Chris de Bode

Dutch born Chris de Bode’s path in life started with a dream. On his way to primary school, he always passed the photo shop in town. By the age of 10, he could advise people which camera to buy. In his early twenties, he was still searching for a purpose in life, until he remembered the photo shop. He decided to buy his first camera. As a mountaineer he took his first pictures. Following a trip to Palestine he decided to focus his work on humanitarian issues. He now has travelled to over 90 countries, meeting people and collecting stories.

Chris searches for find different angles in visualizing the stories he works on. In ‘No Way Home’ he has tried to explore what it means for people to lose their homes while ‘Tour du Monde’ took him to China, Colombia, Cuba, Eritrea, Qatar and Senegal, following international cycling teams as they raced across diverse terrains and through culturally and politically charged environments.  The work was brought together in ‘Tour du Monde’ (Schilt) published in 2009.

More than a decade ago while on assignment to photograph Ethiopian children in their school. He decided to ask them what they dreamt of?  At first some answers seemed improbable, or mere childish fantasies. A closer look revealed the opposite to be true: almost every child’s dream turned out to be a solution to things that needed improving in their lives. Little did he know that this would be  the start of a ten year global project to photograph and collect children’s dreams culminating in the publication of DREAM (2019).