TokyoLand

Thoughts of a Tokyo, Japan-based editorial corporate portrait assignments photographer

18/11/2011
by Jeremy
4 Comments

Tokyo supper club.


Archive: Fish swim in a tank, in a traditional izakaya bar/restaurant, in Kabukicho, Tokyo, Japan. ©Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2003 (Click on the image to view it on my archive site, for licensing.)

So it’s Friday evening here on the great sushi carousel of Tokyo. Another week of assignment photography in Japan draws to a close. It’s that time of the week when people go out and party, another week of salarymen life over.  I don’t know if it was a Friday night when I shot this above image, but it was in Kabukicho, Tokyo, and it was an evening of socialising with a client in GoldenGai street. On the way home, with my eyesight slightly in need of autofocus, I somehow found the above scene, of a fish tank and view into the izakaya bar. I shot half a dozen frames or so, with the fish in various positions and catching the light to various degrees. And out of those 6 or so, this was the most balanced for the fish composition and they way they shined. I’ve always liked this image.

This image as well as all images on my main website, or on my archive site, are available for purchase as fine art prints. Should you have any questions please just ask, many thanks.

 

17/11/2011
by Jeremy
0 comments

Checkin’ out the city.


Archive: View seen from inside the observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government buildings, in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. ©Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2010. (licence the image here.)

Another gloriously sunny day, another great day to be an assignment photographer working in Tokyo. Some days I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not making it all up and just dreaming the dream, instead of actually living it.

No photography assignment shooting for me today but a bundle of ever present chores and I’m about to head out on a recce for one of my regular clients, off to north side of Tokyo, to check out the location for a forthcoming shoot. Not often I have to do recce’s for shoots, certainly not for editorial photo assignments. Mostly, and this is what I love about my job, I turn up and I have a minute, maybe two or three, to size up the location I’m in to find my best angle for the shot, or to figure out the light. Certainly if I’m with a journalist and translator/fixer, then the fact that they are there and will be doing the talking to the PR people, or company President or whomever, then in that situation it buys me time and I can look around a little. But nothing quite beats that adrenaline rush of walking in somewhere and introducing yourself to the subject of the shoot, they shake you hand , take you business card, then look up and look you in the eye and say “So where do you want to do the shoot?”. Well, that’s the moment. You’ve been shaking their hand, taking their business card, and all the while your eyes and senses are all over the room, checking out the decor, the furniture, the windows, the lights, the type of light source- strip lights (ever prevalent in Tokyo offices), crappy tungsten, beautiful daylight, or that weird heavy orange sodium-y tungsten-y light you only find in Japanese hotels. You’re checking it all out, by osmosis, sucking it all in.

I love that moment.

But not today, today I can take my time, amble around, stroke my chin like an artiste, an artiste living the dream, shooting photo assignments in Tokyo.

16/11/2011
by Jeremy
0 comments

Archive: Cool Struttin’ in Tokyo.



Archive: Woman cool struttin’ along to Omotesando in Tokyo, Japan, passing by a graffiti portrait of Japanese wartime Emperor Hirohito. ©Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2008.

I’m sitting doing some work, playing Sonny Clark’s ‘Cool Struttin’ LP on the turntable, and it made me think of this image from my archive of Tokyo photographs… There I was walking down Omotesando boulevard, looking at all the beautiful people, and there in the corner of my vision was a little pink blob. No, my eyesight wasn’t failing me, it was Emperor Hirohito. There he was graffiti stencilled, in luminous pink, onto a wall a la Banksy. Never have found out who did the artwork, but I appreciate it. Bit risky in this country to be doing such graffiti of the wartime Emperor, and not sure of the statement, but I appreciate it none the less as it gave me a picture or three. All I had to do was crouch down in the gutter, (no change there then), and wait for a suitable foreground interest. It being the fashionable part of town I didn’t have to wait long…

Listen to Sonny Clark’s ‘Cool Struttin” on YouTube.

Thanks.

08/11/2011
by Jeremy
7 Comments

My. Digital. Workflow.

Sitting here in sunny Tokyo, uploading photographs to my archive site from a two day magazine photo-assignment in the Asakusa district of Tokyo. The shoot went fine, long days, lots of subjects, lots of digital frames shot. Lots to caption, keyword and deal with. Whilst it uploads I thought I’d run through how I deal with such a shoot in the aftermath of the picture taking, my digital workflow, as we all know in this job taking the pics is the easy bit. It’s everything else which is the harder stuff.

My digital workflow kind of depends on the type of assignment I’ve just undertaken, whether it be for a news job and the pics have to be sent immediately, or whether it is a magazine job like yesterday, or a corporate job etc. But for the majority of my workflow it works as follows. Some things would perhaps take place in a very slightly different order depending on the assignment. But this is generally how it happens.

And I’ll say now, this below workflow is just the way I do things. It isn’t perfect, but it works for me and it works pretty quickly. I can’t stress enough that if you’re working with digital images then it is important to have a workflow that goes well, this will save you time and also make easier managing your growing archive, working with images, and ultimately selling images, getting them seen, and saving time. I learned a huge amount by reading ‘The DAM Book’ by Peter Krogh. I recommend it highly, and regularly return to it to dip into and refresh my mind on workflows and backups.


(Me, on assignment aboard the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior II, off the coast of Fukushima, 2011. ©Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2011.)

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