SCIP.be is the personal website of Stefan Cruysberghs. I am a pasionate software engineer/architect and have a passion for travel and nature photography. I already saw many world wonders, remnants of ancient civilizations, beautiful landscapes in high mountains, deserts and jungles. I met fascinating authentic tribes in remote places and could already enjoy the beautiful wildlife in Africa, America and Asia. I like outdoor activities, birdwatching, gardening, sports (badminton, jogging, mountain biking) and especially love my wife and kids. We live in Scherpenheuvel but before I lived in Lommel (Flanders, Belgium). In 2017 I became the proud father of Naomi and in 2020 of our son Robbe.

Photography

I have always taken photos when traveling, but my passion for photography really started in 2006 when I purchased my first SLR camera. Since then I have evolved rapidly, both in terms of my equipment and my knowledge and experience. My photographic journey started as an all-round travel photographer, but I soon evolved towards nature photography. Beautiful landscapes, fascinating animals and birds, intriguing small insects and plants are now my favorite subjects. Over the years the quality of my photos improved and my knowledge of nature grew. My goal is to show people how beautiful and fascinating nature is, and to make them aware of the need to cherish and protect our environment.

I work with Nikon full-frame-system cameras, several Nikon, Sigma and Laowa lenses, Benro filters and Godox flashes and triggers. I'm using Lightroom Classic and Photoshop and several additional applications and plugins for astrophotography, focus stacking, luminosity masks, ... In terms of apps, I'm a fan of PhotoPills.

I have already won several prices in international photo contests, received acceptances in photo salons worldwide and some of my photos are published in newspapers, magazines and books. An overview can be found at this page. Several large 'fine art' prints also grace the walls of corporate offices and private homes. Contact me if you are interested in one of my photos.

Software development

In 1988 when I was 12 years old I started programming with GFA Basic on my Atari computer. A few years later I gave a lot of IT trainings to children and adults in my computerclub VJI. I was a board member there for 15 years and, in addition to lessons, I also gave many demonstrations. During my studies I already worked in software companies and when I graduated I started as a software developer. Over the past 25 years I worked in various industries ranging from from retail/wholesale/production, healthcare, home delivery, bioinformatics, smart energy and drones video streaming. I am a Microsoft MCP and MCTS since 2010.

I am currently a freelance software engineer/architect/tech lead. In my role as an application architect, I take technical leadership to ensure that applications are well-designed, scalable, resilient, secure and stable. I have been working agile (SCRUM and SAFe) for a long time, I coach fellow engineers, I provide training and workshops and support the business/product and DevOps people.

I am in favor of building modular monoliths and microservices or serverless functions where needed with a vertical slice architecture and domain-driven-design and CQRS approach. I have a lot of experience with clean code, design and enterprise patterns, SOLID, C#, .NET 9, Azure DevOps, Containers, Azure, SQL Server, MongoDB, Entity Framework, MassTransit, Web API, Elastic Search, ... In the past I also developed hybrid mobile apps for iOS and Android, web and desktop applications. I also worked with technologies such as Silverlight, WPF, WCF Services, Office automation, PHP, MySQL, Delphi, Oracle, .... In my spare time I like to play with home automation, IoT, Raspberry Pi and Arduino and new technologies like Aspire.

Website

The pages on this site contain information about some of my hobbies. All photographs are copyrighted by the photographer. All the applications, components and articles are put at everyone's disposal for free. This site is largely bilingual (Dutch and English) and optimized for smartphones and tablets. I developed both the graphic components and the programming myself. My first website was set online in 1997 and since that day I have tried to keep it up-to-date.