Well it beats Love and Hate on your knuckles and Mum in a heart on your forearm. On great thing about being an editorial portrait photographer in Tokyo, Japan, is the variety of assignments, you never get bored with shooting the same subject day in day out. And so it was a couple of months ago on assignment down in Yokohama when I found my camera lens mere inches from a man’s hairy arse photographing his tattoos. Not my usual Saturday afternoon. Or any day of the week.

Horiyoshi III, master Japanese tattooist, Japan, 2011. ©Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2011, all rights reserved.

I had an assignment to photograph Horiyoshi the 3rd, master tattooist, and his German disciple Horikitsune- an unusual pairing, old Japanese tattooist to the yakuza and a young Western apprentice. It was a good story. Finding the studio wasn’t so hard, but the shoot was scheduled to be an hour or so, but the master was in a hurry, and as usual photography became something to get done quickly. But in that short time Horiyoshi III was helpful and obliging, and Alex Reinke, known in the tattoo world as Horikitsune - a name given to him by his master, also helped and obliged, and answered my numerous questions about tattooing. But the shoot was quick, in and out, just like the tattooist needle.

Here is the full edit of the photographs of Japanese tattooist Horiyoshi III and Alex ‘Horikitsune’ Reinke.

And this is how the images appeared in Bizarre Magazine, on sale now in UK for another couple of weeks.

Here is the full edit of the photographs of Japanese tattooist Horiyoshi III and Alex ‘Horikitsune’ Reinke.