Playground

A documentation of Amsterdam youth.

(Or maybe an ode to beautiful people who make sunny days even sunnier)

♬ Enjoy some tunes while ur at it ♬ 

Taken on days where you question why people always say 

"Life can't all be fun and games" 

because these days make you feel like that doesn't apply to you.

Shot on:
Canon 500n and Nikon ZOOM 300
Kodak Gold 200 & expired Fuji color 400 (shot on 200 but developed at 400)

Hey y'all! 

It's been a while, 120 days to be precise.

I could make a list of all the excuses I made up for not writing on here but let's be honest I've just been all over the place... I graduated high school (said she very casually whilst my highschool time wasn't easy or casual what so ever) , it's already summer and I (surprise, surprise) still don't have a clue what i'll be doing in my gap year.

One thing I do know is that now I have the time so I can't make excuses for not posting on here, not taking portraits (I did do two shoots this month so that's great!) ,not making youtube videos or making and selling my art. Those are a few things I'd like to focus on for a while. "Future Sophie I know you'll be reading this again some time soon; so get your ass of that couch, go make that bloody lookbook you've wanted to do for ages, go share your list of favorite movies on here and maybe have that graduation party okay!?"

Excuse the totally unrelevant intro to this post and lets get straight to it.

My mom recently bought a tablet so I decided to let my inner "grafic designer" run loose and created this visual inspo lookbook with some picture I took of Zora last month (our laptop broke so that's a pretty good excuse for not posting this earlier, right?)

We planned on doing a full shoot in this field near my house but since the sun ended up being a pain in the ass we ended up taking some more urban styled pictures at the old flat in my village. My dad was crazy enough to drive us back to the field during golden hour (thanks dad) so I was able to take some pictures in both settings.

Let me know what you think of this.

I'm curious to know if you liked reading these bits or if you are more the "only looking at the pictures kinda person" like me. 

I liked typing this, so we'll see where this goes.

Hope you are having a good one!

Lots of love,

Sophie

INDUSTRIAL EXPLORERS / Zora Hamers by Sophie Engels

Hello lovely people of the internet!

Yesterday Zora and I decided to go to Amsterdam (again haha).

Naomi showed me the "NDSM werf" for the first time last year and I totally fell in love with the vibes.

There is graffiti everywhere, everything is damaged but in a very beautiful way & there are some really nice coffee places! We visited the "Noorderlicht café" yesterday which 10/10 would visit again. The café has a very nice outdoor sitting area and the building itself looks like an old plant house, which is pretty amazing. 

We adventured there for a bit and took some pictures which i'm sharing with you guys today!

Let me know what you think of them ☺

I'm hopefully going outside to enjoy the sun later today.

Have yourself a lovely sunny sunday ☼

Lots of love,

Sophie 

- My 2015 Highlights -

Picture by +Naomi van Kleef 

Hello lovely people of the internet!

Happy new year, yes, time flies and now it's already 2016 wow!
It has been so long, 108 days ago to be precise .

I love blogging and sharing my pictures, drawings, outfits and everything with you guys. For some reason I just got behind on posting, being busy with school, and well life in general. I got so behind that I didn't know wheather to skip a post and just post the new one, but than I didn't not want to post the old one and well than I just didn't post anything for more than 3 months, which is a shame..

I thought it would be fun to share my highlights of 2015 with you guys.

So, you are all up to date with all the stuff I didn't write about & I have this post to look back on as a summary of 2015.

1. Husky sled trip

Going on a husky sled trip was something that had been on my wishlist even since I had seen the movie "Snowdogs" and had totally fallen in love with husky's. The fact that I got to ride a quad with 10 husky's in Norway was a dream coming true!

2. Amsterdam.

This was the first time I spend serveral days away from home by myself. This is the trip I cooked dinner in a pretty gross dorm kitchen with Fenna, met Naomi for the first time, had an awesome evening with her and her friends in a park, had a lovely sleepover, went on a super random adventure with Liza, who i'd never met. Went longboarding in "het Vondelpark" with Roel and visited museums. Went to museums alone and cooked for myself.

3. Norway.

Well you've probably all seen the pictures, but Norway is the most beautiful country i've been to so far! We went on a backpack trip, saw a waterfall, went kanoeing, celebrated my 18th birthday in Oslo with my mom, I stood un top of a mountain. 

4. Friends.
This year has been a year in which I've stepped more out of my comfort zone and met a lot of lovely new people.
I went to 3 instagram meetings, went to two blogger events, had several sleepovers, drank a lot of good coffee, took many pictures and had a great time. ♥ I'm super thankful for the great friends i've made and got to know! Ofcourse i'm also very thankful for the friends i've had for many years and spend friday nights playing games, drinking wine, playing singstar with ;) 

5. Art
Picture by +Naomi van Kleef 

I've always been very busy trying to create things, but i've never created so many drawings and pictures and shared them with the world as in this year. I got so much lovely feedback on my doodles and even got to sell some print, to imagine my drawings currently hanging in peoples rooms is insane!

