About Me

About Kris Name: Kris Saelen
Date of Birth: December 07, 1970
Place of Birth: Mol, Belgium
Current Residence: Turnhout, Belgium
Occupation: ICT consultant for NCR Belgium since the Spring of 1999; specialized in networking (Cisco Systems and Nortel Networks) and UNIX (Sun Microsystems). Before that I was a systems engineer for BarcoView.
Hobbies and interests:
Music is a big part of my life. I like many different styles of music, and I own quite a large collection of albums. But I listen most to rock, folk and country.I am a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen. I became interested in his music in the summer of 1984 when in smash hit album Born in the USA was released. I liked the way his music sounded, and although I didn’t fully understand what he was singing at the time, I started buying his earlier albums. And pretty soon I started to appreciate the political and social undertones in his music. And after seeing him live, I was even more impressed with his music. Together with the E-Street Band, he is just the best live act ever.I also like the Dixie Chicks and Jewel. They too have a story-telling way of making music. Although these ladies are still quite new to the music scene, they make great music, excellent live acts and have a social conscience.

U2, the Beatles, Billy Joel, Mylene Farmer, Mariah Carey, Alanis Morissette and Faith Hill complete my list of 10 most favorite artists and bands.

I love to travel. Nothing beats exploring new places and meeting exciting people. My favorite travel spot? Anywhere where I can have a relaxed but active holiday: checking out the local culture, nature walks and a bit of sports help me to explore the places that I go to.

I’m not a big sports freak, but I try to keep fit. I like geocaching, mountain biking and swimming, and I trying to pick up on kiting, scuba diving and snowboarding. I love to watch an occasional game of baseball: I’m an Atlanta Braves fan and a bit of New York Yankees fan too.

Another hobby of mine is photography. I’ve always made photos since I was a kid, but never took it very serious until digital cameras started to hit the markets and became affordable. A few years back, I bought an Olympus E-10, which I have traded in for Canon equipment by now.

Right around the time I bought my Canon DSLR, things got really serious. I started experimenting with camera settings, tried to grasp the basics of photography. In September 2005, I joined DIFO, a club for photography in Oud-Turnhout, and in December 2007 I joined Apertura in Westerloo. I’m getting quite proficient at making good quality photos, but every new shoot is a learning experience.

I love to take photos when I travel. Since early 2006, I’ve started working a lot with models. Working with people is just great. And I love to photograph nature, architecture, city life.

There are lots of examples of my work in my gallery.