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Podcast Episode 4: This is Sanne De Block

Thrilled to bring you the next episode of the This is Reportage Podcast! For Episode 4 we have the brilliant Sanne De Block from Antwerp, Belgium. Sanne has won a staggering 17 Awards (11 Reportage and 6 Story Awards), and is currently ranked third in the world in terms of Lifetime Awards. She really is one of the best wedding photographers in Belgium. The things we talk about in the episode include:

her childhood, how she wanted to be anything but a photographer (!), her original inspiration, studying photography in college, being the ‘Master of Party’, creating on the fly, documentary wedding photography tips, the story behind one of her specific Reportage Awards, lying on the ground for a reason, Game of Thrones, her one-eyed cat, Doc Day, nerves, hating the business-side, having a strong community of Belgium wedding photographers, Story Award tips, what being succesful means to her, capturing the First Dance, the most challenging part of our job, composition, light and moment, the future, and more…

We have multiple ways of listening to our Podcast: Over on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or within this post (where you can also find a full transcript of our Sanne De Block interview if you prefer to read).

If you enjoy listening, you may like to subscribe to our show over on iTunes – you’ll then be notified as soon as each new episode is released (ooh, and if you fancy leaving us a little review and/or star-rating whilst you’re there, that would be massively appreciated!).

Alan Law:                           Hey, Sanne. How are you doing?

Sanne De Block:               Hi, Alan. I’m okay. How are you?

Alan Law:                           I’m good. Thank you for joining us all the way from Belgium.

Sanne De Block:               You’re welcome. Very excited.

Alan Law:                           How’s things? How’s wedding season come along for you?

Sanne De Block:               Well, it’s been busy, so I got a lot of workload left.

Alan Law:                           A lot still to edit?

Sanne De Block:               Yeah, loads to edit, but I’m getting there. Almost finished. And I got one more wedding planned in December.

Alan Law:                           Oh, okay. So heading towards the quiet bit now.

Sanne De Block:               Yeah.

Alan Law:                           What do you do in the quiet season when your editing pile is done? What do you do? You like to travel, don’t you? Will you be going away?

Sanne De Block:               Well, not this year probably. Well, I will go visit a friend in San Francisco in December.

Alan Law:                           Oh, nice. Have you been there before?

Sanne De Block:               No, I haven’t. So it should be lots of fun. Looking forward to it. And then normally I was thinking of going to Sri Lanka, but I bought an apartment this summer, so I’m probably going to skip holidays and just work in the apartment so I’m able to get a place of my own.

Alan Law:                           Oh, okay, cool. And houses…apartments, they take up so much money and time as well.

Sanne De Block:               Yes, exactly. So should invest in that.

Reportage Award by Sanne De Block

Alan Law:                           Cool. I would like you, a bit randomly again, but to take us back to your childhood. Did you always want to be a photographer?

Sanne De Block:               Well, no, I wanted to be everything. Do you have these friends books that you have to fill in? When I was a child in Belgium, we had these little books that you would give to your friends and then there were these questions for your friends to fill in so you get to know them better. And then, what I wish for you or my dad does this as a job and my mom does this and I want to be this when I grow up. I think, in every single book my friends gave me, I wrote something completely different. Probably a baker and an architect.

Alan Law:                           A baker? That’s a bit random.

Sanne De Block:               I know. But then I realized you have to wake up for that really early.

Alan Law:                           That is true.

Sanne De Block:               So I thought, eh, maybe not. And then I wanted to be a journalist and then everything but photography came to mind.

Alan Law:                           And then, how in the end did it happen? How did you get on this wedding photography roller coaster?

Sanne De Block:               Well, I’ve always been very creative. I always liked to draw and paint and whatever.

Alan Law:                           Do you still do that?

Sanne De Block:               Not anymore, no. I should. I really want to, but I’ll explain later why I’m not doing that as much anymore.

Alan Law:                           Okay, sorry.

Sanne De Block:               Because it’s a little part of the story. When I was 18, I got more and more into photography and I did research at school on Cindy Sherman. Do you know her?

Alan Law:                           No, I don’t actually.

Sanne De Block:               She’s an art photographer and she does this really amazing work where she acts as different people in her own photographs. So they’re all self-portraits, but they’re not real self-portraits. She’s pretending to be someone else. She was the first one who got me interested more and more in photography, so I got in, got to know some more artists and everything, and then I wanted to go study photography, because I was like, aw, it’s so cool, photography. And then, my first year in college I did photography.

Alan Law:                           Oh, cool. Okay, great. Did you ever study weddings on that?

Sanne De Block:               No. Everyone in school was like, “Ah, weddings. No, that’s the low end of the photography that you don’t want to go there. That’s for losers.” So I was like, okay, we don’t do that then. But then after my first year there, I failed, and my teachers had been telling us like, “If you don’t succeed in your first year, it’s a sign that you don’t have it in you and you’re not creative enough. Just go do something else if you don’t pass.”

Alan Law:                           Like wedding photography.

Sanne De Block:               Yeah.

Alan Law:                           If you fail, you become a wedding photographer.

Sanne De Block:               So I went to do something completely different. I went to study communication management, which was totally not for me, but I tried it anyway. Because it’s something where you can go all directions in after you graduate from it. I was in a student club, which is kind of a sorority or fraternity, whatever.

Alan Law:                           Was this in Belgium then?

Sanne De Block:               Yeah, in Belgium. It’s not like in America like you see in the movies, it’s a little bit different. But we do have students associations and I was in one. I was master of party.

Alan Law:                           Nice.

Sanne De Block:               That meant that I had to organize the parties and events. I designed the posters, and I also took photographs during the evenings where we had our parties. I never really stopped taking pictures. I was still interested in it and I was still trying to find my way and learn more. And then after two years of communication management, I started doing graphic design. I got my degree in that. But during my studies I realized that all the graphic work I did was more photography related. I could never leave it behind. It was always somewhere there.

Sanne De Block:               I think photography comes really natural to me, also because it’s a way … with the drawing and designing stuff, I always had the pressure on me to have a finalized idea before I started designing anything. That’s the problem because that’s not how it works. I’m super perfectionistic. Is that a word?

Alan Law:                           I get it. It is now.

Sanne De Block:               For me, photography is a way of creating things without having the pressure of having a full idea in my head before I start photographing.

Alan Law:                           You’re creating on the fly every second of documentary wedding photography, you are, kind of creating on the fly. And you love that side of it then I guess.

Sanne De Block:               Yeah, exactly.

Reportage Award by Sanne De Block

Alan Law:                           How did you get your very first wedding then?

Sanne De Block:               Like everyone, I guess. Friends saw me walking with a camera and doing the parties and then they asked me “Oh, do you want to photograph our wedding?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure.” And I did a really crappy job there.

Alan Law:                           It must have been pretty good.

Sanne De Block:               Well, I might show you something on that at Doc Day, not sure yet.

Alan Law:                           Well, it’s obviously worked out well for you. You’re currently ranked third in the world in terms of ‘Lifetime’ This Is Reportage awards, with 17, which is incredible. How do you do it? There’s going to be a broad range of people listening to this. Do you have any tips for just, I mean, general documentary photography goodness?

Sanne De Block:               I think the most important tip is do whatever you like. Do what feels right to you, and don’t try to make images because someone else made them. I’m sure I do that as well. I’m sure there’s situations where I’m like, “Oh, I saw this picture from someone famous. I don’t know who, but Two Mann or something.”

Alan Law:                           Always Two Mann.

Sanne De Block:               I’m like, “Ah, yeah, I want to try this.” And I get all excited and then I get a picture that’s kind of like theirs, and it’s like, “Eh,” it’s just not that because it’s not my picture. It’s not my idea. It’s an idea that I got from someone else. But I do encourage people to try and replicate other people’s pictures, because that’s a way of learning how everything works.

