Through The Lens with Kamoey Ng-You

Kamoey Ng-You: 

Kamoey “gyalKapone” Ng-You that’s my name, it’s hard to describe myself especially in terms of creativity but what I can say is I’m raw personality wise and that translates to my work, my love for art and my curiosity restricts me from sticking to one discipline or medium, so I sculpt, paint, photograph, write and design but I’ll only show the world what I want to. My art reflects real life experiences, every photo is a chronicling of my journey towards self betterment and learning more about the world I’m a part of and my editing reveals the rawness of these experiences, I want viewers to see exactly what I see and feel exactly what I feel. My aesthetics-vary, I love black and white with deep contrast like Ansel Adams, I love dark and dangerous like Sin City, I love sleek and shiny like Jamaican youths jewelry and cars, inspiration comes from allover and you’ll see that in my work.

This is one of my favorite experiences. A guy I knew from high school contacted me and asked if I’d ever done food photography before, I said no but I’m willing to try, and from there the Gyalkapone×TraipseFood collaboration was born. At the time they had an upcoming Mexican pop up shop so they made Tacos and Burritos to be photographed for promotion and the food was amazing. This photo is one of my favorite of the set because the background came to me on a whim. I asked if they had white cloth and set it up to soften the edges of the plate and bring more character to the photo. The colors of the Taco itself, the reds, green, brown, off-whites and slight yellows, dance across your eyes with the help of the background.

This photo was also a part of a practice shoot with an aspiring model to be a part of Zinc Fence Chronicles Magazine. I had decided to conduct her shoot in my community, in areas that were important to my development, so we took a walk from my house to the other side of the community where we stopped at Wolmer’s Girls. This bridge has been refurbished but the memories from high school are still there. I didn’t have the best time in high school so this shoot with this model wearing everything they wouldn’t want us to wear felt like a really powerful move, and her pose reflects that, the contrast strikes me every time, and the network of shadows in the back and foreground will always make this one of my favorite photos.

The story behind this photo is more of an adventure. I had taken a wild leap of faith and agreed to be in a music video for some people who are now really good friends of mine (KansHTG & DaleyHTG) and I met this other model who was apart of the video. She has a distinct look, one I’ve never seen before, that always catches me. We were driving back to Kingston and I caught sight of this zinc shack and this Bamboo shack and I asked if I could have five minutes to shoot her there and this is what came out of it. The colors in the zinc worked perfectly to act as a muted but interesting background, it pulls the eyes but never distracts your focus from the beauty in the center of the frame, And her eyes are so interesting, they’re naturally that dark and I kept them that way because it made her so much more captivating. This is one of the photos that made me start appreciating and giving more thought into manipulating color.

This photo came about based on my interest to start a magazine for creatives, by creatives, about creatives and all around ran by young creatives. I didn’t want to use “professional” models, I wanted to use aspiring models, and “regular” people with aspirations to dabble in the modeling world or just people on a journey that needed to see themselves in that light. This model, Justin, is an aspiring model and this was a practice shoot I coordinated with some of the models to get a better understanding of their angles, get more comfortable with the camera, etc. I love this shot because his smile is amazing, the detailing on his face is clean and the depth of field worked so well it actually kinda surprised me. it’s one of my favorite shots, one that makes me believe that I’m actually talented so I hold it dearly to me.

This photo came about after I had a conversation with Normanique, the owner of liqueur swim-wear, she’s super talented and has an amazing personality and we decided to do a shoot for her carnival wear. This is one of my favorite photos because of how soft it is, I rarely get to do soft monotone edits and this models body was perfect, I have a high appreciation for women’s bodies because I’m constantly getting to understand and appreciate my own for what it is and not what I see it as, and the way the lights caress her silhouette and bring contrast to the rest of her body is really pleasing to the eye. What also made me happy is that it doesn’t take away the beauty of the costume, it shows that it makes the body appealing from any angle you could possibly think of.