can easily switch off my camera. It must be horrible to live with somebody who never stops."

"Always be open to ideas. Sometimes my work feels like a relay, with one story leading to the next one. For instance, when I worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on a documentary about maternal mortality, there I decided to start my Birth Day project. So, I travelled to 14 different places in the world to see how children are born. While I was doing that project, I met a father in India who told me about his terrible position because his wife has delivered him only daughters. There I decided to focus on Wedding Day and Last Days, projects about how people connect and how we die in this world."