Alan Law:                           That’s interesting.

Sanne De Block:               When I started my photography business, I worked as a second shooter for a whole year. I got a lot of inspiration from Dries, which is the guy I went with. He’s also a Belgium photographer and he’s one of the best here. Right now I’m three years in business, so I kind of found my own style a little bit more. But I’m 100% sure that if you asked me to show me my pictures right after I went with him for a whole year, my pictures resembled a lot of his work. Which is normal, because you learn from others, and that’s good because it pushes you further than you were.

Alan Law:                           Sure. But then how did you go on to forge your own style, do you think?

Sanne De Block:               No idea. I don’t think I’ve found my own style completely yet. Even though sometimes my friends or colleagues, they tell me, “Oh, this is such a Sanne picture.” And I’m like, “Oh yeah?”

Alan Law:                           That’s cool though, isn’t it?

Alan Law:                           I think that’s a big deal when someone can see a wedding image and know that it’s yours.

Sanne De Block:               Yeah, it is.

Alan Law:                           What do you think it is about you and your work that people can recognize, do you think? That’s a big question, isn’t it?

Sanne De Block:               Maybe you should tell me.

Reportage Award by Sanne De Block

Alan Law:                           Well, I just think your work is so clean and sharp and impactful. But also, I mean, you’re great with layering as well and just seeing parts of an image that a lot of people wouldn’t see. There’s one of your Reportage awards where it’s shot from low down and people (see above)… it’s like women are on a boat or something and it’s the winds. A lot of people wouldn’t even see that, I think. I don’t know, you see things a lot of people don’t, normally.

Sanne De Block:               Well, actually it’s kind of funny story about that picture. So it was a wedding in Italy I did last year and I was hired as a second shooter. But we were actually three photographers because it was a huge wedding, and the colleague I went with had another wedding in Italy in the same area the week before. So I did the second wedding with Joshua and Wouter, which are also Belgium wedding photographers. I was standing on the deck and I was there with my camera, just looking around, seeing what I could photograph. And then my colleague came to me and he said something to me, don’t remember what, but then we saw the wind. I saw the skirts of the girls flying up, I was immediately down on my knees, whatever.

Sanne De Block:               But the funny thing was, my friend and colleague who was there next to me, he did the same thing. So it was like, “Well, who took the picture now?” And I was like, “I was already here. You came up here to talk to me,” so I called dibs on the image. I never saw his image of what he did with it. Maybe it was better, maybe it wasn’t, I don’t know. Maybe it was just different.

Alan Law:                           Oh, that’s funny. I’ve seen quite a few photos of you in action actually. You often look like you’re lying on the ground. That’s cool. If you need to do it, you have no qualms, you’re down there.

Sanne De Block:               Well, I do what I have to do. I’m not going to lie on the ground just for the sake of lying down on the ground and for people to notice, “Hey, I’m the hardworking photographer here.” It’s just, for me, wedding photography is a way of problem-solving. I’m not just photographing a wedding, I’m constantly looking for what’s happening? What emotions are here? What kind of moments are here? How can I bring them together? How can I make one piece of it? And when I go down on the ground, it’s most of the time to clean the space behind my subject. To get a clean background.

Alan Law:                           And that’s a really good tip as well, isn’t it? Because I think a lot of people don’t think about the backgrounds.

Sanne De Block:               Yeah, it’s really important.

Reportage Award by Sanne De Block

***Slight Game of Thrones spoiler ahead; if you haven’t finished the last series, you may want to skip ahead a few paragraphs!***

Alan Law:                           Cool. I’m going to go on a slightly different tack now. What is your favorite ever TV series?

Sanne De Block:               Wow. I really love Game of Thrones.

Alan Law:                           Did you like the ending though? A lot of people didn’t like the ending.

Sanne De Block:               I did like it. I only just saw it a couple of weeks ago and I did like it. I don’t know why people don’t like it.

Alan Law:                           I’m with you there. I really liked it as well. I thought they got … there was so many loose ends to tie up and they did it really well I thought.

