Wim de Vos
about
I was born in Enschede the Netherlands and I’ve been a photographer since 1971. I learned the craft of taking pictures from a great Photographer called Henk Brusse, who helped me to get to Munich-Germany in September 1972, were I enrolled from a photo academy (Bayrische Staats lehranstalt fuer Fotografie), which I attended for two years. In December 1975 I moved to South Africa and started working as a Photographer for the National TV station. After a few months I was promoted to film cameraman working with a CP16, the Soweto student uprising on the 16 June 1976 was my first big assignment as a cameraman, I worked for the then South African SABC TV news for about 18 Months, then started filming for the German network ARD doing news and documentary's, after that in 1982 I started freelancing for NOS, ZDF, BBC (South Africa and the sports boycott), French TV, ABC Australia, PBS and NBC until landing at CBS were I still am today working as a lighting Cameraman for 60 minutes.
I filmed a few drama’s for German TV and Cinema and TV commercials for wines and cigarettes, a couple of documentary’s like the Bushman in Namibia, wildlife in the Kruger park, and some music video’s etc etc.
On the 17 June 1986 I was deported from South Africa allegedly for breaking the emergency laws, and flown to London were my family and I still live today.
Just about anything that has happened world wide since 1976, I've covered for news from the Soweto uprising to the war in Rhodesia now (Zimbabwe), Angola, Mozambique, from Rwanda to Sierra Leone to Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Iran, China, India, Afghanistan, the Berlin Wall, Romania, East Germany, Russia, the Iron curtain coming down, Romania, Israel, Presidential summits, several winter/summer Olympics and much, much more.
Currently I’m working for CBS news 60 minutes and I'm the proud owner of 4 Emmy's and 1 Peabody award.
Before all that I played the bass guitar in a rock band for a number of years including a tour thru West Germany which lasted nearly two years, then on to another band and touring some more thru the rest of Europe, recording other peoples music (argh) in recording studios in Germany and the Netherlands.
At the moment I’m playing again with a band in England doing the rounds thru the pubs of Surrey, so as you can see, life goes indeed full circle.