The Orchestra of Nineteen
Tweet I’ve photographed the Tokyo Sinfonia a few times over the last couple of years. The first proper shoot was just a week the March 11 earthquake[L] when they bravely went ahead with a concert in Ginza. I remember the rehearsal being interrupted by aftershocks. This shoot was in rather more relaxed circumstances. I took [...]
Drinking Japan
Tweet I had a lovely surprise today. A while ago I sent my friend Chris Bunting some photos for a book he was working on. Well, the book is out – and what a fantastic book it is too. My photos are the ones of the sake brewery (not the cover photo, the sake casks [...]
Cherry blossom 2011
Tweet Cherry blossom. It’s a challenge to find a new way to shoot sakura any year, but this year was particularly difficult. (These were taken using a Takumar 55mm lens on a Nikon D700) (Tokyo Photojournalist on Facebook)
One week later
Tweet Even at a time like this, people need music. Perhaps, at a time like this, they need it more than ever. On Tuesday I received this email from Robert Ryker, Music Director of the Tokyo Sinfonia. It was about a concert that some time ago we’d arranged I’d photograph – I was surprised to [...]
Leaving Tokyo
Tweet The atmosphere is Tokyo right now is hard to describe: a mixture of horror, weariness and unease. Like everyone else here I’ve been glued to the TV and internet for days. Yesterday morning was the low point so far for me. When the media started reporting on rising radiation at the Fukushima plant I [...]
Tokyo marathon 2011
Tweet I took about two hundred portraits of runners at the Tokyo Marathon last Sunday, 100 at the start and 100 at the finish – all with my trusty nifty-fifty. I had a press pass courtesy of EURObiZ Japan. They’ll be a photo story in the magazine soon. I wanted to show the excitement of [...]
Food for thought
Tweet I’ve had a few stories in the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan magazine before now, but this is the first time on the cover. A project close to my heart too. As I wrote in the text (see below) to go with these portraits, I have enormous respect for the people producing Japan’s fantastic [...]
Waiting for the flood
Tweet Here’s an unlikely Tokyo tourist attraction, definitely in the category of places I would NEVER have gone if I wasn’t a journalist. Apparently, this is the largest flood protection civil engineering project in the world. It is open to the public and the tours are free, but you need to speak some Japanese. I [...]
Sun and sake
Tweet The biennial festival near our house has become something of a project for me. I helped carry the shrine for the third time this year and took a few portraits while resting my bruised shoulders. These were all shot with a 50mm lens at f2.0 on D200 body. The sensor size on the D200 [...]
Popping round for tea
Tweet One thing the English (I’m from England) and the Japanese share in common – other than constantly talking about the weather – is a love of tea. Last year I was asked to write about green tea and interview Masamitsu Takau, a registered “tea sommelier”. When I checked out his website I was surprised [...]
Tokyo used camera shops
Tweet A while ago I posted on shops for new camera kit in Tokyo. Here’s the companion to that, a short list of my favorite used camera shops in Tokyo. But before I get started, a caveat: Please bear in mind that this is a very subjective list; these are just places I’ve been recommended [...]
local flower festival
Tweet I was out in the park with my son this afternoon and came across this! It’s the local “sakurasaoh matsuri” – as written on the pink lantern. My landlord says that our local area used to belong to sakurasoh (Japanese primose) growers. During this festival – the primoses are in bloom now – a [...]
More Showa photos
Tweet Hans Brinckmann has very kindly provided some more of his and Ysbrand Rogge’s fantastic Showa-era photos. They are from his on-going exhibition at the FCCJ. Hans has added some captions. If you have any questions for Hans about the photos, or about life in Japan in the 1950s and ’60s you might want post [...]
Photos of Showa Japan
Tweet One of my jobs when I’m not researching, writing, photographing, or washing the dishes at home is running the exhibition committee of the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan. Each month we have a different photo exhibition. I’m going to blog them as they happen. Here are two photos from this month’s show, “Showa Japan [...]
Back to the plastic food factory
Tweet I did a story last year on plastic food samples – the kind you see in the windows of restaurants and cafes everywhere in Japan. Well it was so interesting that I went back to the factory to take some photos of my own just before Christmas. (I was working with a photographer for [...]
Tokyo Commuter Hell
Tweet Tokyo commuters My corner of photojournalism isn’t exactly front-line war reporting. But I think this story was about the closest I’ve come to being physically assaulted in Japan so far. Two years ago I was writing about the Tokyo transport system (pdf) and went out to get some rush hour train photos. (Only just [...]
