Kitch Carnival

My latest editorial for Kismet Magazine just came out!

The stylist was Andru who probably has the prettiest & most sparkly eyes on earth. 

He also owns a fashion brand called Hause of PinkLemonaid and some of his pieces were shot in this editorial. 

Makeup was done by incredible Klexius Kolby (photographers, if you don't want to spend ANY time on Photoshop, book him),

and hair stylist was this talented & hot lady Cyndi Vellmure.

Last but not least our model was Britt from Bleu Model Management. 

Britt understood this fun/cute/sexy concept of the shoot in a sec, and started moving like Bambi! 

I used my Canon 5d Mark3 with a 28-70 f2.8L and one strobe light with a piece of tracing paper on and it was placed right next to myself. 

Camera setting was ISO400, 1/160s, F11. 

In post production, I tweaked contrast a little but left the images as organic as possible.

Great job, team! 

I love everything about this editorial :)

Hello 2013

Ok I may look like an old woman who's reminiscing the past lately, but I just found my work shot in London between 2004 - 2006 and wanted to share here.  

Since age of 18, I've moved quite a lot. I was born in a small city in west Japan, then Osaka → Cambridge → London → Tokyo → Southern California → Tokyo → So Cal again.

I find it fascinating wherever I go, my photography style generally stays the same, but obviously subjects(trends in models/clothes/location) always change depending on the city.

My dream as a photographer started out that I simply wanted to shoot beautiful images with beautiful people and clothes. I had no idea "trends" are the most important thing to make fashion images work but luckily I met so many great creatives, specially stylists, and they showed me the industry. 

Now I'm based in LA working with great stylists who know NY/Europe styles and love mixing with local designers pieces, and make it extremely unique.

For the LA creatives who adore NY or Paris but cannot afford moving there financially/emotionally/physically, just take a closer look at what you are surrounded by, then you'll get much more inspired. 

This year I'd love to move forward and have more fun with my favorite people and new ones that I haven't met yet. Hello 2013 here I come ;)

How far have I come?

I found some old OLD work of mine in the closet today. Nostalgic. 

I photographed these maybe 10 years ago when I was still in England. 

At that time I was:

- using a canon 35mm film camera

- not using Photoshop cos I was a crappy retoucher haha

- not shooting pro models yet

- not making living for photography

- working as a waitress

- chubbier than I am now  

So yeah I was not a high tech person at all 10 years ago.

I used to use a soft focus filter, paint patterns on a acrylic board and make a model hold it, put a colored filter on my soft box and shoot, etc.

I know all above can be done so easily on Photoshop nowadays and get great effects like in a second, but I loved hand-making things and being creative when I was younger. 

Good old times.

After a short while, I started getting paid and needed to upgrade my skills and gears so my creative process could be more effective. 

That's how I gradually stopped hand crafting things for photo shoot.

In 2013 I might go back to where I was, and create totally new images... :)