How does one relate to their hometown? ‘Fish Discover Water Last’ is about the discovery of your own habitat. Simone Peerdeman lives since 1998 in Zandvoort, a small coastal town in The Netherlands. As time passed by she developed a blind spot for the beauty of her own residence. So much so, she even considered moving to another city. Due to problems in the housing market, she decided to stay. During several portrait shoots of well-groomed ladies, she didn’t knew before, at their homes, she entered new worlds in her own hometown. This formed her motivation to reconnect with her environment, to discover new places and enter worlds unknown to her, close to home. She started to approach Zandvoort as if she visited it for the first time, as if she enters a foreign country, with new people and their habits.
This is an ongoing project and Simone is still wandering around documenting people and objects she feels drawn to. People, that, in her opinion, reflect a path of choices made. Peerdeman loves being part of their lives for a brief moment, capturing their essence of being. And objects, as these are habitants without any form of layering, they just are. In this series, Peerdeman is documenting a version of Zandvoort in which she feels at home. Her revelation is that you don’t have to go far to experience the extraordinary.