twikga work in progress

Here you will find stories about the making-of my illustrations, the websites and the twikga books. The corona pandemic has been going on for more than a year now. A good time to go through our archives. But like a lot of people we are starting to loose our patience. We are looking forward to travel again. To photograph wildlife in faraway places, to travel to friends and family, go to events, visit museums, to feel free again, instead of locked up…

Wild Picha, more than the photos behind twikga illustrations

Wild Picha, more than the photos behind twikga illustrations

We started taking pictures, when we made a trip around the world in 1992. Since then African wildlife has been the focus of our photography. What started as a means to share our stories with the people back home has become a profession for Tanja. She uses our photos to create illustrations for her children's books. In 2010, she started her own publishing company, twikga. We were lucky to travel...

read more
Wild Picha – Willem & Tanja Dekker Photography

Wild Picha – Willem & Tanja Dekker Photography

We grew up in the Netherlands and moved to Germany in 2003. Together with our dog Duvel we now live in the picturesque Treppenviertel in Hamburg, along the river Elbe. Willem currently works at a ship-owning company. After a career in marketing, Tanja studied illustration design and started her own book publishing company, twikga, in 2010. We started traveling together in 1992, when we...

read more
Work in progress on Phanhabs Jungle book

Work in progress on Phanhabs Jungle book

We have just returned from a trip to Tanzania and Rwanda, watching primates. The hikes were sometimes long and itchy, because of the vegetation, but we took some amazing pictures of jungle landscapes with chimpanzees, gorillas, and a lot of other animals. It will be a lot harder to fill the pages of this Phanhabs book, because the jungle hides it's inhabitants well. The tracks and the sounds...

read more
Tata&Squack op werkbezoek in Amsterdam

Tata&Squack op werkbezoek in Amsterdam

Het nieuwe avontuur van Tata&Squack komt tot leven aan de grachten van Amsterdam. Na ons inspirerende werkbezoek aan het Samburu National Reserve in Kenia bekend om haar olifanten families, hebben wij ons teruggetrokken om het materiaal ieder op zijn eigen vakgebied te verwerken. In Amsterdam wordt de verhaallijn bedacht en in Hamburg worden de collages ontwikkelt voor de illustraties. Alleen...

read more
Where do you get your pictures from?

Where do you get your pictures from?

When people look at my books, they ask me: "Where do you get your pictures, from the internet?" They are surprised to hear that my husband and I take all the pictures ourselves. For my illustrations, I need pictures of animals in all kinds of positions. You couldn't buy a picture of an elephant walking away, in bad light, from a stock agency. Normally wildlife photographers do not take that kind...

read more
Arbeiten in (künstlicher) Stille

Arbeiten in (künstlicher) Stille

Jeder arbeitet anders. Bei manchen geht es nur mit lauter Musik, ich kann mich nur bei absoluter Stille konzentrieren. Gerade versuche ich fotografische Wimmelbilder für meine neues Buch zu bauen. Aber leider ist die Stille, die ich dafür brauche im Moment weit zu Suchen. Meine Nachbarn haben mir eine Baustelle vor die Nase gesetzt. Ungefähr 10 Meter von meinem Arbeitsplatz entfernt wird von...

read more
Winterzeit ist Bücherzeit

Winterzeit ist Bücherzeit

Winterzeit, die Tage sind kurz, draussen ist es dunkel und kalt. Der Garten lockt nicht mit seinen sommerlichen Temperaturen. Nur Duvel kriegt mich vor die Tür für einen Hundespaziergang, wonach ich gerne wieder ins wohlige Warm verschwinde. Dort pendle ich zwischen meinem Schreibtisch, der Kaffeemaschine und dem Küchentisch, wo immer eine Zeitung liegt für die kleinen Pausen zwischendurch. Die...

read more
The making of a new Tata&Squack-Adventure

The making of a new Tata&Squack-Adventure

The next adventure of Tata&Squack will evolve around one of the most special animals on our planet, Africa's largest land mammal, the elephant. A wild animal that has been in Africa for a very long time, much longer than man has. Known for their social behavior and intelligence, the elephants live a family life. We worked on the new story in the Samburu National Reserve, where we observed and...

read more
Preparing to visit the elephants in Samburu, Kenya

Preparing to visit the elephants in Samburu, Kenya

At the end of September I will be joining the Dekkers to the Samburu National Park in Kenya Africa, where we will research a new adventure of Tata&Squack. I will at last meet the plant, animal and bird life of a part of Africa which is especially known for it's elephant population. The Samburu elephants have been researched by Ian Douglas-Hamilton and his team of "Save the Elephants" for a long...

read more
The making of Moyo, the wildebeest named heart

The making of Moyo, the wildebeest named heart

The illustrations in Tata&Squack, The BIg Journey are a mix of photographs, drawings and collages. The photographs for the illustrations were taken in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and in the Masai Mara in Kenya. A lot of the wildebeest, especially Moyo, are ink drawings. To set him apart a bit, Moyo is slightly bigger and sturdier than the average wildebeest. I had a hard time with...

read more

Have a look at Wild Picha Stories…

The stories of Willem & Tanja Dekker Photography, far away and close to home. Books, awards, events and other stories…