11-12AW Tokyo Collection

check out vogue Japan!

Beautiful work by Motonari Ono is featured with my photos.

Orange county

I'm coming soon!

10yrs

On Saturday I met up my friends from Uni in Osaka for lunch. I haven't seen some of them more than 10yrs but they still looked beautiful like they stopped aging...

10yrs ago we would want to be creative and unique, never have enough money, smoke a lot, listen to indies bands, always have probs with boyfriends like other art school kids. Silly but good times.

Now we are a writer, training director, photographer or mother. And married. People grow. Amazing.

There is a beautiful roof top garden at Isetan Shinjuku. Who would imagine you can find this hidden and chilling space in the right middle of crazily busy Tokyo?

now I know I can go there and breathe when I need. Strangely fresh wind keeps on blowing there.

We chatted about random stuff and said good bye. Still I can hardly believe it's been 10yrs..

one more week to go

Tonight I went out with my coworkers for some nice Italian food.

I am going to leave work next week so the girls squeezed in this night out before my final week.

I've been working for this studio since Sep 2009. Time flies...! Really, all I can remember is good stuff. I met so many cool people, learnt a lot of new things, had lots of fun w coworkers, sometimes got frustrated but it was a part of process to create something new. I must confess that I'm so excited about starting my own business in the US next month but still I know I'm gonna miss everything in this studio.

At the restaurant we drank, ate, laughed, chatted and chatted...

Amazing pizza!

Thanks for the pretty flowers! I love them!!

They know me well. I love yellow and orange.

On my way back home, I was alone on the train. Everyone disappeared? Where are they? I'm still here.

social network

I find great talents at social network sites and get to shoot with them very often.

And sometimes I get found by great talents and involved in fantastic shoots! I just want to tell the world how great this modern technology(internet) is!

This time a Tokyo based Make up artist Atsushi Kokawa contacted me and we are gonna have a real cool high fashion shoot together.

He's also gonna bring great hair stylist and wardrobe stylist who have incredible portfolios. I'm so proud my work caught Atsushi's attention. The beauty of being in this industry is to be able to collaborate with anyone immediately as long as you love his/her style. It doesn't matter how old you are, where you are from, what careers you have had. Maybe it does matter if he/she has a great personality though...

Anyway I'm so excited. This is gonna be the last shoot in Tokyo. I'm moving to L.A in a month time and won't be back to live in Japan.

I will put up some pics from the shoot later!

still life and me

Even though most of my work is fashion with models, I have true love to still life and I often shoot random things just for fun.

It's just so nice to be on my own, put my favorite tunes on, being in some random thoughts, play around with gears anyway I like, take as much time as I want till beautiful images are captured... Very therapeutic.

Then after a while, I start missing working with people and go back to shooting fashion. I love the way my life is and am grateful for everyone & everything that help my dreams coming true.

Behind the scene

Backstage is the most exciting place to shoot!

London!

Tokyo!

Hollywood!

Don't go paperless

This long holiday is nearly over. I've been packing lots of my stuff to ship cos next month I'm gonna finally return back to California and stay there for good!

While sorting out my bookshelf, I found some of my old notebooks and they really made me smile.

Everyday I photograph digitally, editing and uploading images using different programmes, go to thousands of websites for research, shop online, blog almost everyday, facebook of course, etc... Basically I cannot live without my computer and the internet,

BUT!

I still enjoy manually filing something I am impressed with, or something I simply love.

The memo I made when I was a photographer assistant.

My favorite snapshot from Japan Fashion Week. I made it look like an old photo album from the 20s or something...

My inspirations. Great work from great artists.

These books help me to remember something I learnt, or something I decided to complete but I haven't. They also look like colorful collage so it's just fun to see.

You can start filing your random ideas/inspirations and maybe one day they'll help to make your dreams come true...

fashion shoot for men

Last week I had a great shoot with a cool team.

Incredibly handsome model Akinori, super talented stylist Yoshi, one of my favorite hair/make up artists Yui and great assistant Masu!

It was a fun shoot. Everyone kept on joking around and couldn't stop laughing all the way.

It is such a happy moment when you work with talented people with great personalities and are able to create something you love in the end.

Thank you everyone!