Yuukou Tomimoto – Ryukyu Kobudo
Yuukou Tomimoto, a Ryukyu kobudou master who studies a rare type of bo (staff) fighting that was passed down from the royal court of the Ryukyu Kingdom.
Yuukou Tomimoto, a Ryukyu kobudou master who studies a rare type of bo (staff) fighting that was passed down from the royal court of the Ryukyu Kingdom.
Starting February 13 in Tokyo, Pentax is having an exhibition of images shot with the new K5IIs camera. 15 photographers are involved and I was lucky enough to be asked to be one of them. Pentax selected a couple of my recent studio images, one of Alexis, and one of Sachi. I’ve spent a month working with both the 645D and the K5IIs side by side so I have similar images from both cameras. From February 13th to 25th the exhibition will be at Ring Cube in Ginza, Tokyo. This is the Ricoh / Pentax Gallery that overlooks one of Tokyo’s most famous intersections. From March 6th to 11th the exhibition will be shown at the Pentax Forum in West Shinjuku. Thanks to Pentax for selecting the images, to Alexis and Sachi for modeling, and Felicia Lee and Summer Johnson for hair and makeup.
Henry asked Melissa to be his date for prom. It was all going so well until he got peckish and ate the Prom Queen’s corsage.
It would have been much better timing if I’d posted these images a couple of days ago. The US government had just announced changes to military regulations that would allow women to serve in frontline combat positions. (It has been pointed out that many have already been doing this for years.) These portraits are of Corporal Bermudez of the United States Marine Corps. It should be noted that while there have been numerous photographs of fictional fishermen, lumberjacks and brawlers, Corporal Bermudez is a very real Marine.
Nina’s from Miyako Island, but now works all over the world as a model. She’d just spent several months shooting in India, and was back home for a few days in Okinawa, before flying out to more jobs in Australia. Luckily, she had a free evening so she came over to the studio to get some new shots for her portfolio. With minutes rather than hours to work with, we only had time for one makeup look, and two outfits. Slightly different post-processing added some variety to the images. Have fun in Australia Nina!
Pete Leong and I had a fun weekend teaching the off camera flash workshop on January 19th and 20th. We covered pop-up flash, on camera speedlights, and off camera flash with TTL cords. Then we threw off our creative shackles, went wireless, and started to modify our lights. By the end of the weekend we were on the beach with our model Jovi practicing what we’d learned. A huge thanks to Keith, Bernice, Alex, David, Jessica, Lian and Ana for being such great students. Thanks also to Jovi for modeling and Summer Johnson for makeup. And a final thanks to Pete for sharing his knowledge with us all.
Cookie’s been watching too much Sesame Street.
Kensho Tokumura, a lovely 72 year old man who knows how to kill you in a thousand different ways. Very, very, easily.
A fantastic portfolio shoot with model Aika Wauke. I photographed four different outfits, and kept with a grey or black background throughout, as Aika already had enough white background catalog images. Summer Johnson did her usual impeccable job with makeup and Aika was great to work with. This was my last shoot with the new 645D 90mm macro lens that I had on loan. After the final pics were taken, I sent the lens and some sample images back to Pentax in Tokyo. I also photographed the session with the new K5IIs which produced excellent results. A blog post with a comparison of images taken with the 645D and the K5IIs will appear at some point in the future.
It was only when he arrived at the bonsai class, did Keith realize he’d probably bought the wrong equipment. Pentax 645D with 55mm lens Lighting – Charcoal background. Gridded Beauty Dish powered by Profoto Pro-7a as the main light . Square softbox front and low as fill. 2 medium size strip softboxes behind that were adding rimlight (powered by Profoto compacts). Strobes triggered with PocketWizards.