Sneaking into an abandoned prison

Each month, a couple of photographer friends of mine organise a meeting, a gathering of young photographers, each with a different style and way taking photos coming together to share their experiences and have a nice day taking pictures.

Now I'll be honest, I've missed almost all of these meetings and the only reason why I went to this one a couple months ago, was because another appointment I had fell through, which eventually ended up being a great thing.

The day started with me missing a train and being half an hour late, and by the time I arrived at the prison, the group was already there trying to figure their way inside. Now I won't tell you where this prison is exactly, since it's private property and you shouldn't enter it without their permission.

Once inside, you could really see the why being imprisoned is not just a small matter, even in a country like The Netherlands, where many complain that prisoners are allowed luxurious like television and video games, seeing one from the inside made me realize that it truly does restrict their freedom and that it really is punishment to be locked up in these prison cells.

That of course did not stop us from exploring the place as much as we could and getting some awesome shots. The location has such great atmosphere and it's a kind of place that you can rarely visit and take pictures of in The Netherlands. Most UrBex locations around hereare either demolished really quickly or, like this prison, renovated and reused. I don't exactly know how long it will take, but the prison is scheduled to be renovated and changed into appartments, so I'm thinking of going back sometime soon to do a photoshoot before it ends up being completely impossible.

Some shots of the day:

I want to get to know you! - The Kyman Cheng Photography Survey

As always, it has been a while since my last post. It's been a busy couple of months working on and preparing new shoots. Progress is going well and I can't wait to finally show you all what is coming up soon. More on that in another post later this week.

For now I wanted to get to know you all a bit better. I've been doing photography for quite a while now and I never took the effort to reach out to you all, so time to take the first step in this progress.
To do this, I've made a little survey, it will only take 5 minutes or so to fill in and if you have the time to do that, it would be great! In addition, one lucky person that fills in the survey will get a free photoshoot just as a little thank you.

That's it for now, I know it's a bit short and it's not something you can really call an update. That doesn't mean I haven't been busy of course, I've done quite a bit of shoots the past months and you can find a couple of them below. Let me know what you think. 😁

A Magical Portrait Like I've Never Shot Before.

In late November, Kimberley approached me to do a photoshoot. One in which she would wear magical horns and chainmail in a way I've never that I've rarely ever seen in photos before. Alana, a friend and make-up artist I've worked with often would be creating the hornes for the shot. So of course I immediately took the chance to work with them in creating this.

It took a good month of work by Alana, Kimberley and M's Chainmail Design, who spent a lot of time painstakingly creating a custom chainmail for Kimbley to get everything prepared. In the mean time I used that opportunity to get a moodboard together, find a proper location and to figure out how I'd like to portray this character.

Eventually I settled on a foresty looking location and to combine the character design with magical effects, with the goal of giving the character a slight undertone of being an evil/demonic being from the forest. 

Concept art, drawn by Alana

Part of the moodboard, from Pinterest

The concepts we had in mind were to have Kimberley holding a magical book that got set ablaze, eventually causing the book to fall apart and for the pages to fly across the image. Part of that concept can be see in the moodboard above as well. Other than that, we'd also have a couple of simpler portraits of her in the forest.

Now lucky for us, it actually had snowed a couple of days before the shoot and when we arrived at the forest a large part was still covered in snow. This meant we could get some truely unique shots with snow in addition to the concepts we already had. At the same time, the huge downside was that it was freezing cold! We had to take semi-regular breaks, just to make sure that Kimberley would stay warm, because with shoots during the winter and with snow, there's always a chance of getting hypothermia, which should be avoided at all cost.

Make-up being applied on shoot day.

Make-up being applied on shoot day.

With everything set up, it was time to shoot. Sadly I don't have any footage from the shoot day, so there's very little that I can show of the day itself. I'll make sure that there will be someone to take some behind the scenes photos/videos for the next shoot, so you can all follow along with the process of shooting.

Anyways, with this all said, let me show you the end result.

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A Fawn from the Forest

Photographer: Kyman Cheng
Model: Kimberley Nutbey
Make-up by Alana van den Berg
Chainmail by M's Chainmail Design

Year in review - 2017 (part 1)

It's been quite a busy and fun christmas and new year these past weeks, and now that I'm finally recovered from it, it's time for a (belated) year in review of 2017.
 