Sanne De Block:               And it’s totally in a Game of Thrones style way, killing your favorite characters in a way you didn’t expect. Sorry, spoiler alert, maybe for people …

Alan Law:                           Yes, that’s true. I’ll have to put that in the beginning.

Sanne De Block:               We didn’t say, which favorite character dies, so that’s okay.

Alan Law:                           Yes, that is true. It might just been a dog or something. Oh actually, which leads me on. I think I know the answer, but, which do you prefer, cats or dogs?

Sanne De Block:               Cats.

Alan Law:                           Yes. And you’ve got a one-eyed cat haven’t you, did you say?

Sanne De Block:               Yeah, I do. His name is Gusar, which is Serbian for pirate.

Alan Law:                           Oh, cool, because of the one eye.

Sanne De Block:               I never gave him the name, he already got it. He’s the cat of my ex’s sister. But he’s still with us and he’s the sweetest cat ever. He comes to cuddle me at night.

Alan Law:                           That is nice.

Sanne De Block:               You can’t say no to that.

Alan Law:                           What happened with the eye?

Sanne De Block:               It was just when he was young. He was neglected and they found him somewhere and he was sick. He got an infection all over his face and his eyes and his nose, so to make him better, they had to remove one.

Alan Law:                           That’s a shame.

Sanne De Block:               It’s sad, but he doesn’t miss it. Only sometimes when you see him hunting, and he misses his target completely, just because he doesn’t have the same sight as a two-eyed cat has.

Alan Law:                           Oh, okay.

Sanne De Block:               Kind of funny.

Alan Law:                           You mentioned earlier how you’re speaking at Doc Day in Dublin next year, which for people who maybe don’t know what it is, it’s a unique conference that’s all about the documentary side. This Is Reportage are partnering with it as well. How are you feeling about talking at that? You excited, nervous?

Sanne De Block:               For now, I’m excited. I guess when I’m going to be there, I’m going to be super nervous. I have never spoken in front of so many people.

Alan Law:                           You’ll be great.

Sanne De Block:               You will be too, Alan.

Alan Law:                           Oh no, I’ll be awful, but you will be great. Do you get nervous in general for weddings, for instance? Do you get nerves or not really feel it?

Sanne De Block:               Not anymore, or at least not as much as in the beginning. This year I had one wedding and they booked me for 12 hours. So in Belgium, weddings usually take up to 16 hours of photography. You start in the morning at 8:00, and then you keep going until midnight. It’s the way we do it here, apparently. But then I got a wedding booked for 12 hours and I was like, “Oh, whoa. Only 12 hours.” Which is still more than a normal work day, but I was sitting at home and I was totally ready. I had my hair done, I even had my makeup done, and I normally never have time to do that. So I was sitting there at home, I was like, “Okay, I’m just going to go.” Because I was getting nervous at home and I knew I was missing moments that were already happening there, because I knew the girls were getting ready together. So I just went a little earlier. So that was the last time I was pretty nervous for a wedding.

Alan Law:                           So for the whole of this season, you don’t feel it.

Sanne De Block:               Not really.

Alan Law:                           It’s a good way to be. No, that’s great. Honestly, that is really good. I mean, I still get a bit nervous in the morning, but as soon as I start shooting it goes, and it’s all good. Let’s just go off on a different tangent again. In terms of marketing and getting yourself out there, what’s been the most effective thing for you? Do you like the business side of our industry?

Sanne De Block:               I hate business.

Alan Law:                           Do you really?

Sanne De Block:               I’m not good at it. And I know all the tips and the things I should be doing to get more bookings, but I hate promoting myself. I’m not going to be like, “Hey, I’m here, book me. I make beautiful pictures.” I really should put some work in it because I don’t have that many bookings yet for next year. I’m sure it will be fine.

Alan Law:                           Oh, yeah, I’m sure it will be.

Sanne De Block:               But yeah, I actually don’t do a lot of marketing. Most of it, I just post things on Instagram and I hope people see it.

