Bending the rules ever so slighly
November 27, 2009 by Juergen Specht · 4 Comments
My wife was supposed to shoot a cute Kimono girl in a park for her 20th birthday, as it is tradition here in Japan. There is a great park in the middle of Tokyo where many wedding couples take photos (including myself), but for some reason the park management does not allow reflectors…and without a reflector its difficult to get a great looking picture in the harsh autumn sun.
The rejected photo
November 14, 2009 by Juergen Specht · 2 Comments
A long time ago back in Germany I did some photojournalism jobs here and there for a variety of magazines and newspapers. One day they ask me to cover the opening day of the swimming season in some local pool. Nothing too exciting was going on and I didn’t really expected anything from this assignment, so I covered the basics, shot some portraits of the first guests, some seniors, some kids and this jumper.
Suddenly several suits assembled at the other pool and I walked over to see what was going on.
The management knew to play the media well, invited the local mayor and hired 3 girls in skimpy outfits to official open the swimming season and even more photographers gathered already for this moment…all at the same spot. I had 2 choices: take the same picture from the same position than every other photographer or to find a different position to get a unique picture. I choose the latter… Click here to read more…
Photographers I like: Satoko Hashimoto
September 29, 2009 by Juergen Specht · 6 Comments
There are so many absolute fabulous photographers here in Japan which still have no web site, so they are practically unknown outside of Japan. I decided to start a series of introductions to some of these photographers and their projects.
Satoko Hashimoto is one of these photographers. She did such an impressive, unusual project which cumulated into one of the best exhibitions I ever saw. The project is called 蝸 (translated as “Snail Shell”) and shows the inside of the huts of homeless people living in Tokyo’s Ueno Park.
Satoko Hashimoto in her exhibition titled 蝸. Photo by Ako Specht.
But how she was able to get these pictures is even more impressive.
The Streets of the Past by Shuhei Kaihara
September 17, 2009 by Juergen Specht · Leave a Comment
I recently got introduced by a common friend to Shuhei Kaihara, a Japanese photographer who lives in Shanghai, China. Kaihara-san is an amazing photographer who was fascinated of the Old Town in Shanghai back in 1995 and he decided to come back and photograph it before it disappeared. His book – which as far as I know is out of print – is called “The Streets of the Past“.
Shot with a panorama camera in black & white from 1996 – 2000 his pictures are a true document to the life in Shanghai before the Old Town was demolished and replaced by modern skyscrapers. Each of his photos has so much details and need time to be explored.
Kaihara-san will have an exhibition in the next year in Tokyo and if I know the exact details, I will announce it here.
Random Images