As you can see, 2017's been a year of variety. Shoots ranging from the very simple, to ones that are challenging and very complicated. It's also been one where I've been searching for a style I can call my own, in 2016 I thought that I've found it. However over time it seemed obvious that it's not the style that I wanted to shoot for the coming period. I'm no sure if I've found the style that I want to shoot yet, but a plan has definitely been made for 2018. More on that later. Here's a recap of some of my best shots of the year

 

Dawn - Test Shoot

This shoot was done earlier in the year with Dawn. It was one where we both literally went in with no expectations or ideas of what to shoot. It shows how awesome photos can be shot from complete improvisation. She just happened to have a pair of sunglasses with her, which I then borrowed to frame her in for this shot. Ended up quite well if I say so myself.

Felicia - Neon Lights

Instagram have been filled with all kind of neon light posts this past year, from closeup portraits with sunglasses, to ultrawides with large lights. I'm actually quite in love with the aesthetic myself, so I tried to give it a go myself with Felicia. She didn't have any experience with photoshoots itself before this either, so it ended up being a good practice on trying to shoot at night with neon lights, and working with a model that has never done a photoshoot before.

Hoyin - Portraits

Photography as a business is one where men are shot way less than women. I don't have an exact explanation for why, maybe it's because men are less inclined to do photoshoots or to go in the modelling business, maybe it's because photographer is a profession which is mainly filled with men, and since men (I'm generalising here of course) are generally more inclined to shoot with beautiful women than men, it ends up like this. Anyways, this shoot with Hoyin was a lot of fun because I finally got to shoot with a man again. They always end up being done in an entirely different way, since the focus is on other things than what you would do on a woman.

These are of course just a couple of the shots I've done last year. I'll be writing another post on the rest soon! I'd also love to get your opinion on these photos by the way, is there anything in particular you like or dislike about them and why? Let me know in the comments.

A Simple Fantasy/Fashion Shoot in Den Bosch

Back in August, I had the awesome chance to shoot with Kari Autumn again. She had brought along a couple of headpieces of Black Unicorn and wanted to do some simple fantasy/fashion portraits with them. The idea itself was to keep really simple and shoot it in the city of Den Bosch.

The Looks

Kari had four difference Black Unicorn headpieces and combined with the various dresses she already had, it was very easy to plan the look for the shoot. All we had to do is to get a make-up artist on board, to mix and match the dresses with the headpieces and, we were ready to shoot. The style we really went for was a good mix of fantasy and fashion, with a good balance between both of the styles.

The Locations

Since I've only been to Den Bosch once before, I wasn't entirely sure if that would work out well, fashion shoots don't tend to mesh with most city aesthetics. That being said, it turned out I'm completely wrong and Den Bosch has quite a bunch of hidden gems in terms of shooting locations.

Due to us not having sought out the locations to shoot beforehand though, we had to improvise on the spot. So between every scene we shot, Kari and Alana, the make-up artist, would go back to her place and I would scout out the next location in the city. Then we would meet there and repeat the same thing. It ended up being quite efficient and allowed us to shoot a large variety of scenes at various locations throughout the city itself.

The Shoot / The Gear

The only real tricky part of the shoot was the impovisation necessary to keep a certain look. While Den Bosch looks amazing from the right angles, it also was so varied that only very specific angles allowed for a good looking shot. This meant that I really had to make sure to correctly frame the shot to make sure that the continuity didn't get broken. This was especially important with the second shot in this series (the one with the church like front). If I had just a little bit more to the left, or the right of the image, it would've actually showed the rest of the building, which was made out of modern red bricks. 

The actual building in Google Maps.

This is of course just part of the challenge of shooting in the city and it was a lot of fun to try and keep everything looking like a cohesive whole.

As for the gear, it wasn't anything special. I used my Canon 5D Mark III with various sigma and canon lenses. In addition to that, I took a camera flash and umbrella with me to make sure that I could direct the light properly. This was probably the most important part of my gear, since the sun was quite harsh during the day and I had to make sure to balance the light out.

Conclusion

All in all, it just ended up being a fun day of shooting. Days like these remind me that now every single photoshoot needs to be this grand and major project that takes weeks to plan out and requires a huge team to finish. And that sometimes it's just nice to take a breather, keep it simple and just shoot. You might end up with great shots, or with bad shots, but at the same time you're not putting a boat load of stress on yourself to perform.

Team

• Photographer: Kyman Cheng
• Model: Kari Autumn
• Make-up / Assistant: Alana van den Berg