Congratulations!!
(To see the post about the awesome albums that I made for them go here. 25% off photobooks to the next 10 couples who get their engagement or wedding photos done with me!)
(Sorry for the hugeness of this post, hope I don’t kill your bandwidth!)
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Photobook manufacturers Memomiio recently contacted me to make several books for their showcase. Seeing as I’d just finished shooting a wedding for a couple in Melbourne I decided to make two types of books; a wedding photo book for that side of my business, and a portrait portfolio for the editorial/commercial side of my business.
Here’s the finished product for the wedding album, and I have to say I’m really impressed with the binding and print quality. The best parts are the thick photo-board style pages and the lay-flat binding which makes designing two page spreads really satisfying. The one pictured below is 40x30cm and super heavy (about 3kgs). Gotta say I’m loving the quality though.
Which brings me to a fairly cool announcement – the first 10 couples who hire me for engagement/wedding photography get 25% off any album they order, which, I have to say, is huge. They start at around 30,000 for the 20 page 40x30cm book (the one pictured below is 40 pages). So if you’re getting married anytime soon in Tokyo, drop me a line if you want to take advantage of this deal.
More to come (plus the actual shots from the wedding) in the next few days!
How I shot this:
All done at home in my impromptu macro studio. A more in depth post on this to come.
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A wedding I photographed recently @Nogi Shrine and Kaitei, Hamamatsucho.
Congratulations!
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Just a quickie post for today – here’s an all-natural light portrait of Speech, the lead singer from the R&B band Arrested Development (not to be confused with equally as excellent television show). Shot with my beloved and increasingly rare 135mm f/2 DC (I promise not to drop it again). There aren’t really any other technical details that I can share about this shot that are too groundbreaking, but yes it was shot without flash (felt weird), and I love how selective you can be with the 135mm, although it’s not to the extent of a tilt-shift of course.
Anyway, that’s all for now, more to come later!
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Image copyright to Maki Kawakita.
Hey everyone, I know that two posts in one day is pretty rare for me these days but I’m really pleased to announce that my second post on Strobist.com is up! This time I interview Japanese commercial photographer Maki Kawakita about her epic approach to lighting Japanese rockers Glay. Some pretty good lighting tips as well as an idea for commandeering an hotel lobby for a 12 light setup (hint; it actually wasn’t too difficult). Here’s the link for anyone interested, comments welcome!
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2011/10/maki-kawakitas-theatrical-light.html
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Earlier this year I had the rare privilege to photograph a very well known Japanese footballista , Honda Keisuke. He’s a superstar in Japan, scoring goals in the South Africa world cup, and since I’m a huge fan of the current Japanese national football team it was a real pleasure to meet him.
As is generally the case with a person of this celebrity, his time was initially quite limited but once he warmed up and started chatting he seemed to forget about the time and we ended up hanging around for about an hour. Pretty neat, and the ability to openly engage with your subject is one of the main reasons I really love doing portrait photography. Not everyday I get to explain to a famous Japanese soccer player how I ended up doing magazine photography in Japan (a story for this blog some day, to be sure).
Lighting wise:
We were stuck in a really small conference room with the blue colored walls that you can see. Luckily, blue happens to be the main color of the Japanese football team so I decided to leave that, and focus on getting achieving the intense lighting that I had envisioned from the beginning. This was a two-light setup. cI used an SB-unit in a Lumiquest Softbox III (see what’s in my bag here) for the main light, as I’ve come to rely on the directional but diffuse light that it produces. The fill was a 43″ umbrella behind me. All in all the lighting was pretty much as I had set out to achieve but next time I go for this look I hope to have a dish for my Profotos. A bit too expensive right now, unfortunately.
That’s it from me for now, I’ll be back with more posts soon!
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Now for something slightly different to what I usually put on this blog: here’s some personal news!
I got engaged!
w00t!
Those of you who know me personally will appreciate how much of an achievement this (convincing a woman to marry me) is. So, aside from recovering from the cost of the ring, and trying to figure out which wedding photographer I’m going to hire, I’m going to enjoy this while it lasts, or at least until my supply of Rohypnol runs out (that was a joke! no need to call the police).
