Norie Tamura and I first met in Osaka, on a corporate shoot I was doing there for a client in Australia. Nothing we did that day was super creative or artistic, so we agreed to catch up at some point in the future and do something fun in Tokyo.
We finally managed to get a test shoot with each other a couple of weeks ago, meeting at Hasselblad’s shop in Harajuku before heading off to the nearby Olympic stadium to start shooting.
The old stadium at Yoyogi is a great location to shoot around, although whilst Norie and I were there, we got told to bugger off by security. First time that has ever happened to me there and I have shot there loads of times. Guess we caught the guy on a boring day.
We were basically done by the time he shuffled us out of the place and it turned out to be a good thing, as we found some other great spots just when the light was perfect.
Near the open-air stage in the lower part of Yoyogi, by the NHK studios, there is a very reflective piece of sculpture. The light was on it at the perfect angle when we arrived there, helping us get a bunch of shots that look just like double exposures.
We moved on down towards Shibuya, stopping in one or two places before ending up on the bridge that goes over the main road down by Miyashita Koen.
For the last shots up on the bridge, with all the graffiti, I broke out the ring-flash. The last few frames we got there were real favourites of mine and it’s given me a clue as to what to do with Norie next.
Pretty simple gear for everything you see here:
- Nikon D810
- Sigma Art 35mm f/1.4
- Nikkor 50mm f/1.2Ai
- Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 AF-S
- Alien Bee Ring-Flash [with Mini Vagabond battery pack]
- Monochrome shots all done in-camera, with a little film grain added in Nik
- Post-pro on the colour shots using Photoshop, Nik ‘Analog Efex Pro2’ with custom presets I have made
Here’s a few shots from the session. The week after we did this shoot, Norie and I hooked up again to do a cover shoot for the new InTokyo magazine. I’ll be posting something about that shortly.
Norie Tamura around Yoyogi and Shibuya
