The photographer working in dining room onboard cruise ship 'Europa'
The man as a six year old (at left) on board 'Fairsea' with siblings.
My name is Christiaan Werk. I am the son of Dutch parents who immigrated to South Australia on a passenger ship 'Johan van Oldenbarneveldt' in the early fifties. A return journey to and from Holland in the middle and late fifties on passenger ships, 'Fairsea' and 'Waterman', provided the memories of ships and the sea, which became the link to my profession now as a maritime photographer.
I am currently residing near the port in Adelaide, South Australia. Since living here I have taken a keen interest in its history. The author of a book titled, "Spanning Time and Tide", (about the history of Port Adelaide's bridges) directed my attention to the fabulous Port Adelaide Historical Views Collection archived in the State Library of our city. Having spent many hours perusing these amazing black and white photographs of old sailing ships and steam driven vessels filling the Port River with masts and coal smoke, I was inspired to take contemporary photographs of the world's ports and shipping.
My passion for ships and photography grew when I was a teenager. I built many of the passenger ship models which were available at the time and still have them today in my office. I was also given an old box brownie camera with which I could photograph the passenger ships that came to Adelaide and Melbourne in the sixties. At age twenty I traveled to Holland on the Chandris Lines passenger ship, ' Australis' (ex 'America' 33.500 tons and now a broken wreck on one of the Canary Islands). During this journey I purchased new photographic equipment in Fiji. The ship and its ports of call became my photographic subjects.
I spent the next twenty years traveling around the world and enjoyed a variety of interesting occupations. Most notably, I worked on the Rhine River barges and sailed along this magnificent river and its many tributaries and connecting canals as a bargeman. The barges would dock alongside one of the many hundreds of freighters that visited the huge ports of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Bremen and Antwerp. With one Captain and two deckhands only, we were responsible for mooring the barge, loading and discharging cargos, maintaining the engine and every other aspect of barge maintenance, including painting it from stem to stern. After each loading or discharge of cargo we would wash the entire barge with soapy water thereby keeping it always clean. The barges would sail upriver to the dozens of inland ports of Europe. Naturally this work enabled me to continue my interest with maritime activities and provided me with several interesting subjects to photograph.
A decade was also spent working as an international model in all of the major cities of the world including, Milan, Zurich, Hamburg, Barcelona, New York, Miami, Cape Town, Sydney, Melbourne and Amsterdam. Some of these cities were ports which provided me with opportunities to go on board and photograph the ships. I also had the good fortune to work with some of the world's best photographers during this time and took careful attention of their methods and work ethics. This attention has been of significant help to me.
A further three years was spent traveling in a VW campervan from San Francisco to the northernmost point by road in North America and then to the southernmost point of South America. I then crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a car carrier (arranged by the Vice President of VW Brazil) to Europe where I continued the journey traveling around the entire continent before the vehicle was stolen in Spain. I drove wherever possible along the coast and therefore visited and stayed in many ports, eg. Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Panama City. In some of these ports I was invited on board tug boats and naval vessels. My photographs have subsequently illustrated my book , "Intrepid Adventurer- Alaska to Tierra del Fuego". Several magazine articles of this journey were also published.
During all of my travels I continued to maintain some kind of connection with ships, ports and the sea as well as with the modeling industry. Consequently I have had the opportunity to visit some of the biggest and busiest harbours of the world as well as visiting many of the smaller fishing ports which are each uniquely interesting in their own right. As a result I have photographed many cruise ships, container ships and terminals as well as general cargo, break-bulk and bulk grain and ore terminals.
I hope that you will enjoy these images taken over thirty years of photography of ships and ports around the world. Most of my images are available for purchase. Prices depend on type of usage, the size of image, the length of time during promotion as well as the size of market population to whom they will be shown.
Further, I am also available to go on any modeling assignments and maritime photographic assignments, local, national or international. Naturally rates vary as to the type and duration of each assignment.