So to commemorate this frankly unlikely occurrence I’m putting some photos up of the lady in question, primarily because I love her, and secondarily as evidence that my fiance is not someone that I’m simply stalking with a telephoto lens.
Of course, a post on this blog wouldn’t be complete without a bit of camera geekery. I shot all of these photos with a Bessa Voigtlander R4a (too poor to afford a Leica) with a Nokton 40mm f/1.4. It’s a great camera to run around with, although I’ve had problems with the shutter button sticking on me, and the camera strap lugs are designed to make the camera hang at the most uncomfortable angle possible. Still, great fun to still be shooting film these days, and it’s definitely a solid camera that’ll do until I get my hands on a Hasselblad, or even one of those wicked panoramic thingamabobs. Plus, a used Voigtlander won’t cost you a thousand dollars, which has my vote.
For film, there are two rolls here – Ilford FP4 125 and Ilford Delta 3600, pushed (accidentally) to 1600. See if you can spot the difference! All of it is developed at home with all Ilford chemicals. Don’t have the space for an enlarger so I have to settle for crappy scans from my 10,000yen scanner for now 
Anyway, I’ll be back to posting more stuff from my actual shoots soon, now that I’m back from Australia.
Seeya!
Not my fiance, but there has to be at least one gratuitous Bresson-inspired shot in a post about rangefinders Here’s one that I liked from a recent roll. The weird stains are from where the water has dried and left an impression of the droplet. I need to be less lazy when it comes to washing my film.
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Yes it’s official – “Pay Me”, the long awaited single from washed-up pop artist Irwin W. is out. Irwin W. – who is not me although he incidentally looks and sounds exactly like me, is actually the Scottish-Japanese former-frontman for the 80′s photography-based rock band High ISO. Photography-based music? Yes, it’s true, it does exist – I might have a dig around to see if I can’t find some old music clips or interviews from High ISO to post up here in a couple of months
Anyway, here’s his debut single, entitled “Pay Me”, which “goes out to all my photographer homies who have had their copyright infringed!” according to him. You can tell it’s not me, because I would never use the word ‘Homie’ in actual speech.
In all seriousness tho, this is the result of my summer project, which typically comes around due to the quieter season that Tokyo photogs experience through the Obon holiday season over here. You can check out the results of last year’s project here. This year I decided to really up the ante and get myself into the world of DSLR video, which was definitely a curveball for me. The amount of gear, planning and preparation that goes into making a short clip is sheer magnitudes larger than planning a photo, and all in all it ended up being a fantastic experience that’s left me wanting to do more
In case you’re wondering yes, that is my voice and yes, I did write the lyrics (but let me keep pretending Irwin W. isn’t actually me). It went through several revisions but eventually I managed to get it recorded professionally in a Tokyo studio, thanks largely to Japanese house artist Masmin.
After the recording however came a couple of weeks of meticulously planning what shots we’d need to cut together into a decent looking music video, which was perhaps the hardest part for me considering up till now I’ve been a stills photographer and have never storyboarded a moving image. So the experience of roughly visualizing the finished product was a really great experience. In the end the shot list was 3 pages, which ended up being revised, improvised on, cut and amended to kingdom-come on the two days that we shot. I’ll post BTS videos / photos of the shoot if you guys are interested in seeing them!
As far as the gear went we used a Canon 5D MkII on a Steadicam Pilot for all the shots. Yuto Watanabe did the photography for the entire video and is responsible for the great camerawork and also chopping together the entire thing. The Steadicam + 5D MkII is a very potent combination that allows you to do an amazing range of shots, depending on the skills of the operator. I’m definitely a fan of their gear and plan to invest in a rig just as soon as I save up the requisite 500,000yen (~$5500) to own one Until then I’ll keep renting at Ginichi.
For lights we rented two 4 foot 4-bulb Kinoflos, which were awesome for indoors, and amazingly easy to use. Plus, the light looks super nice (you can see the catchlights in my sunglasses). Lighting for video is definitely something I’m going to want to look into more, although I’m sure that it’ll just make me have more gear envy, which is never good.
