Rikervp's Batman Dark Knight Foto Work Shop Experience - Dongen NL - Zuiid Holland Fotograaf

  Rikervp's Batman Dark Knight Foto Work Shop Experience   Dongen NL - Zuiid Holland Fotograaf .

The making of ...

As some of you might know, just over a week ago on June 8th 2013 we held the

"Rikervp's Batman Dark Knight Foto Workshop Experience" in Dongen NL

Well to start off with, this has been thee greatest event that I , "Rikervp" have done to date !
but I was not alone in doing this. This was a multi-faceted shoot with many parts to it that had a lot of things involved. One part was the teaching part of it, creating art another part of it and our involvement with a young boy named Joost. Of which I will go into more detail later on in this blog.

 

 This shoot would not have been possible without the assistance of my wife Ina, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure things and myself were kept on track. (and boy did she do a hell of a job and all the worrying for me on this project.) which to be totally honest was a huge undertaking in itself to say the least.

I do have to pay a huge thank you to my personal creative team Miranda van der Velde,

hetschminkatelier.nl

whom is a big part of what I do everyday and is a brilliant artist in her own right we have been working side by side on many different projects together but this by far was the biggest undertaking, as well as the other parts of the creative team that came on board months before the shoot date. 

Batman Martin van Bentem

I would also note that we had the creative talents of Yvonne Zonnenberg another one of Holland's top body painters and her partner Gareth Hughes (who was also our "Joker") and their daughter Astrid. All beautiful people and talented beyond belief. The creations they made all together were nothing short of amazing. I am still wondering why talented, creative and loveable people like them,, want work with me. I am baffled.. but to be honest I a have been waiting for over a year to work more directly with Yvonne on a project like this. I not only admire her work... I envy both her and Gareth and can not thank you all enough for being a huge huge part of this creative team ! 


 

 Also we had Ilona Meester also an extremely talented body paint artist come and join us at the last minute when one of our other body paint ladies fell ill a few days before the shoot leaving us to find a replacement quick. Ilona answered the call on a moments notice and without hesitation and did an outstanding job that day and her body-paint talents really showed on "Poison Ivy".

 

We also had the talented MUA Patricia de Reus come and take care of any and all of the casts hair and makeup needs as needed. Another valuable person in this big event. I have worked with Patricia on more than one occasion and it is always a pleasure to have her in my company and always brings that added element to our shoots that we need to achieve great results in shooting. Next on my list of people to thank for their tireless efforts, hard work and vitally important role and assistance are Denise Cranham and Erik Baan. For assistance with the general running around and helping everyone that needed it, helping with food for the cast and other photographers that came. Erik for taping and double duty as my personal assistant with lighting. For me all these people had a huge hand into helping me compose and capture the images that I personally took that day.

On a special note, I would like to personally thank Peter Kemp for joining us on this day. I was truly honored that when Peter heard about what we doing with this Batman shoot, he wrote to me and thought my theme was something very nice to shoot and asked to join me. I felt honored to have had the company of Peter in this foto workshop experience. We got to see how a "master" of the art in creating story telling images creates, works and thinks. An experience that I am sure the other photographers and myself will remember for a long time. It was nice to have him on set and conferring about shots and what images we planned on trying to shoot that day. Needless to say not everything goes as planned of which I will also go into more detail later on in this blog. But I welcome the opportunity to shoot again with Peter in a more intimate atmosphere with not so many distractions. Peter has completed a series of images and you can view them in his own  blog here.
Peter Kemp´s Personal Blog..  

`The Penguin´s Klaasic little war`

The Characters :

Batman : Martin van Bentem
Batgirl : Suzanna Bouman
Joker : Gareth Hughes
Riddler : Danny Andeweg
Twoface : Jack Fens
Catwoman : Cat Candy K.
Penguin : Klaas de Jonge
Poison Ivy : Wendy Gude
Harely Quin : Beate Van Oort
Bane: Mathieu de Vogel

Mrs. Ice : Astrid Huges

This shoot was actually stretching my limits to be able to pull together this event. From arranging costumes and assorted items from the UK, the USA and elsewhere. There were delays in getting supplies such costumes and little detail items that go with each character such as gloves, a riddler's cane (which arrived broken in two pieces to us) then the shipping company wouldn't drop off package number 2 of 2 because it had to have a separate shipping label so a few calls back to the UK to have stuff reshipped. I do want to note here though we were supposed to have a real movie version of the Batman Dark Knight bat suit courtesy of the good hearted Ron Stilwell of MYSUPERHERO.com but it was sent out a bit late but did arrive in Holland 2 days before the shoot... Only thing is.. Dutch customs held it for 5 days and then attached an almost 800 euro import tax on the suit. A "suit" that was being loaned for the purpose of this shoot and was supposed to be returned by me to MYSUPERHEROGUY.com 48 hours after the shoot.




