Hi my name is Gino Ricardo, a photographer from the Netherlands. At first my journey started with video. In 2018, I went to South Africa and wanted a "serious" camera (Panasonic Gh5) to document my 3-week travel. After my travels, the camera was just sitting on a shelf waiting for the next holiday.

At the end of 2019, after my second trip I started to take my camera to work. In the beginning I didn't take the camera out of the bag, after a couple of weeks/months I decided to take my camera out and started photographing during my 1-hour lunch break.

At first, I wanted to begin with street photography but noticed that this was very daunting. One day the sun was shining on a building and the light hitting it in combination with the pattern of the building was very fascinating and I decided to take a picture. This was the start of my adventure as an architecture photographer. Later when I was more confident and had better knowledge of the camera I also started doing street photography.

I am an autodidact.

Yes. A building or more specifically a garage in the city of Rotterdam during my 1 hour lunch break.

Panasonic GH5 and since 2021 I also use a Fujix100V with a fixed lens.

To get my work featured in galleries and hopefully in museums.

That my architecture work sometimes looks like a work of Escher.

A combination of different things. Museums/art, animation, movies, music, design, other photographers, my environment etc etc.

Abstract, minimal, graphical.

Concrete and Steel (Architecture series)
With this work, I wanted to pay tribute to architecture. Showing people the beauty of the places they live in but never see or pay attention to.

Partially Glass (Architecture series) )
With this series ,I wanted to show how glass plays a big part in building. How it breaks a building up and adds elegance and vulnerability to it.

Re-flected (Street photography series) )
With reflected, I wanted to show people that within a split second there is a hidden world/ extra dimension in reflective surfaces.

Social Media (Street single) )
With social media, I wanted to show people how our lives are being affected by technology. A beach that was once for relaxation and fun turns into a place where we sit on our phones and forget to enjoy what is in front of us.

To be honest, in terms of developing a career I haven't noticed much yet. What I can say is thanks to competing in these competitions I got to know a lot of like-minded people and got introduced to many other works that I would have never discovered.

• Sebastiao Salgado
• Sean Tucker
• Jeremy Paige and many more.

The best images are not at the end of an expensive flight but right around the corner if you just go out and look.

Follow your heart and instincts. Don't let social media dictate your style or pace. Shoot for yourself and the rest will follow.

Showing up every single day. Just go out and photograph. Be afraid to fail over and over again.

I think that in everything you do you need to be open for other people or inspiration. Just be open, what’s the worst that can happen? Next to that I love getting feedback from people who has nothing to do with photography. The insights you tend to get from these people are very valuable.

I wanted to say thank you again to all the judges and organization.