National Geographic France opens their new feature about Okinawan longevity with one of my portraits of Shiroma-san a student of the Matsubayashi-ryu Arakaki Dojo training at the beach. Very pleasing. https://www.nationalgeographic.fr/voyage/sante-okinawa-le-pays-des-immortels?
Yoichiro Kuniyoshi is 6th dan in Uechi-ryu karate, a student of the Uechi-ryu master Kiyohide Shinjo. Recently Yoichiro Kuniyoshi set up his own dojo in Yomitan so James and I stopped by to take some portraits of him and his younger brother Wataru Kuniyoshi (3rd dan). After shooting portraits in the dojo, we popped down to the beach where Kuniyoshi performed the kata Sanchin, as his younger brother punched, kicked, and smacked him with a piece of timber. Images shot with the Sony A7RIV with the 24-105mm lens. Strobe used was a Profoto B1 with a white softlight reflector.
Nobuko Oshiro of the Okinawa Karate-do Shorinryu, Taishinkan Association was awarded the rank of 9th-dan in January 2023. She continues to be the highest ranked female karateka in Okinawa. In 2015, I photographed her in her dojo, and amongst the sugar cane fields that surrounded her home in Sashiki Town. We are hoping that we will have the opportunity to interview her for the Sensei: Masters of Okinawan Karate series.
Another challenging year, but we were able to focus on the positives, and look to the future. Here are a few highlights. In March, I released the documentary I made about Murata-san and his amazing Toyota 2000GT, a unicorn in the automotive world. The Karate Masters Portrait Project continued, and we completed Season 1 of the documentary series Sensei: Masters of Okinawan Karate. 2021 was also the first time local media contacted James Pankiewicz and I about our goals to document Okinawa’s martial arts heritage. The Ryukyu Shimpo interviewed us for their website and discussed the project on their podcast. https://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/entry-1439603.html… In October, I was part of a BeOkinawa campaign to help promote tourism to Okinawa. It was interesting to be on the other side of the camera, and to work with a team of people who are also passionate about the Ryukyu Islands. In November, I had the amazing opportunity to record Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Meanwhile we’ve …
The Chris Willson Photography YouTube channel is going to be rebranded as Okinawan Spirit – 沖縄の心 . The new title better represents the contents of the channel, and where I want to take it in the future, sharing the beauty of Okinawa and its unique culture. This channel is where you can find the Sensei:Masters of Okinawa Karate documentary series, the pilot episode Drive Okinawa a series about the owners of classic Japanese cars in Okinawa, and various other mini movies about life in these beautiful Ryukyu Islands.
We have a couple of big announcements regarding karate in Okinawa. Sensei: Masters of Okinawan Karate SERIES TWO coming in 2022 After the extremely positive feedback we got about the first series of our documentary about Okinawan karate, we are going to make a second series that will be released in 2022. You can read all the details about series one, our future plans, and fundraising here: Sensei Documentary The next big news is that we are going to be offering a streaming service for karate seminars in Okinawa. This will be organized, hosted, and interpreted by James Pankiewicz of Bujin.tv with the filming and streaming provided by Chris Willson and Yuki Willson of TRAVEL67.com. We’ve created a great way to help reconnect Okinawan karate masters with their students around the world. Our experience with videography allows us to provide audio and visual quality far superior than a simple webcam. You can read all the details about this service here: Karate Streaming Of course we’re still continuing to document Okinawa’s martial arts sensei for the …
In July, I photographed kata champion, and Goju-ryu master, Norihiko Masuda. We started the shoot at 7AM in Onoyama Park in Naha City. There were very few other people around, but we did have one extra person joining us. Uezato-san from the Ryukyu Shimpo newspaper came along to take some behind the scenes pics of our shoot, and interview both us and Masuda Sensei about the Karate Masters Portrait Project. After taking some environmental portraits near the Onoyama Park shrine, and the torii gate, we took a few extra shots at the entrance to the Budokan (martial arts hall) where Masuda has won many competitions. This was the first shoot I’d done with the new Sony A7RIV camera, and I used the 24mm f1.4 lens and the 50mm f1.2 lens. (Thank you to Uetsuki-san at Kitamura Camera Chatan branch for helping me trade in several of my Pentax lenses for the new Sony 50mm.) Off camera flash was done with the Profoto B1 strobe. It was good to hear Masuda Sensei telling Uezato-san how valuable …
Last Saturday, I photographed Toshihiro Oshiro, 9th dan Shima-Ha Shorin-Ryu karate, 8th dan Yamanni Chinen Ryu kobujutsu, for the Karate Masters Portrait Project. We shot the studio style portraits at his dojo in Itoman, and then yesterday photographed him again on his local beach. We also interviewed Oshiro Sensei for the Sensei: Masters of Okinawa Karate series, and the episode will be available on YouTube and Bujin.tv early next year. It was a real pleasure to hang out with Oshiro Sensei and his students. I got to learn some more fascinating aspects of Okinawan culture (use a light grip on the weapon), and the stormy weather conditions worked in our favor for photographs.
Episode 10 in the series Sensei: Masters of Okinawan Karate is now online on YouTube and on Bujin.tv Thank you to all those who helped film, edit, transcribe, translate, and check this episode. Thank you also to the sponsors and supporters of the series. If you’d like to learn more about the series, please click here. Main Sponsors Fusei Kise, Isao Kise and the OSMKKF-USA Jerry Figgiani – Shorin Ryu Karate Do International Beikoku Shidokan Karatedo Association Grant Campbell – USA Karate Federation Cezar Borkowski – Northern Karate Schools NOVA Okinawan Karate Dojo Series Sponsors Marguerite “Peggy” Hess – Jensen Beach Uechi Ryu Karate Do Dojo Reece Cummings – Cummings Karate Dojo Michael Quinn – Okinawa Shogen-Ryu Karate-Do Europe Martin Pinto – Essex Goju Ryu Karate Mark Spear – Black Bear Dojo Okinawa Karate Podcast Fred Mansfield Jr. – Beikoku Shidokan / RBKD Series Supporters Tim Herlihy Robin Ross Joshua Simmers Jeff Perkins Paul Punshon John J. Strangeway Gerry Campbell Shelley Cormier K V Manoharan Phil Butler Danny Smith …
Yesterday, October 12th 2020, Tetsunosuke Yasuda passed away. A karate master and a true gentleman. I photographed him in 2014 when he was a sprightly 88 years old and he showed off his incline sit-ups while holding a weight above his head. Our paths crossed several times, as for a decade I rented a house through his Yasuda Jutaku housing company. Each time we met he was such as kind, generous man full of praise and encouragement for our project to document Okinawan karate. When I decided to create a book of the first 58 karate masters I’d photographed, I placed Yasuda Sensei at the center on the front cover . A lovely lovely man, and the international karate community will miss him dearly.
TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography 