Sam de Backer

I was about 9 years old when I got my first camera, A Fisherprice, blue and with 16 mm film inside. From that moment on I knew photography was my thing, shooting everything and making album became routine, if I was there, so was my camera.
By the time I was 13 I had my first reflex camera, so I bought myself a room full of Kodak Gold film and continued my image spree.

Being in love with making, stealing, freezing moments, I learned how to work the darkroom, from scratch I could develop and print images, so that around my sixteenth birthday I bought myself a second camera, this time canon came in the picture, my very first digital reflex touched my hands.
The Eos 400D, what a machine, I flew it to America, went to Sri Lanka with it, passed over Thailand and ended up in Ecuador, in 2 years time, the camera and I had seen the world.
It was there, in Ecuador, and this looks almost like ‘out of a movie’, that I realized there was nothing else I would rather do than to travel the world taking pictures.

After finally convincing my parents, I started going to a professional photography-school, I was 20 back then. It was there I learned the tricks to a better shot instead of a good shot.
In the summer of 2010 I got my first big job working as a photographer for Diageo, known for Capitan Morgan, J&B and Smirnoff. From than on it has only been better and better, I worked for Volvo cars, Hunting Magazine and am now a regular Red Bull photographer.
My pictures can be found in 7 publications, in magazines, newspapers and on the Internet.

Why the yachtweek? Well first of all, I love to travel, but there is more… Around the age I started taking pictures, I developed another hobby, sailing.
By the time I was 16 I had done every course and got my A grade (international certificate to sail sporting boats), but it didn’t stop there. My partner and I got asked to sail in competition, an offer we sadly had to refuse because of the money-part to it all.
Not only do I love water, I love taking pictures to, and you know what they say, never change a winning team.