About

After graduating from Nyenrode Business University, Frans Lemmens worked for years as a logistics expert for food aid programs in Africa and later, as a tour guide, he travelled the world.
Photography had always been his passion.
In 1986 Lemmens decided to become a documentary photographer mainly focusing on travel and nature. In that capacity, he undertook a number of unique expeditions: he visited Antarctica with the Chilean Navy, flew around the world with a Catalina PBY-5A flying boat and crossed the Sahara by camel and on foot with a traditional Tuareg salt caravan.
His desert photography soon resulted in an international breakthrough, and his first book The Algerian Sahara.

On assignment for National Geographic Traveler in the Moroccan Sahara.

Image shot for the famous
KLM’s “swan” advertising campaigns.

During an expedition in Bolivia he met his partner Marjolijn van Steeden (1989). Since that time, they have lived and worked together.
From 1993 The Netherlands became an important theme in their work.
This led to the successful book Visions of the Netherlands (1997).

In 2000, Marjolijn and Frans began a new Sahara project which resulted in the title Sahara, Land Beyond Imagination (2005) – the crown on their ‘desert work’. Unilever then commissioned the pair to produce their 75th anniversary book, Unilever Matters (2006), which illustrates the activities of the multinational company in fourteen countries.