stekki no.11: hasselblad discovery workshop, meijimura, japan

1_alfiegoodrich

stekki

HASSELBLAD DISCOVERY WORKSHOP SPECIAL EDITION | Meijimura, Aichi, Japan.

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a japanorama production | www.stekki.photography

< japan, fashion, photography, lifestyle, life

no.11JUNE 2015

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stekki*

su-te-ki /ste ki/

adjective: beautiful, great, lovely, splendid, wonderful, nice

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index/ credits

credits

EDITOR IN CHIEF /DESIGNER Alfie Goodrich.

CONTRIBUTORS/PHOTOGRAPHERS Derek Makishima, Takahide Mitsui, Celia Rae, Alfie Goodrich.

SPECIAL THANKS & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Very special thanks to William Penrice, Seiko Kashiwagi, Elizabeth Addyman and the rest of the team at Hasselblad Japan for their wonderful support and professionalism... and their amazing cameras!

No words quantify how grateful we are to Nori Ogata and the team at Studio Nori for the hair, make-up, kimono dressing and for all their assistance before and during the shoot. Amazing work, ladies!! Thanks to our two lovely models, Hana and Rina, for all their hard work and patience.

Thanks to Katsu and Mariko at Profoto Japan, for lending us four of the wonderful B1 and B2 battery-powered location lighting systems.

Stekki is produced by Alfie Goodrich & Japanoramawww.stekki.photographywww.japanorama.co.uk

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CONTENTS

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EditorialIntroduction by Derek Makishima, photographer and Hasselblad Ambassador. The Gear We Used on the Workshop.Seeing The Light: our first cut of the day.Keeping It Simple: using basic backgrounds to good advantage.From The Post Office to the Church: shooting inside and out two of Meijimuras superb buildings.First We Hit The Bank, Then We Do Franks: ending the day with a session inside Frank Lloyd-Wrights iconic 1920s Imperial Hotel.Before & After: straight out of the camera shots compared to some of the edits.

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HASSELBLAD DISCOVERY WORKSHOP SPECIAL EDITIONMeijimura, Aichi, JapanJUNE, 2015N 11

One of our models for the day, Rina-san, poses on the mezzanine level of the lobby from Frank Lloyd-Wrights Imperial Hotel, which was moved from Tokyo to Mei-jimura in 1967.

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EDITORIAL

Alfie GoodrichPhotograph by Lisa Fujiwara www.paintwithstars.com

Going out on the road with a great crew is one of the joys of location photography. Its a time when all the hard work, location-scouting and preparation comes together in a flurry of mutual, collaborative creation: if all goes to plan. But, even if plans dont work out quite like you thought they would, a good crew always has the ability to pull pretty much anything out of the bag and make it shine. Such was the case for the recent Hasselblad Discovery workshop at Japans premier heritage park, Meijimura, Aichi-ken. Boasting a large number of original, period Japanese and foreign buildings, and set in acres of gorgeous countryside, Meijimura is a veritable playground for film-makers and photographers.As you would expect from somewhere that is a favoured location for period television dramas and films. Getting the chance to stage a workshop there was, to say the least, an exciting prospect.

No period drama would be complete, of course, without costumes, hair and makeup and our team for all three was headed-up by Nori Ogata. Ogata-san is one of Japans pre-eminent kimono dressers. Her team for the day did not disappoint, creating a wonderful fusion of old and new styles across the clothing and models hairstyles and makeup. The weather, for the most part, behaved itself and have us bouts of intense sunshine [always fun to battle with on a photoshoot but made superbly manageable by Profotos excellent location lighting] as well as puffy clouds and moody skies. We couldnt have wished for better weather if wed ordered it especially. Our students for the day rose to the occasion and the location, capturing some wonderful images which I hope you will enjoy seeing as much as we all enjoyed making them.

Alfie Goodrich,Editor in Chief

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Broadening horizonsthrough DISCOVERY.

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The ancient, the mod-ern, the traditional and the outrageous, the hyper-cute and quiet elegance they all co-exist simultaneously and har-moniously here in Japan though like the bento box, they co-exist sepa-rated, invisible borders set between. Inspiration, creativity, these things dont have borders: the ancient, the modern, the traditional and the outrageous they are atomic particles bouncing around inside my head, my thoughts a laboratory where I place these particles into my

neural network of atom smashers creating new elements of art and design. Metaphor aside and in plain-speak English I merely wanted to take down borders, merge seamlessly the elements of old and new, a hair-style I saw in Harajuku, a kimono I admired at a friends Kimono rental shop, the makeup of a fa-mous pop star, the white faced Maiko of Kyoto, something elegant and something brash some-thing new and some-thing old.

With an extraordinary team of makeup artists, hair stylists, and kimono dressers, all friends of mine and people I have worked with for years, we tied everything together through the use of color and shape to either soften or render those borders non-existent. This was to be a shoot to highlight the brilliance of working with Hasselblad, and one of the most bril-liant things about shoot-ing with a Hasselblad is the way they render colors through their 16 bit sensors.

When I did this project I did so with some inspir-ing words I heard Kuro-sawa say in an interview which went something like, If you are going to shoot in color it must not be an element, it must be a character.

Introduction byDerek Makishima

Hasselblad Ambassador,2015

cameras

H5D-50cH5D-60H4D-40CFV-50c500CM

lenses

HC 35-90mm f/4.5-5.6HC 80mm f/2.8

HC 100mm f/2.2HC 300mm f/4.5

lighting

Profoto B1, B2

the gear

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...some of the the cameras, lenses and lighting gear used on the workshop.

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seeingthelightgetting the day underway: choosing a good location & starting to mix ambient light & flash.

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A beautiful patch of reflected light on the models neck draws the attention of one our attendees. The white, red and black palette here is

wonderfully set against the green of the bakcground.

Photo: Takahide Mitsui

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Lit with one Profoto B1 on a pole high and right, shot into a reflector umbrella. H5D-50c, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/6.8, 1/350th sec. The photo at right shows a detail from the shot on this page.

< www.stekki.photography

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stekki*

a japanorama production | www.stekki.photography