All posts filed under: Family

It’s…The Year of The Pig!

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Happy New Year from this Tokyo photographer! As is tradition I make a New Year’s Poster based on the Chinese Zodiac with some of my good friends. 2019 is the Year of the Pig, and last year I didn’t manage to get out to enough movies to watch anything super inspirational for the poster, but I did manage to binge the whole series of Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix while I was on business trips in my hotel rooms, and I loved it. This year’s poster is (very loosely) based on that series and features four eco-warriors (top: Drone Pilot/Photographer Hamish Campbell, right: Fashion Creator Yuka, bottom: My Wife Asuka and left: Makeup Artist Maiko Mita) set against industry, greed and environmental destruction, as represented by the pig general at the very top; me. Credit must go to Yuka, who did an absolutely incredible job of coordinating these amazing costumes out of flea market goods. Maiko as usual did a stellar job of turning me into a menacing deformed pig, and thanks to Hamish for stepping …

It’s the Year of the Dog!

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Happy New Year! I’ve finally returned to Tokyo where I can’t wait to resume photographing all of my ongoing projects. As is my tradition, I’ve photographed a nengajo (Japanese New Years Greeting Card) with my close friends and family. This year, being the Year of the Dog, I was fortunate enough to be able to feature my good friend’s Shiba inu puppy Amaterasu (who has a bitchin Instagram feed ). It’s always fun to have live animals on set (as I have done in previous iterations of the nengajo here and here), and Amaterasu was by far the most well behaved talent I’ve ever had to work with, humans included. Possible one of the cutest as well. Anyway without further ado, here are the photos, featuring myself, my wife, Hamish Campbell, Maiko Mita and of course Amaterasu. Kimono styling was done by the amazing Anji Salz, and the shoot hinged on the gorgeous cyberpunk style accessories crafted by Ikeuchi Hiroto. Hair and makeup was by the talented Misa Motoki. Looking forward to what hopefully will be a great year! …

I’m gettin’ hitched! (not yet though)

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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 …

Aiko

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Well, wow, I got a pretty big response for the PMS project on Facebook and email – so I’m going to go ahead with that it seems. Looking for ladies willing to be subjects for this – drop me a line in the Contact section or in the comments! This shot below is of my girlfriend’s grandmother taken while we were visiting Hawaii in March.  She’s a sweet chatty, generous old lady that loves to tell stories. She has a great bar fridge full of Pepsi which is awesome for me and she likes to sit in her favorite chair and drink coffee and chat.  Her husband passed away last year, which was a very sad time for the lady and her family. Like a lot of older people she gets forgetful sometimes and loses track of things.  Not sure whether it’s Alzheimer’s but it’s a bit of a worry. I photographed her at her old family home which is near Haleiwa, which is one of the coolest places to shoot I’ve ever been in. I also …

The Family: Part 1

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This summer I finally got around to doing something that I’ve been thinking of doing for quite awhile – that is, shooting portraits of every single member of my extended family. Several factors have really contributed to my determination to finish this project, which has only just gotten off the ground. The first is the death of my grandfather last year at the age of 91, after suffering the after effects of a stroke for several years. He really lived a long, full life, not to mention a busy one with eight children, who are obviously my aunts and uncles today.  So I’m extremely sad and regretful that I wasn’t able to photograph him before he passed away, however his condition probably wouldn’t have allowed him to be photographed for too long, especially with the setup I’m using. The second reason I’m determined to finish this project is the shocking and sudden death of my Uncle Edmund, which happened last year.  I won’t furnish you with details but suffice to say that we’re all still …

The Gamblers

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I FINALLY managed to find time to do a shoot for myself recently, as I am in need for some recent personal work that can potentially fill my portfolio. If you’re a working photog, *never* underestimate the power of putting a bit of money into a personal shoot in your own time. There is no way that it can look bad in the eyes of the art directors and photo editors who see the effort you put into your personal work.   If you’re not a working photog and are aiming to build a portfolio for a possible jump into the pro photographer’s world, then you have no excuse not to have plenty of portfolio-fillers from personal shoots – you shoot for yourself all the time anyway! So get out there, organize a shoot and fill that portfolio up.  Chase Jarvis really says it well in his ‘Consequences of Creativity’ video, so go ahead and give that a look. For this shoot I was very lucky to have access to my mate Koji’s bar Rhythm …