6. Instagram.

This thing that just started out as me posting crappy pictures of the most random things ever has grown into something so much more. I can proudly tell you that i've reached 16400 followers, have met so many cool people, had my picture taken by amazing photographer, got to work with cool company's just because of this app.

7. Photoshoots.

Standing behind the camera is how people know me, that changed this year when Bianca Toeps from fashionmilk invited me for a photoshoot & interview (I couldn't believe it, interviewing? me?) It turned out so great and the response I got from all of you was unforgettable.

Than Jamie de Leeuw who had taken my picture two years ago asked me to stand in front of her camera again, ofcourse I did that because her pictures are sooo good!


And last week Nikki from Satellite June took analoge pictures of me which are probably my favorite pictures ever, my love for film is so real haha ☺


I also graduated in half my subjects this year, got pretty good grades, took many portraits, went on unplanned train adventures, explored beautiful nature with my mom, went longboarding with my brother and dad.

I'm sure i'm forgetting some things but these are some of the things that made my 2015 pretty awesome. (little disclaimer, i'm just naming my highlight, there have been many things that sucked this year but let's just all try to focus on the positive)

I hope you have an amazing year!
Adventure is out there...

Lots of love,
Sophie

- Urban paradise -

Hello lovely people of the internet!

Two days ago I went to Utrecht for an awesome instagram meeting (which I will tell you about in my next blogpost) 

This is where I met Femke and Sam, and if you know me, you know that I took lots of pictures haha ☺

I has been a while since I took portrait pictures (sadly) but I'm pretty happy with how these turned out!

I hope you like them!

This is different from my usual, all black and white/portrait style but I really like the urban street vibes.

Let me know what you think of them.

I hope you have a nice week ♥

Lots of love,

Sophie

- Norway part 2, disposable camera pictures -

Hello lovely people of the internet!

You are probably all going to school again,

 so I thought you could all use some more holiday pictures to get you through these first school weeks haha ;)

I picked up my disposable camera pictures yesterday and it made me a bit sad to be home in the rainy Netherlands.

Norway is one of the most beautiful countries i've been to so far!

The mix between the creative city centre and the pure nature makes it almost perfect ☺

I'm going to write a little bit by each pictures so you know where it was taken.

Well, these first two pictures where taking at the place where we set up our tents during (my first) 2 day backpacking hike. It was such a beautiful place to sleep, next to the water, with the mountains infront of us.

These three pictures are from our first full day in Norway where we made a 5 hour walk, the view at the top was breathtaking!

Oh these other 3 where also from our 2 day hike ;)

The one thing I really wanted to see was a waterfall. It was the last day and still I hadn't seen like a real waterfall.

So on our last day we adventured out to see this awesome waterfall!

This is probably my favorite picture. It was takin on my birthday trip to Oslo. It's my mom drinking tea in the cutest coffee place i've ever been to ♥

Hope you all have a nice week!

Let me know what you think of the pictures ☺

Lots of love,

Sophie

- Norway part 1 -

Hello lovely people of the internet!

This girl is currently in Norway aah ☺
I've been here for a week now, and collected some of my favourite pictures that I took with my phone (DSLR pictures will probably come later) for you to share today!

First some visual vibes from our way here. For the people wondering, we are staying in Seljord situated in Telemark.

Day 1

The first full day here we already went on a hike, way more intense than planned.
But the view was one of the best things i've seen yet! Totally worth it ☺

 Day 2



This was on our second day here, we travelled to another place from where we started (my first) backpacking trip the next day. Below you can see where we build "our camp" haha.
I found it very tough but also a very awesome experience!

Day 3

 Day 4

 Day 4

This might have been one of the best days in my life so far. This girl got to ride with a husky pack!!!! If you know me, you know how much I LOVE HUSKY'S, i loved them since I first saw the movie 'snow dogs' haha. It was so cool! The dogs are so strong, powerfull and beautiful but also really sweet. It was awesome to see how passionate their owner Olav was about his dogs. I also got to ride the quad myself which was insanely rad!! 

Day 5

Yesterday, we had a chill day so we could recorver from our adventures.
I red the book "Eleanor and Park" which I recommend, it's really really good! I also went on a berry picking adventure with my mom.

Day 6

 Today we decided to go kanoeing on the Seljord lake. I got to Kayack for the first time; which was really cool. The view was very beautiful (Norway is very beautiful in general)

Monday my mom and I take the train to Oslo and stay there 3 days for my 18th birthday (Oh god, so old) I'll share those pictures as soon as I get back ♥

Have you guys been to Norway? (this is my first time btw)

Hope you are having a good day!

Lots of love,

Sophie