Anyway, enough waffling from me, enjoy the latest musical offering from the fictional Irwin W. and let me know in the comments if you’re interested in the behind-the-scenes videos. Definitely keep an eye out for some music clips of HighISO’s old work, I’m sure I should be able to dig it out from somewhere, although it might take a couple of months 
Hope you enjoy it!
PS: Thank you Justin Bieber!
Credits
Creative Lead/Director/Lyrics:
http://www.irwinwong.com (Irwin Wong)
Photography/Editing:
http://www.yutowatanabe.com (Yuto Watanabe)
1st Assistant:
Koh Terai
Credits (in no particular order):
Lea Okudara, Ayako Jinnai, Maho Kudo, Bellamy Hunt
Extra Special Thanks to:
Takumi Takahashi and Takuya Imura, the coolest dudes in Tokyo. Also, Masmin for hooking me up with the recording studio!
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It’s up!
I’m really pleased to announce that my first post for Strobist.com is up on the website! If you don’t know what Strobist.com is, it’s probably the best place on the Internetz to learn – really learn – the nuts and bolts of lighting effectively, and cheaply. Seriously, check it out, I know I read the site like a bible when I was getting the hang of lighting, so it’s a real honor to be actually contributing to it! I probably should have thought through the profile pic a little better tho…
Anyway, here’s the link to the post, which featured photographer Ikeya Tomohide’s work, I’ve got a couple more in the pipeline as well.
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2011/08/ikeya-tomohide-drawn-to-water.html
Looking forward to posting more up in the near future!
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I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while: the good old ‘what’s in my bag’ post. I live in Tokyo, one of the most crowded cities in the world, and a place that’s very unfriendly to owning cars, which makes getting my gear around a slight pain in the butt. And if you’re like me, in other words, if most of your shoots are on-location, editorial type things with no creative budget factored in, then you really need to start thinking about your lighting kit. This especially relevant if you’re going to navigate the labyrinthine network of subways, elevators, staircases and lifts of Tokyo with your heavy kit bag. Tokyo has pretty decent subway access for physically handicapped people or travelers with large suitcases, but believe me, if the only option is a staircase you don’t want to be lugging more than you have to up from the depths of some metro station.
So, here’s a short little guide to how I pack my strobing kit to tackle the challenges of Tokyo’s urban jungle.
First things first, depending on the job I almost never take everything that I’ve laid down below. If I get a decent brief then I’ll trim the kit by leaving a couple of lightstands out or a lens. But let’s just say that either a)the editor hasn’t really given me much information the shoot about or b) I’m really excited it about for personal reasons, then I’m most likely to bung all this stuff in the bag, just so I know that I’ll be prepared for almost anything, and still be able to pursue my strobe-heavy approach.
My bag is the ThinkTank Shapeshifter and I LOVE IT. Here’s a little rap for you to show how much I appreciate it.
Put your hands in the air / For all the ThinkTank gear /
The prices may be dear / But you’ll never have to repair/
So there’s no need to despair / If you fall down the stairs /
Or get charged by a deer /You’ll have no fear!
So, apart from the fact that I obviously have too much time on my hands and have recently bought a rhyming dictionary, it’s a fantastic backpack-style camera bag, super comfortable and you can pack loads into it. Plus, it looks no different to the day when I got it. Talk about a tough bag. 
That’s a picture of what generally goes into the bag for every shoot. For a wedding or larger shoot I’ll also throw in my 13″ Macbook Pro but otherwise this is pretty much it. Going from top left we have 2 sync cables, one SC-17 and a more expensive SC-28, which allows you to shoot TTL with the newer flashes. Since I shoot manual it doesn’t really make a huge difference but SC-17s are in short supply here. The big white square to the right is the Lumiquest softbox III, which slides neatly into the back of my bag and is pretty much universally loved by strobists for its awesome quality of light and portability. Next is the 50mm f/1.2 and the 24-70mm f/2.8, which are my wide to medium range lenses. I do particularly enjoy using the 50mm f/1.2 for portraits and even in the natural light it’s a fantastic lens.
