About Us

Keep the Moment Foundation is headed by Barbara and an unpaid and independent Board of Trustees. We collaborate with other organizations and volunteers on a project-by-project basis. We have no financial incentive, and want to do projects we believe in. We are mainly concerned with projects that promote social solidarity.

The foundation is an official charity, with a so-called ANBI status, so donations are - under certain conditions - tax deductible.

Supervisory Board: Robert Heinsch, Freija van Duijne and Sabah Boustani

Guest teacher and technician: Michiel Cohen Jehoram

Barbara Smeenk is the founder and CEO of Keep the Moment. In her work as an artist, she explores various cultures. She investigates how identity and image influence each other. Much of her work is about the (self) image that people have through the stories about their country of origin.

Barbara has over 30 years of experience in photography, film and animation and also teaches in these fields. She is very knowledgeable about visual language and can speak passionately about it. In 2012 she founded Keep the Moment, an international school for photography. Barbara grew up in Turkey and Oman. She enjoys many cultures together that is why she organizes projects to connect people from different backgrounds. For her, images are an ideal way to communicate. She helps her students to find their own visual signature. In December 2019, she established a foundation to visualize social issues through art projects.

Freija Van Duijne is a futurist with a great interest in the well-being of people, nature and everything that lives. Freija joined the Board of Directors, because she believes that through art you can create a shift in thinking. She thinks it is important that people and children are aware of the effect of their behavior on the future and what possibilities there are to contribute to a better future. Through this foundation she can inspire and support Barbara with her projects. Freija is very creative and likes to work with artists when a company needs a vision on the future. Barbara has also collaborated as an artist with a number of foresights organized by Freija. Currently, Freija draws and paints for her foresight projects because images speed up the thinking process.

Robert Heinsch was one of the students in the first photography class that Barbara taught in English, even before the photography school existed. Later he joined a number of courses at Keep the Moment. He was closely involved in starting the International photography school Keep the Moment. Now that this school has become a foundation, he is giving his support again. For Robert, photography is important to get inspiration and to recharge. He is a professor of International Law. Every day he coaches and inspires young enthusiasts who want to make the world a better place. Through his work, he unfortunately sees the horrors of war on a daily basis, which makes him love to capture the beauty of life in photography even more. Robert participated in the Algeria Project of Keep the Moment and Studio 21 in Algeria.

Sabah Boustani has taken almost all the courses at Keep the Moment and joined the photography trips to Morocco and Russia. She participated in the art project "Social Responsibility" in Morocco too. She is currently studying Cultural Sciences. She joined the Supervisory Board because she wants to do her part to make the world more beautiful, tolerant and fair. She believes in the power of the image.

Miggel Cohen Jehoram is super handy, he can actually do everything. Thanks to Michiel, the studio is a multi functional space equipped with all kind technical capabilities. He is the guest teacher in the lessons where multiple flash units are used on location. He explains to the students how the flash and the lighting work. With difficult technical photography assignments he is there and comes up with brilliant solutions to make it possible.

Mission and Vision

Everyone knows the photograph Nick Út took in Vietnam on January 8, 1972. The image went around the world and changed the course of the Vietnam War. A good picture says more than a thousand words. Visual language is a universal language that - more than words - can fraternize, convey insights and ideas. Images enable people who do not understand each other's language to understand each other.

Images play an increasingly important role in modern communication. Just compare a newspaper from thirty years ago to a newspaper today. The standard rule for an effective website is also: expressive images, little text.

So "capturing" images, creating images, is incredibly important. But creating a good image with eloquence is an art. Telling stories with images, but also learning to 'read' images well is an art. Powerful images, such as Nick Út's photo, come through immediately, but many messages usually remain hidden in the image. This is not necessary, nor desirable in a time when more and more communication is done through images. Keep the Moment helps people to master the art of 'reading' and 'capturing' images through photography.

Keep the Moment provides tools to analyze images faster, and to visualize their own story.

In a rich and diverse society such as the Netherlands', there is a great need for a common language in which people can understand each other and tell each other's stories. Keep the Moment has a mission: to increase the value of universal visual language for as many people as possible.

- Karel Feenstra -

Memberships: Natuurmonumenten, we use their trails to practice nature photography and we value nature conservation. World Wildlife Fund, for the conservation of wild animals and their habitats.