Fresh Faces: Riana Ye
Photos of youth culture and club scenes bursting with energy and curiosity
For the uninitiated, Singapore’s underground club scene is small and easily missed. In recent years, a dozen or so independent club nights have resurfaced after the pandemic: Bussy Temple, Baby Boy, Ringtone, Hyperfocus, Sorry No Cure, just to name a few. These nights are organised by creative collectives, music lovers and queer communities who want to provide an alternative sound as a foil to commercial clubs. One can be entertained from Thursday through to Saturday. Different parties offer different genres, from hyperpop to deep techno. They gather audiences via Instagram and word of mouth. These collectives have an average of one to two thousand followers on Instagram, yet it is enough to pull a decent crowd of new and familiar faces weekly.
In turn, throngs of young twenty-somethings turn up to show off their latest fashions and hangout with the who’s who of Singapore’s underground culture, or catch the latest devised movement piece. Riana (they/them), who started documenting gigs and club nights last year, is a photographer who documents nightlife in their nostalgic Y2K style. The neon-drenched photos encapsulate candid shots of party-goers, enthralled by thrumming beats and the feeling of being part of something bigger than themselves. Read more to dive into their photographic practice and the stories behind these photos.
February 2023. “I took this at a social event at Dorothy’s. I don’t drink, so I was feeling somewhat unengaged that night. but the kaleidoscope lamp behind the bench in the corner caught my eye. I grabbed a friend’s bottle, positioned it in front of my camera, and shook the water inside it to create this photo. It took a few tries to get this one in particular, but I liked it the most because the lights ended up looking like a figure of a bird.” Image courtesy of Riana Ye.
July 2024. “I took this at Ringtone’s second Brat-themed party. Despite having attended raves for over a year and photographing them for several months at this point, this Ringtone was the first rave I was paid to take photos for. This was one of my favourite shots of the night. I love Ida’s pose and her mask and her maximalist outfit and all the colours in the photo.” Image courtesy of Riana Ye.
September 2024. “The night I took this photo, my camera was stolen. I only managed to get it back several weeks later, so I could only edit this photo a long time after it was taken. Nevertheless, I was so satisfied with the photos, I would have been content to get back just the photos and not the camera. Nina is one of the coolest and most fashionable people I know and I’m glad I had the honour of capturing their outfit that night.” Image courtesy of Riana Ye.
April 2024. “I took this in a studio with a lot of wooden panelling, so the lighting had a lot of yellow undertones, which was extremely unflattering. I took the opportunity to edit in a more experimental way than I usually did, by radically altering the colours. I think this photo came out looking like it was shot in a grungy carpark, for an album cover.” Image courtesy of Riana Ye.
April 2024. “This looks more like a digital creation than a photo, but I shot this with my phone and laptop. I have always loved how reflective mediums present the opportunity for recursion (see: two mirrors facing each other), but around this time my friend and I snuck into an empty lecture theatre and projected a video call onto the screen, whereupon we discovered the joys and horrors of almost-infinite loops . On a different occasion, I tried the same concept but with my RGB keyboard and accidentally created some structures that really resembled vertebrae.” Image courtesy of Riana Ye.
August 2024. “The way this photo turned out made me really happy, because I was experimenting with a new way of taking photos and it ended up going even better than I had expected. This was taken at Sorry No Cure. I had recently bought some sunglasses with lens that made light sources look like hearts, and I was excited to repurpose the lens to take rave photos. I thought SNC would be a perfect fit because of the grunge hyperpop Y2K theme, and it was! As a bonus, I also love the ray of green light coming from the left. It looks like a light leak on a film photo, but I shot this on a DSLR.” Image courtesy of Riana Ye.
June 2024, “I took this in Abyss, a club in Shanghai. It was one of my last photos before my camera ran out of battery. There was a bloodbath event going on, which meant that red liquid was sprayed from the ceiling onto everyone, but the effect of that was that the club became incredibly hot and steamy. Physically speaking, of course—it was actually hard to breathe—but these two were clearly embodying the description in a more metaphorical sense.” Image courtesy of Riana Ye.
