Ladies and Gents, my blog posts are like buses, none for ages, then all at once…and here we have a second offering today, for your delectation, more tear sheets from the desk of a Tokyo-based editorial photographer plying his trade on the cold streets.

First up is a little portrait of Taro Kono, from the Japanese House of Representatives. A politician in other words, from the Liberal Democratic Party. See the full set of photographs of Taro Kono, LDP politician here. This was a 30 minute interview and photograph session, or more correctly, 29 minutes for chat and 1 min for me. And his office was incredibly short of space, due to the messy piles of books and papers laying around. But what can you do ? As Spike Milligan replied when asked what he does by Winston Churchill, he replied “I do my best, Sir”.

And next on the table (below) is another portrait/talking head interview situation portrait. Again, in a room which offered nothing interesting to shoot. Really, quite possible one of the least interesting offices I’ve ever been in. This time there were not even venetian blinds to play with, so I went with tight talking head shots. And here, below, is the final result in the mag.

And lastly this evening, a tear sheet which resulted from a last minute request from a client just before Christmas, did I have anything that can fill two pages for a small photo essay ? Jeez, I’ve piles of stories can fill two pages, ya pays yer money, ya takes yer pick. They went with a story about calligraphy brushes which I’d shot sometime earlier for another magazine. So this was a re-use sale, and actually looks nicer than the first initial commissioned usage by the other magazine. So a resale, just before Christmas, it made the turkey a bit fatter, and the family got new shoes. This calligraphy brush story had been a good one to photograph, a 3 day assignment with a brush maker artisan, a brush selling shopkeeper artisan and a brush using young calligrapher Souun Takeda. Enjoyable and interesting, the type of assignment which is stress free and gives you an insight into professions I knew little about. Once again it’s the joy of being a Japan-based assignment photographer. See the full set of photographs of calligraphy brush making, selling and using here.

Thanks for looking. As of tomorrow at the crack of dawn, I’ll be up with the crows and away out on the bullet train down to the Inland Sea. Perhaps I’ll post from on the road…