San Diego photographer, Chris Keeney's graffiti mural art portrait session with Culture Shock hip hop dancer and director of Mighty Shock, Cheyenne. High energy color and black and white photos of her dancing in front of a painted wall by graffiti writer, Romali Licudan.I first met Cheyenne during a photo shoot for Mighty Shock (a hip hop training company for young dancers) and Future Shock (a semi-professional hip hop dance company - 17 years and under) rehearsing one weekend at the Culture Shock Dance Center in San Diego. I also was there to shoot some additional headshots of people that were missing from a previous portrait session. After shooting the Mighty Shock and Future Shock dancers, I set up some lights and a backdrop, then waited for people I needed headshots to come in to have their portraits made. Cheyenne was one of the people I needed a headshot of. When Cheyenne came in, she told that she had seen and liked the photos that Culture Shock dancer, Rachael Macario and I had created together a couple weeks prior. She asked if she could have her portrait shot in front of the wall mural of a woman listening to headphones in the dance studio. I suggested that it was probably best to be consistent and shoot all the portraits with the same background, but if I had time afterwards, I would be more than happy to give it a go. So after the headshots were done, I found myself with a few minutes to spare. The hallway that this mural is in, is narrow (about ten feet wide), so I knew I would have to use a wide angle lens to get both her and the mural in the frame together.

Experimental photo negative black and white portrait of director of Mighty Shock, Cheyenne dancing in front of graffiti mural painted by Romali Licucan.

Being the experimental photographer that I am, when I was processing this color photo, I converted it to black and white... and then found myself thinking that it might look interesting inverted. Sure enough when I inverted the image in Photoshop to create a negative, the photo took on a whole new dimension. The shape and flow of her body I felt was more intriguing inverted than as a positive. This image reminds me of the photo negative mural I've seen painted by The Mac.

black and white high contrast photo of hip hop dancer, Cheyenne at the Culture Shock Dance Center in San Diego, California.

Black and white high contrast portrait of hip hop dancer, Cheyenne

Culture Shock dancer, Cheyenne finds a tune on her ipod before she starts dancing

When we started to shoot I asked Cheyenne to move fluidly in front of the mural and not to stop and pose. There was music playing in the background, but it was muted by the doors and walls of the studio. So she had a great idea to plug into an iPod and to pump some hip hop tunes while she danced in front of the mural. Perfect. The woman in the mural was wearing headphones and the music helped Cheyenne relax and feel more comfortable in front of the camera.

Action mural portrait of Culture Shock hip hop dancer Cheyenne dancing in front of Romali Licudan graffiti art.

I was intentionally dragging the shutter at 1/8 of sec, f/6.3 @ ISO 400 on this shot to give that sense of the motion of dance. I also had set the camera to manual focus so I wouldn't have to wait for the camera to focus every time I pressed the shutter button. I feel that waiting for the camera to decide when it's ready to shoot, really kills the flow of portrait photography and I often find myself reaching for that manual focus switch on the lens.

Cheyenne moving to the hip hop dance music on her iPod in front of a spray painted wall mural by graffiti writer, Romali Licudan.

During this shoot I was using a Canon EOS 5D, with a 16-35mm f/2.8 L series lens, a Matthews 3 section light stand, a Matthews 15 lb Boa Shot Bag weight, a 580 EX II hot shoe flash set on manual, a Quantum Instruments Turbo SC Slim Battery, two Pocket Wizard Plus II wireless flash triggers, and a Westcott Halo umbrella softbox. After I set my exposure and got the power on my flash set where I wanted it, off we went and would pause occasionally for a break. At that point I would move the light to another location and then we would proceed.

Mighty Shock Dance teacher, Cheyenne smiling during Romali Licudan mural photo shoot.

Cheyenne has a great personality and really enjoyed making these photos with her that day. It's no wonder her students love taking her dance classes... She's fun!

Introspective graffiti art portrait of Cheyenne holding her hair with her eyes closed.

Black and white high contrast graffiti portrait of Cheyenne Director of Mighty Shock at the Culture Shock Dance Center in San Diego, California.

Black and white action shot of Cheyenne in front of Romali Licudan\'s graffiti painting at the San Diego Culture Shock Dance Center

Thanks Cheyenne for reminding me to seize the day and for making this portrait session so fun and exciting.

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