Reportage Award by Sanne De Block

Alan Law:                           You’re very active on Instagram. Do you actually get bookings directly from Instagram?

Sanne De Block:               Sometimes, yeah.

Alan Law:                           Oh that’s good. And that works out. So the other weddings that you do get, are they from referrals from past couples and things or how have you got the business that you’ve already received?

Sanne De Block:               It’s a mix of everything. I do get referrals from couples, other couples’ weddings I did. I also got some bookings from MyWed, which was weird. And then sometimes they just find me on Google. Also, in Belgium we have a really strong community …

Alan Law:                           Of other wedding photographers?

Sanne De Block:               Yeah. We got a really strong and good community with the Belgium wedding photographers. That means that whenever someone else is already booked, they will ask the other ones, “Who is still free on that date? Can I recommend you to this couple?”

Alan Law:                           That’s cool.

Sanne De Block:               And that’s probably how I get 50% of my bookings. It’s great because it works in two ways. If I have a date already booked, I just send it to some of my colleagues. And it’s good because you’re still helping the clients and even though you’re not helping the client directly, you’re still providing them with great pictures.

Alan Law:                           You are in a way. You are, definitely. As long as they go and do a good job. But I’m sure they do, the people that you refer.

Sanne De Block:               Of course, yeah. For me, that’s the most important thing, because I know couples come to me because they’ve seen something they like, so I want to do my best so that they find another photographer that works kind of the same as I do.

Alan Law:                           And you have so many to choose from over there. Belgium, you seem to have so many good wedding photographers. What is it about you guys? I mean, is there something in the water? What is it, honestly?

Sanne De Block:               I really think part of it is the community. I think if you work together and … It’s not a battle. We just lift each other higher by talking to each other and doing things together and asking opinions as well. I share an office with Joshua D’hondt, she’s on holiday now. So normally we sit here side by side and then sometimes I’m like, “What should I do with this picture? Should I include it in the Reportage or not?” And then we help each other out this way. Sometimes you have to kill your darlings. For me, they’re not colleagues, they’re my friends because I know I can count on them no matter what.

Reportage Award by Sanne De Block

Alan Law:                           That is so cool. That’s so great to have a community like that and you’re all so close and so sharing. It’s brilliant. Our Story Awards in particular, you’ve had great success. You’ve won six Story Awards, which is absolutely loads. Do you have any tips or advice about what makes, really, an award-winning story? A great wedding story?

Sanne De Block:               Hmm. I think-

Alan Law:                           Just to put you on the spot there.

Sanne De Block:               … like I said before, kill your darlings. Sometimes you can have amazing pictures in your series and you want to include them, but sometimes they just don’t fit whatever you want to tell. It has to be a full story. Sometimes you don’t even need to cover the whole day. Sometimes if you don’t have strong images from the getting ready part, just leave them out. There are so many different stories in one wedding that maybe you could even send in three different stories from one wedding.

Alan Law:                           That’s so true.

Sanne De Block:               That’s the thing, you have to choose what story you want to tell.

Alan Law:                           Cool. And you were actually a judge for us as well, so I guess you’ve got experience of being behind the scenes that way. You would have seen hundreds of stories then. What were the ones that really stuck out to you? What do you think the photographer did that made you vote for them and want you to award it?

Sanne De Block:               It’s over a year ago that I judged.

Alan Law:                           It was, wasn’t it actually?

Sanne De Block:               I remember one story that was in it and in the end I didn’t vote for it. I think it’s interesting why I didn’t vote for it. I don’t even think it got an award. Because the pictures were really good, it looked like a fun wedding, it looked like there was a lot happening there. I was intrigued because it had a pool and tubes and whatever, bright colors and everything popped. And then I went through all of the pictures that I selected again and then I got to that wedding again. I was like, “It looks like a cool wedding, but do the pictures represent it? Are the pictures cool because the wedding was cool or are the pictures cool because they used different angles or did you use a different perspective?”