June 2024 “I met Zhonghe on Bumble in Hangzhou. The first and only time we hung out, we did a photoshoot together, and I learned that they were art students and wanted to specialise in sculptures. We spent the day walking around the city and finding strange locations to take photos in. The location here looks like a kitchen in someone’s house, but it was actually in the corner of a small car park.” Image courtesy of Riana Ye.
July 2024. “This photo was taken at Changi Beach, which apparently was nowhere near Changi Airport. I think this was the first time I went somewhere with the primary intention of doing a photoshoot. QB and I went there because we thought the rocks and the sea would make for a good setting. We were not wrong, but we also found out two things: that the beach was full of colonies of skittering bugs and that the waters were known to host deadly jellyfish. Thankfully we did not find out the latter firsthand.” Image courtesy of Riana Ye.
What is your full name? Or the name that you would like us to address you by?
I would like to be addressed as Riana, or Riana Ye. It is not my legal name, but it's the name I prefer!
How did you get into photography?
I started taking photos the first time I got a phone, which was in Secondary 1. It started out as a fascination with beautiful things, but eventually I learned to find joy in composing the images, as well as editing them afterwards.
How long have you been taking photos?
This is a bit of a complicated question! Technically I've been taking photos for 9 years (including the years with a phone), but I've only been shooting on DSLRs for 5 years, and I only started doing rave photography in the past year.
Is this a hobby or something that you would like to turn into something bigger?
It definitely began as a hobby, and it's only recently that I have had reason to think about turning into something bigger. When I first started doing rave photography, it was just for fun and I had no obligations to produce any specific type of shots. These days, since I'm freelancing for FEMALE, I do have a lot more responsibilities, including seeking consent from people, getting their contact information, getting a variety of photos, ensuring the subject matter is clear, and so on. It means I have less time and room to experiment, so that is a consideration I have to weigh if I want to turn photography into a career.
What attracts you to the club scene?
I first started going for raves because I had some friends who brought me along. I was attracted to the music, the friendly people, and the fashion. These days, I also enjoy going to parties to see my friends.
Could you share some of your creative influences?
In relation to raves, I express my creativity through my photography, my fashion, and my makeup. I grew up scrolling through Pinterest. Photography-wise, I love Petra Collins' work. She is a very big name in the industry and has no doubt influenced many, many people. I have been very inspired by the way she brings in colours into her work, and it is something I try to do in my own work. I also like Joshua Nai, who does some glowy things with lighting. For fashion, I love Kaila Hashimoto and Fei Zhuang. The former is an Instagram influencer who dresses in a lot of colourful and sometimes eccentric clothing. The latter is a Chinese model whom I first heard about from a video of a street interview where she talks about her style. She is just so cool. Finally, for makeup I am inspired by @iamnostya and @laurelcium on Instagram. They both do highly experimental makeup looks that take an incredible amount of effort, and to me borders on fine art. These are definitely not looks that your average office worker goes around wearing, and I appreciate them all the more for it.
What are some goals that you have for your photography?
This year, I have been trying to do more creative and conceptual shoots! I had a creative existential crisis a few months ago, where I doubted the direction of my work. It felt like good portrait shots were primarily to the credit of the model or makeup artist, while good event shots were primarily to the credit of the performers, and the only thing I contributed as a photographer was being lucky enough to press the shutter button at the right time.
My answer to the crisis came in the form of some creative work I saw by a photographer called Sergei Stroitelev. He took a series of headshots of women, alongside their name, age, occupation, and the contents of their handbags. It was fascinating. From then on, I started reconceptualising photography as a creative endeavour. It is something I can contribute a significant amount to, beyond just pressing a button.
For more of Riana Ye’s work, click here.