Elisabeth Biondi: Former Visuals Editor of The New Yorker Magazine

Elisabeth Biondi has been among one of my favorite visuals editors that I've always admired since I started shooting pictures.

Listen to her journey throughout the years...

No Tension Street Photography Smarts

Memorial Photo Exhibition of the Works of David Coll Blanco

Just spreading the word out to those who know our friend David:

Memorial Photo Exhibition of the works of David Coll Blanco at FCCJ

Invitation to opening reception Dec. 10 (Tue.) from 19:00 - 21:00

When he died at age 39 in September, David Coll Blanco, the talented photographer from Barcelona, left behind many friends from a decade in Japan. David also left behind a body of work worth celebrating: a portfolio remarkable for its warm eye for the joy to be found, ironically, in the most unlikely places. 

From December 7 thru January 10, a selection of images from David’s years in Japan (2001-2011), and his explorations of Europe, Asia and the Americas, will be on display in the FCCJ Main Bar. The Club’s Masukomi sushi bar will feature images from Onjuku, the Chiba fishing port where he spent his final three years in Japan, living with his wife Mimi and infant daughter Maia (who is now five).

Organized and curated by his friends, with generous support from the Spanish Embassy, Desigual and Due Due, this exhibition is a celebration of warmth and light in the darkest month of the year. At the end of its run, the images will be available for interested collectors, with proceeds going to Maia. Posters and postcards will also be available at the FCCJ front desk.

Please join Mimi & Maia and friends for a reception to celebrate the opening in the Main Dining Room of the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan (in Yurakucho, for directions: www.fccj.or.jp/about/access.html ) Dec. 10 from 19:00 to 21:00. Snacks and refreshments will be served free of charge. 

To RSVP, please email Carla Hernandez, Carla@gol.com.

Another Hotel Room

On the road again. This time in Kyoto for a total of three days shooting for a client. Checking day one off now and two more to go...

Packed pretty simple for this one. Two Canon bodies, four lenses, Fujifilm X100S (yes, Fuji is still having me shoot with it), MacBook Pro, and a bunch of miscellaneous accessories. Camera gear all goes into the Think Tank Airport AirStream roller bag and clothes/laptop goes into the Think Tank Shape Shifter backpack.

Fashion Editorial for Nylon Singapore

I was brought into to this digital photography era on a weird path. Been on board lots of interesting projects that I just couldn’t believe I was making money doing this and that with my camera. For me, I had never really been part of the hipster central Flickr community but I recall signing up at one point and immediately canceling when I discovered it was filled with just a bunch of…well, you know. Groupies. Trendsetters. Trolls. Super cool people. Cool people that know everything in the world about photography.

I feel fortunate to have such types of friends who had been working in photography for 20+ years which I could turn to with my ridiculous newbie questions about ISO’s, shutter speeds or how to trigger a hotshoe flash wirelessly without a cable being connected from my camera to the flash. Those were the days...

With all things being digital and the whole Internet era today, has made me the type of photographer to just shoot it and move on to the next. No time to think of a perfect shoot idea or waiting for the precise light and wind to fall through the subject’s face. You wait, you lost. That client will find someone that will shoot the job faster and cheaper than you. I don’t consider myself great at shooting just one particular type of thing but rather I’ve developed a good working ethic that requires flexibility, vision, accuracy and finishing the job under pressure. Similar characteristics that you’d find with a magazine or news photographer I’d say. Yes, my digital library is somewhat of a nightmare. About a 14 terabyte nightmare of folders within folders and some images with their default camera filenames. I’m promising myself to get this sorted someday soon though.

One shoot that I managed to resurrect from the clutter of my digital archive was this Han Ahn Soon fashion editorial for Nylon Singapore. Shot a few months back, I had to burry this shoot folder deep within so I wouldn’t be tempted to post any of the images anywhere until the images were ran. Keeping your promises with your publishing clients will make that relationship much stronger. Trust me.

Believe it or not but our entire pre-production meeting was done over email and at the day of the shoot, was actually the first time I met in person with the hair and make-up artist, model and fashion designer. Sometimes it just goes likes this and you kinda just figure things out along the way.

We shot everything in the streets of Tokyo. Mainly in the small back alleys where there wouldn’t be much people unconsciously walking into my pictures.

Photographing model Alex Terris Thomas in Han Ahn Soon's designs brought somewhat of a good little creative spark into actually making this shoot exciting, partly because she's originally from the West Coast just like me and she has the type of look that isn't so commonly seen in Japan. Being in Tokyo for many years and traveling overseas quite frequently, you really begin to see that everything in Tokyo is more or less the same. There's just a whole lot of sameness and not enough of variety to choose from.

If you're wondering how we got the dress to look like we had the perfect wind hitting Alex, we actually had the hair and make-up artist Hyun K. Son physically shake the bottom of the dress and quickly let go as I fire off multiple frames on the Canon 6D. No fancy wind machines just pure hard work. Took a lot of trial and error but we eventually got enough shots to choose from.

On the bridge shot with the 50mm 1.4. No lights, reflectors or any fancy photographic tools to improve quality of the picture. Moving fast and light making the image straight from the camera.

By all means, I don't consider myself just a "fashion photographer" although I've shot a lot of this stuff over the years. Some I blogged about and some I kept shut behind the doors. What's nice from time-to-time though, is that I could step into fashion photographer mode and know what I'm doing (or don't!).

As I shoot the majority of my work on location, background is too important. All of these locations have been selected by me which I think gives a good reflection of Han Ahn Soon's patterns in her designs.

Lastly, I gotta thank the crew Hyun K. Son, Alex Terris Thomas, and Han Ahn Soon for making this shoot possible.

All images were shot with the Canon 6D, 24-70mm F2.8L and 50mm F1.4 lenses.

And now on to the next...

Being Connected But Not Really

Ever wonder what it's like to forget your phone back home or not even own one in today's world?