Well if everything had gone as planned that would have happened. Needles to say when the suit finally arrived on my door 3 days after the shoot with that 800 euro bill attached to it.. we could not accept it and had to declined it and I watched a very beautiful Batman suit sit on the truck and roll away marked return to sender. Luckily a costume place in Belgium came to the rescue a week before the shoot with an acceptable Batman suit for our needs that day. Although it did cost rikervp alot of euros and time tracking and getting one in time for the shoot at the last minute.
You can't have a batman shoot and not have a batman suit.

Ron Stilwell from MYSUPERHEROGUY.com wrote me a personal message apologizing for all the problems and it was well accepted. You can't really fault the guy or company for the  kind hearted man he is for trying to help us out with this project and for the cause were doing it for and for what we intend to achieve with the images.

 

Which leads me to Joost Pastoor, the 14 year old boy recovering from Leukaemia for the 3rd and final time.
More info over Joost here click this link

We have been associated with Joost for around 4 years and have supported him since the first day we met. This boy is truly one of my hero's. The idea behind this shoot was first and foremost to create art with the interesting theme of Batman, Well we thought because were having photographer pay to help with the costs of this gigantic project and we did not want to make any profit from this event because that is totally not our intention this is the part where Joost comes in. Money left over from the shoot will be donated to the Kikabouw.nl foundation in Joost's name. My dear little friend Joost came to our shoot made a special trip just to be with us even though he is still very sick and feeling the after effects of treatment. You really have to admire this young boy with his heart of gold and the donations he's already made to the hospital that was treating him to the tune 32,000 euro of which I am very proud to say we Rikervp had a small part in helping Joost achieve this. So if your reading this and you like the photographs you see on Facebook and on our web site and would like a print then you also would be supporting Joost to get that hospital built by not only buying a print, but also that money you spend to one will be used to buy a brick to help build that hospital. Every 5 euro buys a brick.
Buy a print here  Rikervp shop

 
So this is where the challenge comes in... if you find the images beautiful enough to own one for yourself... your really helping young children with cancer in a direct way. Actually everyone wins here, I get to make art, you get a print and Joost gets a donation towards the hospital... simple as that. Rikervp will not profit from this adventure. Period.

Things that could have been better in this shoot:
due to the fact that this was a seriously huge event a few things could have been better to make the experience an even greater one for everyone. The first thing that comes to mind is having the character ready on time for the event to begin on time. It demands a lot of time to prepare and paint the models most of the models arrived on time at 10:00am to begin the process. I think next time we will have to begin at 8:30 am and be ready for noon.

One of the things I heard from the group of attending photographers who paid to shoot were getting a little restless because some of them only had limited time to shoot and things were getting a little drawn out and a lot of waiting was not making them happy. But when the models all started coming down stairs to be photographed some  became a little happier and things really started to happen for everyone. 

Another point was well, we had a plan to shoot in a few spots but because of delays we only ended up shooting in one main area, while some of the other photographers were shooting with models that were not needed at the time for the main event being shot.
The whole goal behind this experience was that the photographers were there to see and learn how an on location shoot works, Learn different techniques in shooting, shooting for composites, basically learn to step out of they're comfort zone and think outside the box in terms of seeing a vision, capturing it on camera and work magic in post production.
I really think some of them got that and really looked for creative ways to shoot these beautiful models and it shows by the Facebook group we started to share images that all took over this event.
Images from all attendee´s can be seen here.Batshoot Experience / Dongen NL Group

The event location itself was incredible there were so many place to shoot inside this place I was like a kid in a candy store and I could not make up my mind where I wanted to set up my equipment as I said.. way to many interesting spots. Perhaps the next time we shoot there we will explore these. I have seen some shots from the other photographers in the group and it make me happy to see they were thinking out side the box and explored these areas when the models had free time to shoot. I really wish to give a huge credit of thanks to Rene Frik for putting us up and putting up with the lot of us that day. Rene bent over backwards to make sure everything and everybody had what they needed and also stayed behind till 10pm that evening to make sure everything was put back in place. Rene I know I can speak for all of us that attended that day we wish to thank you for the location, the hospitality and all your hard work to also help make event an experience for everyone. !