Sanne De Block:               And that’s when I had to say, “No, this was just a cool wedding.” The photographer obviously did a good job, but for me it was just not that extra in there. They were good pictures, but there were no layers. In my pictures, I try to tell different stories in one picture. I don’t want it to be a comic book where you start with one picture and this is one person saying something and then the other one is the reaction of others. It’s more you want to have that as a painting, action and reaction in one thing. It has to be a mix of everything. It has to be a mix of super close pictures, super far in distance and I mean, it has to be a little bit of everything.

Alan Law:                           That’s cool. Great advice. Really good tips. And I think it’s important, as you say, it’s not the location or the fantastical venue that makes a great wedding story, it really is all down to the photographer and how they capture it.

Sanne De Block:               Yes, exactly.

Reportage Award by Sanne De Block

Alan Law:                           What does it mean to be successful, to you?

Sanne De Block:               I think for me, being successful is, … Wow, I wish I got these questions earlier, so I could have thought of good answers.

Alan Law:                           No, I like this. Whatever’s in the forefront of your head when you hear these questions, I think that’s the honest answer. That’s what’s good.

Sanne De Block:               I think for me, being successful is being able to do what you love to do, no matter what. It doesn’t even have to mean that you have to make your job out of it. If I were to have another job and I could do photography on the side, that could be successful for me. It’s not like this. I think in every situations, there are things that make it hard, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful with it. Do you know what I mean?

Alan Law:                           Yeah, definitely. I think that’s a good answer. I mean, doing what you love, that’s so important in life, isn’t it? And I think that we’re so lucky to be doing something that we love, in wedding photography.

Sanne De Block:               Yes.

Alan Law:                           And there are lots of other good perks as well, like eating the canapés. Do you eat the canapés?

Sanne De Block:               No. Wait, what are canapés?

Alan Law:                           The little finger food things that they bring down.

Sanne De Block:               Oh, okay. Finger food. Yeah, sometimes.

Alan Law:                           Let’s go talk about a bit more, an area of the day, which is quite subjective for a lot of photographers, is the first dance. A lot of photographers capture this differently. How do you approach the first dance? Have you got any tips for that?

Sanne De Block:               Depends on the venue. I don’t have a one-way to go kind of way.

Alan Law:                           You’re not always using flash, you’re not always not using flash, you vary it depending on the situation?

Sanne De Block:               Most of the time I use flash, because most of the time the first dance is in the dark and there’s no light at all. But sometimes, for example, when there’s a wedding planner involved, they do have a good idea of how to light the venue. Which means that they would put lights on the couple during the first dance as well, and that’s when I wouldn’t use flash. So it depends on whatever they do or what they have planned. Is it in indoors or outside or is there a lot of ambient light or not? Depends.

Alan Law:                           Cool. So you approach it differently for each situation.

Sanne De Block:               Yeah.

Alan Law:                           What do you find the most challenging aspect of our job to be?

Sanne De Block:               The most challenging thing is … there’s different answers to that I think. One of them is staying friendly to the guests and the uncle Bob’s and people who ask you the same questions every single week.

Alan Law:                           Oh, yeah. How many pictures have you taken?

Sanne De Block:               Yeah. How many photos have you taken? One. Five.

Alan Law:                           And they’re really bad. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Sanne De Block:               Every single week it’s the same questions and I want to try to have these standard answers that are really funny. So they’re like, “What?” But I haven’t thought of it. I need to brainstorm about it. But for me, that’s one of the challenges sometimes.

Alan Law:                           That’s funny. Dealing with guests. Yeah, that is funny. It is important though, isn’t it, dealing with people? It’s a really big part of our job I think.

Sanne De Block:               Yes it is. I think, one of the biggest parts of the job is being social and being there. Present, but not too present. You don’t want to draw the attention to you as a photographer, but you’re still part of the day, so people can’t ignore it. They will see you no matter what. Even though you still don’t want to be seen, they will see you. So if they see you, you better be nice to them.

