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HASSELBLAD DISCOVERY WORKSHOP SPECIAL EDITION | Meijimura, Aichi, Japan. a japanorama production | www.stekki.photography
no.11 JUNE 2015 < japan, fashion, photography, lifestyle, life
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素敵 すてき 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 & Japanorama www.stekki.photography www.japanorama.co.uk
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index HASSELBLAD DISCOVERY WORKSHOP SPECIAL EDITION Meijimura, Aichi, Japan JUNE, 2015 N°11
CONTENTS 6-7 8-9 10-11 12-21 22-29 30-41 42-51 52-53
Editorial Introduction 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 Meijimura’s superb buildings. First We Hit The Bank, Then We Do Frank’s: ending the day with a session inside Frank Lloyd-Wright’s iconic 1920s ‘Imperial Hotel’. Before & After: straight out of the camera shots compared to some of the edits.
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One of our models for the day, Rina-san, poses on the mezzanine level of the lobby from Frank Lloyd-Wrightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Imperial Hotel, which was moved from Tokyo to Meijimura in 1967.
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EDITORIAL
G
oing out on the road with a great crew is one of the joys of location photography. It’s 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 don’t 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 Japan’s 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 headedup by Nori Ogata. Ogata-san is one of Japan’s 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 model’s 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 Profoto’s excellent location lighting] as well as puffy clouds and moody skies. We couldn’t have wished for better weather if we’d ordered it especially.
Alfie Goodrich Photograph by Lisa Fujiwara www.paintwithstars.com
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 horizons through DISCOVERY.
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Introduction by Derek Makishima Hasselblad Ambassador, 2015
T
he ancient, the modern, the traditional and the outrageous, the hyper-cute and quiet elegance they all co-exist simultaneously and harmoniously here in Japan though like the bento box, they co-exist separated, invisible borders set between. Inspiration, creativity, these things donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t 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 hairstyle I saw in Harajuku, a kimono I admired at a friends Kimono rental shop, the makeup of a famous pop star, the white faced Maiko of Kyoto, something elegant and something brash something new and something 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.
When I did this project I did so with some inspiring words I heard Kurosawa say in an interview which went something like,
â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you are going to shoot in color it must not be an element, it must be a character.â&#x20AC;?
This was to be a shoot to highlight the brilliance of working with Hasselblad, and one of the most brilliant things about shooting with a Hasselblad is the way they render colors through their 16 bit sensors. stekki_9
the gear cameras H5D-50c H5D-60 H4D-40 CFV-50c 500CM lenses HC 35-90mm f/4.5-5.6 HC 80mm f/2.8 HC 100mm f/2.2 HC 300mm f/4.5 lighting Profoto B1, B2
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...some of the the cameras, lenses and lighting gear used on the workshop.
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seeing the light
getting 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 modelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 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.
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G
etting the ball rolling on anything can be a little tricky. With photoshoots, especially fashion shoots - where there are often many variables and people involved there is an atmosphere to conjure, a mood to create, a vision to realise. Jumping in at full throttle is often not always possible. Like a sportsman, you have to warm up, stretch, get the muscles relaxed. Our first cut of the day at Meijimura was five minutes walk from where we’d met the models, dressers, hair and make-up crew. It also had what seemed to be the last of the cherry blossom. The fluffy clouds and fairly brisk wind meant that the light was changing rapidly: one minute it was strong sunshine, the next it was deep shade. Lighting cameramen for film productions have a little gadget for these situations: it’s a blackened piece of glass, similar to what you’d use to view an eclipse through and it allows them to see where the sun is, how much cloudcover it has and allows them to figure out when, roughly, the sun is going to pop out again. We didn’t have one of these. I’m gonna buy one. They are really useful. However, fighting the sun is only an issue you have when you don’t have enough lighting power to overcome it and we were packing two of Profoto’s B1 lights and one of their new B2 kits. Mind you, there is always still the issue of balancing the light you introduce with the light you already have. Photos with the balance wrong look like a meal tastes that has been overcooked. A lot of photography is like cooking: you need to preserve the flavour of the original ingredients. You need not to add too much seasoning. You mustn’t overcook things. The shots you see in this first section of the magazine were all lit using one B1, shot into a reflector umbrella and held high on a pole about 6ft above the model and angled down at roughly 45 degrees. That was, until, the wind caught the umbrella and took it into the lake. Luckily we had another secret weapon to get it out the lake: the indomitable and seemingly amphibious William Penrice.
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After shooting single shots of each of the models, we moved to doing a two-shot. Posing two models to get a good balance can be hard. Getting the light to fall well on each of them can also be a challenge. This shot was, again, lit by one Profoto B1 light fired into a large reflector umbrella, from camera right. Shutter-speed was increased to dial out a lot of the ambient light. The leaf shutter in the Hasselblad lenses allows flash sync at any speed. H5D-50c, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/6.8, 1/750th sec. Photo: Celia Rae
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Going vertical with the framing , to get parts of the trees, the building in the background and to provide a shot that would perfectly fit a single page of the magazine. H5D-50c, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/6.8, 1/350th sec. Photo: Celia Rae
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Beautifully captured detail of the back of Rinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kimono. Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC80mm f/2.8, 100ISO, f/8, 1/100th sec. Photo: Takahide Mitsui
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H5D-50c HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/6.8, 1/350th sec. Profoto B1 at camera right, fired into reflector umbrella. Photo: Alfie Goodrich
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KEEPING IT SIMPLE making the most of simple backgrounds when you are shooting on location
MODEL: Hanako PHOTO: Celia Rae
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Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC80mm, 100ISO, f/3.4, 1/125th sec. Ambient light. Photo: Celia Rae
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Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC80mm, 100ISO, f/8, 1/125th sec. Profoto B1 Photo: Celia Rae stekki_25
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Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC80mm, 100ISO, f/5.6, 1/100th sec. Ambient light. Photo: Takahide Mitsui
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Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC80mm, 100ISO, f/6.8 1/100th sec. Profoto B1. Photo: Celia Rae
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...there were many times in the day when it felt like weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d travelled back in time but at this simple location, everything came together to qualify that feeling...
Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC80mm, 100ISO, f/3.4, 1/125th sec. Ambient light. Photo: Celia Rae
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FROM THE POST-OFFICE TO THE CHURCH With the threat of rain, we used the moody cloud-cover outside the old Post Office before moving into the cool tranquility of the church and the new challenge of working with very subdued lighting.
MODELS: Hanako & Rina PHOTO: Celia Rae 30_stekki
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Hasselblad H5D-50c HC3590mm, 100ISO, f/6.8, 1/350th sec. Profoto B1 Photo: Takahide Mitsui
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At left: Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC300mm f/4.5 at f/6.8, 100ISO, 1/180th sec. This page: H5D-50c, HC300mm f/4.5 at f/4.8, 100ISO, 1/250th sec. Lit by one Profoto B1 bare and on a high pole at camera right. This page & facing page photos: Celia Rae.
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The atmosphere of a church is quiet, subdued, delicate and contemplative. The visual atmosphere is likewise: muted and dark, raked by shafts of light but dominated by shadow. Lighting in this sort of location creates some challenges and Profoto’s new B2 system rose to them all....
I
first used the Profoto B2 kit on a shoot for Travel & Leisure Magazine, in Kyoto two days before the product was even released in Japan. The shoot was a mixture of everything from portraits to landscapes, food to street. It was a great opportunity to try out this super-portable gear in what I guessed would be its perfect working environment: a shoot on location, with mixed subject-matter where portability and a mix of compact yet powerful lighting would be key. It didn’t disappoint me at all.
are tiny enough to be mounted on the hot-shoe of a camera if necessary.
On the Meijimura workshop the needs were different: subjectmatter was fashion for the whole day, we had a vehicle to carry all the gear in and we had the B1 system for when we needed brute power. We’d wanted to take the B2 along because of its ability to pair into the B1 in a multi-light setup. Perhaps, where there was less need for power but a definite need for a range of modifiers or shaping tools and where the light could be hand-held or create a small footprint in an interior location.
In a location like the church, power is not what you need: the location is dark, additional lighting has to be carefully balanced and well shaped.
The B2 comes with a superb range of light-shaping tools, from small a small snoot to very flexible barn-doors. The power-pack is light and easy to use. The heads
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In the church we used the B2 to backlight the models, by mounting the head on a Gorillapod and standing it either on the floor, in the aisle, or on the set of the church pew. Setting up channels to pair into the B1 and fire off the same trigger is easy. The B2 gave us a delicate but very focused light. We also used it as a main light, on the model and fired into a small umbrella.
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he opening spread of the next set of photos, shot at the bank and in the hotel, has two models. The model inside the building, tucked behind a window on the left, was it with the B2 handheld and shaped with the barn-doors. It was important there to steer the light only on to the model, with as little spill as possible into the room. Our make-up girl worked the light for that shot.
Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/4, 1/60th sec. Profoto B2 in small dish reflector. Photo: Takahide Mitsui
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Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/4, 1/60th sec. Profoto B2 in small dish reflector. Photo: Takahide Mitsui
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Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC3590mm, 100ISO, f/4, 1/60th sec. Profoto B2 in small dish reflector on model. B2 bare on the floor to light the aisle of the church. Photo: Takahide Mitsui stekki_39
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Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC3590mm, 100ISO, f/4, 1/13th sec. Profoto B2 in small dish reflector. Photo: Takahide Mitsui
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Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC80mm, 1600ISO, f/4, 1/125th sec. Ambient light. Photo: Celia Rae
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FIRST WE HIT THE BANK, THEN WE DO FRANK’S... The old bank gave us an opportunity to mix up the Profoto B1 and B2 systems. Shooting inside Frank Lloyd-Wright’s old Imperial Hotel was, to be very frank, a dream come true!
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Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/8, 1/750th sec. Profoto B2 bare on model on left-hand window. On righthand model: Profoto B1 in reflector umbrella to light her front, B1 on small stand and bare, behind model. Photo: Celia Rae
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At left: Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC300mm, ISO400, f/4.5, 1/250th sec. Ambient light. Photo: Celia Rae. At right [top]: Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/6.8, 1/180th sec. [bottom] Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/7.1, 1/125th sec. Photos: Takahide Mitsui.
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Hasselblad H5D-60, HC80mm, 100ISO, f/3.4, 1/250th sec. Profoto B1 fired into a small refelctor dish. Photo: Alfie Goodrich
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Hasselblad H5D-60, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/6.8, 1/750th sec. Profoto B1 high on a pole and fired into a small <refelctor dish. Photo: Alfie Goodrich 48_stekki
Hasselblad H5D-50c, HC35-90mm, 100ISO, f/5.6, 1/90th sec. Profoto B1 high on a pole and fired into a small refelctor dish. Photo: Celia Rae
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Hasselblad H5D-60, HC80mm, 100ISO, f/8, 1/125th sec. Profoto B2, bare, fired into the paper umbrella. Photo: Alfie Goodrich
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THE BEFORE AND AFTER Some of the shots from this issue, shown straight out of the camera and after Alfie had waved his magic wand over them! All editing done using Hasselblad Phocus, Adobe Photoshop and Google Nik plugins.
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a japanorama production | www.stekki.photography
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