Location in which we shot.

Would I do this again... yeah, would I have a better plan and put that into action before the shoot.. yeah. Next time, I think I will make and have separate departments that will each have their objectives to be met by shoot day.  Also I would have more people to help with the behind the scenes work such as taking photo's and more people shooting behind the scenes video. to be honest we just didn't have enough to cover everything. Those that we had on hand did everything possible to add to this experience and worked double duty to pull it off and their hard work is truly appreciated again I will say without them... this would not have been the experience it was ! 

Foto Astrid Hughes retouched by rikervp

Penguin´s Klaasic little war continued.

 I think the next time I will not try to handle everything myself, and there was a great lesson to be learned from this day. A good director always has a lot of assistance and has people handle things that he could not possible handle himself and make it all work.. It's his direction with the people that he places in charge of certain tasks and keeps control of it and makes sure to keep his well oiled machine operating  smoothly and kept to a time schedule to make the experience an even better one for everyone.

On my last note, I have seen just how much we have touched people by this event, from the models to the guests and the attending photographers. Images I have seen from other taken that day even open my eyes. It is so nice to be able to work with such talented and creative people that also share in my crazy visions. I personally get a huge satisfaction working with others to create and to create something different.  I learn from what others are doing, I learn from sharing information and I learn from these creative experiences.

Bottom line over this event is... it was a huge success on far more levels than I can count. It was a huge success not only for me Rikervp, but also for everyone that attended and absolutely made this an event and an absolute experience. !
 

I would also like to add a huge huge amount of thanks our sponsors that also participated in this event directly or indirectly. By donating material, supplies and equipment to help us create this day.

Cameleon Body Paints : without your paints, your and assistance with the behind the scenes Eugenie, you were and are an invaluable friend thank you so much for being a part of this day. !!!!

Foto Video Nova (Zwijndrecht) :  Partners to Rikervp   Equipment supplies.

Kamera Express - Rotterdam  thank you for everything.

 Escapade.co.uk (Costume supplier) for their hard work and resending materials needed for this shoot.

Feestwinkle.be in Belgium thank you Erkina and Erwin !

Mysuperheroguy.com - Ron Stilwell . Thank you Ron for believing in us !

 

Vincent Burger Design-Sieraden : 
For bringing some extremely beautiful jewellery and creative fashion design items to put on our models and bring that added touch !!! thank you !!  



 From all the important support staff to the painters and including the models and photographers that day. If it were not for everyone's contributions and patience that day we would have not been as successful as it was. I want to thank each and all that came and joined in on this event a huge thank you !

 About the processing in the images:

 









 

 

 Most of these images you see in this blog have been edited in Adobe's Light Room and Adobe Photoshop while using "Topaz Labs" plugins. The plugin that were mostly used in processing were topaz labs detail, remask, lens effects and denoise. Topaz labs is my go to plugin and I have using their  tools and plugins for years. I am always experimenting with all of their plugin products to help me achieve the look I am going for in my images. I personally find using their tools easy to use and allow me to expand my creativeness with exploring this "Batman" theme series. They allow me to push past the limits in editing.. If you like these images and would like to better process your images check out Topaz Labs at http://www.topazlabs.com/home.php
and see how their tools and plugins will benefit your image processing. !


About the People: 
 


As this was our first really "Large Scale" shoot experience. And a great learning experience for many including myself many things will change should we plan another event of this caliber. I thank everyone for their patience and understanding and cooperation in this event and we all look forward to seeing your incredible images from in and around this event. Each and everyone of you played an important part in this day and yes that totally includes you too photographers !. The painters , the hair and MUa's created magic...and you captured that magic in photographs.

And this is the place where everyone can see them .
 https://www.facebook.com/groups/Batmanshootexperiencedongen/

 
All images posted there remain the intellectual property of their creators.
In other words,,, all rights (copyrights) remain with the creators. All other images posted will and can be shared freely. But we would like to see watermarked images.


To all the models and my friends !!!! Thank you so much for your time, your creativeness in bringing these character to life and making them believable !
Thank you for believing in me. For being there and for being you !
I look forward to the next time when we are together again. ! 

Thank you all for making this experience a total experience. ! ! !


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