Alan Law:                           It’s so true. That is great advice. What’s more important to you, composition, light, or moment?

Sanne De Block:               The most important? Moment. Well, everything has to be there for a good picture, but there’s no picture without a moment. Never. You can have beautiful light and great … for example, if you’re doing a portrait session with someone, you can have the most amazing composition, beautiful light, and then you have your couple there. If they’re not doing anything that makes me feel something, I’m sorry, but your picture sucks. Or my picture sucks, whatever. I just need something of emotion there. That’s the most important thing for me. The moment.

Alan Law:                           I think that’s a great answer. I think we’ve got time for just one more question. Do you think about the future? Whether you’ll be shooting weddings in 10 years time, do you want to still be shooting in 10 years time?

Sanne De Block:               I don’t think about it. No. I only started three years ago, so if I would be thinking now, “Oh, I wonder if I would be still shooting in 10 years,” I’m like, “I just started.” I probably will be still shooting weddings or something else. I don’t know. But I try to take it day by day and see wherever it takes me.

Alan Law:                           I think that’s a good way to be in life. What would you do, do you think though, if for some reason you did stop doing wedding photography? Would it definitely be photography related or do you have another side skill that you’re really good at and that you’d monetize?

Sanne De Block:               No. I think I will always go back to photography, but if this wouldn’t work out, I think I would just go back to serving people in a restaurant.

Alan Law:                           Well that would work out as well. That would be good. You know what, my daughter wants to be a waitress when she grows up.

Sanne De Block:               Yeah, see? I did it for eight or 10 years when I was studying to make some money on the side. I really liked it because you go somewhere, you have some exercise because you’re walking all day, and then you talk to people, you get outside when it’s sunny, and when the day is done, you go home and you don’t have anything to do anymore. No more administration to do.

Alan Law:                           You’re actually really selling it. That does sound really good.

Sanne De Block:               I know.

Alan Law:                           Do you think that helped with your people side, actually, of being a waitress or did that help with your people skills?

Sanne De Block:               Probably a little bit. I think when you’re a waitress you get to deal with the same questions over and over again, as well.

Alan Law:                           That’s true.

Sanne De Block:               You will always ask people when they’re done, “Was everything good for you? Was everything all right?” And then in Belgium, people have this way of saying, “Yeah, I finished my plate so it had to be good, right?” They always say the same thing. It’s like, “Yeah, I know, blah, blah, blah.” Like, maybe if you didn’t finish it, it was too much. You’re full before you could finish your plate. It’s like, that’s also a valid thing to say. But for some reason they don’t think that way.

Alan Law:                           Oh, that’s funny. Sanne, honestly, thank you so much for that. That was a great session. Really great. Really interesting bits and bits of gold in there. It was brilliant. Thank you.

Sanne De Block:               You’re welcome. I’m glad I got to share some things with you.

Alan Law:                           Oh, it’s brilliant. I think people are going to love that. People who are listening on iTunes or other podcast services, if you go to the website, we’ll put Sanne’s Reportage award image on the boat, so you can look at that as you’re listening as well. I’ll put links to your website, and come to Doc Day. Although, it’s sold out, isn’t it?

Sanne De Block:               It’s sold out.

Alan Law:                           So don’t come to Doc Day then, but they might release some more tickets and you’ll be able to hear Sanne talk. I’m looking forward to seeing you talk and meeting you in the flesh as well.

Sanne De Block:               Me too, I’m so excited.

Alan Law:                           Thanks so much.

Sanne De Block:               You’re welcome. Bye bye.

Alan Law:                           Bye bye.

***********************************************************

Thanks so much again to Sanne for this fab interview! You can see more of her work on her This is Reportage profile and her website. You can also find out more about Doc Day over here.

If you enjoyed listening to our Podcast, then you may like to subscribe to it over on iTunes – you’ll then get a notification as soon as new episodes are released, which should be weekly. If you’d like to give us a review, we’d massively appreciate that too – thank you in advance!

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