In the second row we have the Pocket Wizard-to-camera cable that allows me to trigger the camera using PWs from a distance. I love this thing and use it all the time for long exposures, interesting perspectives and portrait shoots where it helps me to get out from behind the camera. Next to that is my mongrel collection of Nikon speedlights – 1 SB-900, 1 SB-80DX and 1 SB-26. I’d have more except people keep riding bicycles into my lightstands even though they have been placed to the side of a 10 metre wide thoroughfare. Out of all of them I’d say the SB-80DX is my favorite as it is basically an SB-800 without TTL, and about $300 cheaper. They are super hard to find in Japan but if I see one I buy it immediately. The fact that I only have one unit is due to people not watching where they ride their bicycles.
Next is my D700 w/battery grip, a camera which hardly needs an introduction considering how long it’s been around (come on Nikon, how about some new bodies?). To the right of that is my 135mm f/2 DC, which I LOVE, and my 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, which is heavy but works wonders at events such as weddings.
Below all of that are my 3 Pocket Wizard II transceivers, next to that is a pouch containing a Lumiquest 80-20 for run-and-gun event stuff where setting up stationary lights is unfeasible, and a spare battery. All of this stuff fits neatly into my ThinkTank and feels pretty light, although at the end of the day it feels like lead.
This roller bag is where I keep all of my stands and other lighting gear. It was graciously supplied to me by the great folks at Ginichi Studio store but is starting to show some wear and tear – the wheels are pretty much screwed and the handles are starting to tear from much heavy lifting. Not surprising considering the amount of use it gets, but I’m going to have to shell for a new bag soon.
So, this is a shot of what goes in this roller bag. If it’s a smaller job I’ll take out some lightstands but this is generally it. Starting from the top, there is a small Manfrotto lightstand that usually gets left home. Below and to the left is a Manfrotto super arm with a Manfrotto super clamp attached to it – and I really love this thing. It’s beefy, versatile and makes it soooo easy to get flashes into innocuous places. Then there’s some ever-useful tape, and below that a Lastolite Triflash umbrella adaptor. It’s great for ganging up flashes when shooting in the middle of the day but I’ve found the screw that holds the umbrella in place has a tendency to fall out, which is unbelievably annoying.
Below is my Honl bag with Honl light modifiers and gels – one of the most useful bits of kit in the bag (more on this in a bit). The Orbis ring flash also gets thrown in the kit if there is a high chance of being able to shoot under shade. It’s a bit clunky but I can’t deny its usefulness for a whole bunch of applications, so it often gets a run.
Of my main light stands there is the boom, and two regular ones. I like slightly bottom-heavy ones as opposed to lighter stands these days as it helps your softboxes or umbrellas stand up in a slight breeze. Next to that to the right are my main light modifiers – a Westcott 48-inch umbrella with removable black cover and a Westcott 24-inch softbox. I tend to go for these immediately for most of my shoots – the umbrella is great as a main light but also large enough to act as a fill light if necessary and the softbox gives a good quality of directional light. It is, however, quite flimsy.
Inside the Honl bag: 3 long snoots, 1 short snoot (I love the short snoot), 3 gobos, 2 grids (1/4 and 1/8 inch), 1 bag of color temperature correction gels and 1 bag of color effect gels. This Honl bag goes with me anywhere I go and it’s basically indispensable, allowing me a great deal of control over my light.
In addition to these I have two Profoto D1s which come out on special occasions where I have an assistant and need some serious lighting power.
So there it is – hope you enjoyed seeing how I pack my bags to venture out into Tokyo with. It’s a pretty good kit that allows me to handle pretty much every situation and every type of scenario that my editorial jobs require of me, short of having to photograph more than 20 people at once. It’s not perfect and I know there are things I want to change, but for the time being, it’ll do. And no, I don’t work for any of the companies I mentioned , I just happen to like most of their stuff.
Anyway, I’ll be back with some non-gear related posts in the near future, drop me a comment below if you liked this post!
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