50mm

I had met this bunch a week before. They had these amazing bikes. And at the time I had B+W film in my camera. I rewound it and stuck in some colour (still yet to be developed!) and shot some frames. I thought these guy’s would be a great story for my mate Skorj so I asked them if they were around the area much. They said they were in Shibuya every Friday so I said casually that I would be back next week with my mate. He usually shoots for a few foreign bike magazines and I figured it would be a good match. In the process of trying to reach Skorj and arrange him to shoot these bike guy’s I discovered I had somehow given them the impression that this would be a full blown shoot for a big magazine (There was definitely a good bit of imagination being used by the bike guy’s at this point). The next Friday came around and Skorj was busy. I sent a mail to them explaining it was off and they called me up and got all pissed off. Joy! So, rather than giving up and making enemies of them I explained that while my mate could not make it, I could shoot them then try to get them onto a CNN site. At worst they would have a set of nice pics and at best they would appear on an international website.
That night, the usual bunch of photographer friends were turning up to the usual drinking hole about the time I was due to shoot the bikes and I was loathed to meet up with them because I knew I would have to explain my early exit and all the gear I was carrying and I know these guy’s are all like Vultures when it comes a shoot and would basically take over and claim the entire plan as their own. Lucky for me everyone was feeling semi respectful and didn’t completely take over what I had organized. And, as it happens it was good thing a few of them came along. Brian and Eiichi were there to lend a hand with interviewing the guy’s which was really lucky cause had they not done that and also been kind enough to send me the recordings / notes I could not have written the little story for CNNGO.

So, all the drama kind of paid off in the end.

Taking a break for medium format I went back to shoot with the rangefinder for a while. These shots are a mix of 35mm and 50mm all shot at night in various locations but on the subway and the JR.

As an escape from obligations looming, I packed my messenger back with about 10kg of camera gear including a tripod and set off for an industrial area of Tokyo. I’d been close to the same place a week before trying to figure out the best way to get there. Most of the evening was spent tracking down interesting scenes to shoot. No doubt I’ll be going again at some point in the near future to capitalize on an evening spent cycling a good 50km trying to get pictures.
I took the Hasselblad and the Canon in an attempt to capture atmosphere and get instant gratification and while I’m ok at holding a shot at 4th of a second I didn’t want to do a 50km round trip and risk a shot being blurry, hence the tripod.
While riding around I found myself at the end of a very long walled road with only the guarded entrance to an industrial complex and a very lonely bus stop. With not a soul in sight (except the guard at the end of the road) I set up my tripod in the middle of the road to take a few pictures.
Out of the walls came people to the bus stop. By chance I’d picked probably the only moment in the evening when the bus would arrive.
I’m interested to see how the Hasselblad image turn out.
I leave you with a few more pictures from the outing.

Another Friday night at the station

This was shot quite a while ago. Not a flattering shot of the model but I like the atmosphere in the shot all the same.

This shot is one I dug up from the archives again. To be featured in the upcoming update of the 50mm web site which hopefully should launch before the end of the year.

This particular shot I like because of the light on her face and the softness of the shot in general. Difficult to find in stations.

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An outtake from a little assignment I was given by tv network you would have heard of. You’d think that it would be easy to shoot the streets of Shinjuku with no one in them. You’d be surprised at how busy it is at any time of the day or night. Word of caution. Try not to do this in the summer. The entire place smells of urine and it’s not because of the poor sewage system. It’s literally because so MANY people are peeing in the streets. And you thought Tokyo was hi-tech and trendy!

Sometimes you have to really hunt for these types of shots.