Maayke de Ridder studied fashion design at the Arnhem Academy of Art and at Minerva Academy in Groningen, then graphic design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She worked as a fashion and interiors stylist and as a picture editor for a number of Dutch magazines before moving behind the camera — and that earlier life is legible in the way she frames a garden: composed, edited, alert to colour and light as much as to plants.
She is now widely regarded as the Netherlands' leading garden photographer, with work published in magazines and books across Europe. With Noel Kingsbury she co-authored Gardens Under Big Skies, a photographic survey of how a new generation of Dutch designers is responding to its particular landscape, history and climate.
