Sometimes I think I need a better hobby than making myself cringe with bad jokes.

Lighting: Profoto 1Ds in 28″ softbox camera left. 1 SB900 in 60″ shoot-thru white umbrella directly behind camera for fill.

This is about as far as my interest in the sport of golf extends. I wouldn’t even play it on the Playstation.  Recently however, I was asked to shoot portraits of three gentlemen who are active in the golf world – the first is Mike Ishizaka, president of Golf Digest Magazine. The second is Steven Thomas, an expat who has been golfing for over 20 years in Japan, and the last is Takeshi Kusafuka, president of Pacific Gold Japan, a company that owns about a billion golf courses in this country.

Interesting shoots, great to travel around to meet nice people, I thought the photos came out pretty good.  The magazine didn’t use any of them.  Maybe this is why I hate golf.

One person who probably won’t be caught without his iPad is Hiro the Salaryman King, soon to star in his debut autobiographical movie 300 yen (movie poster below).

This is the first (and hopefully not last ) in a series of satirical movie posters that I’m planning to do, each one politely taking the piss out of bits of Japanese culture that I find amusing. And, just so you don’t feel like your money is being squandered away, here’s a completely free, no strings attached, complimentary no-questions-asked making-of video, yours for the taking, just my way of saying thank you. Actually, it’s my way of having fun, doing something creative and hopefully teaching you guys something new. Many thanks to Yuto Watanabe for helping me without the shoot, videoing and editing- he definitely was a big part of getting this video out. Thanks also to Japanorama.co.uk and Gin-ichi studio shop. The making-of video ended being an hour long, with a sizable photoshop section, but I hope you enjoy it!

That’s not to say I didn’t take it seriously though – and if the amount gear we took from Tokyo to Hamilton Island is any indication, then you’ll get an idea of the extent of the preparation I go to for weddings. They’re big jobs and the photos mean a lot to the people involved, so I want to leave as little as possible to chance.

Here’s the the stuff that we lugged down to Aus:

Nikon D700

Nikon D90

24-70mm f/2.8 G ED

105mm f/2 DC

70-200mm f/2.8 VR ED

SB900

SB80DX

Pocket Wizard II x3

Profoto D1 500 Air x2 w/transmitter

Lightstand x 4

Westcost 24″ Softbox

Lastolite 90cm circular diffusor

60″ umbrellas x 2

A whole sh*tload of small flash paraphernalia - too much to mention here

13″ Macbook Pro + assorted cardreaders

Lacie 500gb external harddisk

Not to mention battery chargers, memory cards and extension cords.

Luckily we didn’t lose any of it.

Like this movie poster I shot for my best friend’s wedding a long time ago – ‘The Last Ninja’, a bit of a satirical homage to the old Sho Kosugi ninja films. Quite possibly still one of the most enjoyable things I’ve ever shot. Design and layout by another friend who owns a design firm in Tokyo.

Took a whole day of shooting and running around bamboo forests to get all the photos for the poster taking us from the carpark of an abandoned apartment building to a bamboo forest, but it was a massive laugh and we were all happy at the end.  Not all of the shots of that day were used and some of the better outtakes are below the poster, as well as some of the ones that were used:

A massively fun day .

I’ve got a project coming up this summer involving satirical movie posters that’ll form part of the new video learning program we’re starting up at japanorama.co.uk.  Should be fun so look out for them coming out soon!

Once again, these were shot straight to JPEG (JPEG and RAW in camera) on my Nikon D700 at ISO6400, with my 24-70mm G.  Little to no editing in post-processing. 6400 ISO gives an absolutely great grainy feel and the in-camera black and white processing does a great job, especially with misty backgrounds.  I got the mysterious feel I wanted straight out of camera.

Shot all this stuff straight to JPEG on my Nikon D700 and 24-70mm G with ISO6400 and little to no editing.  It gave me the look I wanted straight from the start, which was absolutely great.  I personally am very happy with this series and might even consider having an exhibition of it sometime in Tokyo somewhere.

For the second series of shots we decided to try something else out and go for a noir look. We used an Orbis ringflash with a Nikon SB-900 to provide the main light for her face and then used an SB-800 with an orange gel and a  bulldog clipped Honl snoot to provide the orange splash of light on the face.  The bulldog clips are to really compress the opening of the snoot to create the tiniest splash of light – it’s a really useful technique.  We placed another Nikon speedlight behind the curtain to illuminate that from behind.

Of course, most workshops get a little silly in the name of good fun and when the studio has a fake gun prop it’s kind of easy to get carried away. These calamity Jane-inspired shots are made with essentially the same setup minus the snooted orange gel, and with the Orbis moved a little closer to the camera.

Come to the next workshop – shoot the kids! Learn how to get great kiddie shots with minimal gear.  Details here: http://japanorama.co.uk/2010/04/20/shoot-the-kids/

We used Nikon speedlights (a combination of SB-800s and SB-900s) to illuminate our subjects with Honl snoots and the Orbis ringflash for the second and third photo.  Great fun was had by all – especially the boxers, who were very much getting into the spirit of things, as you can see from the last photo!

Japanorama strobist and lighting workshops run every weekend – this week:  Lighting 101 for those who need a primer on flash to begin feeling confident about it.  Email irwin.wong@japanorama.co.uk if you feel like checking it out. Thanks to everyone who keeps coming out to these workshops – it’s always great to be in a creative atmosphere full of people who share your passion.  Hope to see you at the next one!