Red Guardian

Autumn has been a fantastic season in Nagano City, Japan. I probably have enjoyed shooting this Fall more than any other Autumn season in the past. If you want to see more of my Fall Photo collection or any from other seasons, please check out my new gallery at Flickr called Seasons in Japan. Enjoy!

Looking Onward

There literally wasn't any room to get this shot. At first I thought this was a lost shot, but later on the computer I rather liked her gaze or rather looking onward. I added a tilt lens effect to the left to kind of give her a push. I also add a retro look to mix up the colors a bit. Overall I like how it turned out. Sometimes photos are hard to see when viewing from the camera and definitely require a 2nd or even 3rd look on the computer.

Zenkoji Birds

The birds seemed to be out in full force on this particular day. As you can see that have a tendancy to attack Zenkoji Temple in Nagano Japan. Photograph was taken with a Nikon D200.

Birdman

This is a photo of a young Japanese boy all dressed up watching a funny man with a bird on his head. There were a lot of Birds out today around Zenkoji Temple in Nagano Japan and some people seemed to attract the birds quite well.

San Sai Desu

This is a photo of my eldest daughter Aily Jacklyn during her three year old kimono ceremony in Nagano Japan. This photo is an older one as my daughter is now four years old, but I thought I would run this through photoshop and style it up a bit. Note that her hair and makeup for ceremony is not applied. This photograph is just for the Kimono part.

Yukata in Retro

Yukiko in Retro from a Yukata Photoshoot I did a while ago in Nagano City, Japan. Photograph was post processed in Photoshop with curve adjustments, some blend modes and a few other techniques required to get the look I had envisioned.

Vintage Yukata

Here is a photo from the photoshoot of my wife "Yoyo" in a Japanese Yukata. Textures are surfaces shot on location. I made some layer adjustments, blended a texture, and worked with some color and contrast layers to achieve the desired look. The background layer is sort of a creased paper look. I am not necessarily going for an old photo look, but rather just trying to work with colors and textures to get a nice fresh look.

Man in Motion

This is an elderly gentleman I encountered while walking towards through Zenkoji Temple in Nagano city Japan. I like how his baseball cap was pulled over his face a little and the fishing type vest he had on. Most likely he is an avid fisherman as it's quite a popular hobby for guys his age in Nagano. There is some motion blur in the photo, but I thought it added to the idea of motion quite well. I also liked the wood colors brought out by some Photoshop work.

Hand in Hand

This is a self portrait taken a little while ago with a Nikon 28-70mm lens and my daughter Aily Jacklyn. She is holding the remote to the camera in the photograph along with her favorite stuffed animal dog. She is awaiting anxiously for the shutter to release. I am looking down to ensure she triggers it correctly. The resulting photograph paints a different story and that is why I though it was an interesting photograph. The Black and White version gave it a ghostly appearance which pretty cool I thought.

Aily Jacklyn Photoshoot

This is a photo a shot a while back on my Nikon D70s of my first daughter Aily Jacklyn. I like how her hair just hangs naturally and those glaring big eyes are fantastic. Although I have a color version, I think this shot works best in Black and White with a hint of Sepia. I added some texture ever so slightly.

Sunburst Extensions

This is a shot of a hair model named Aya who I photographed for Magee Salon a little while ago. This was for hair extensions which were done by my wife Yoyo. I used natural window light here and then used Photoshop to blend different colors into the photo for effect.

Winter Photoshoot Japan

This was from a test photoshoot for Magee Salon with Model Aya. We were taking shots of hair extensions to be used in Magee Salon photo brochures. This is a grunged up version of a shot that I kind of liked. Hair design was done by my wife Yoyo Miyazawa. Photograph was post processed in Photoshop using textures and various other techniques. The final look is exactly what I invisioned.

Electrical Kanji

Recently I captured this shot of a very old electrical sign in the middle of Nagano city. It was a back alley street and the sky as you can see was very overcast with virtually color at all. In addition, the sign was very rusty and quite dirty. I elected to shoot the sign a bit overexposed to try and bring out the colors as much as I could. In photoshop I applied various techniques to give the Kanji an artistic flair. Overall I am quite happy with the image and it seems to have fit my vision perfectly of what I wanted the image to look like. This photo is probably a good example of when I shoot for Photoshop rather than an image straight from the camera. Of course I try to maximize the quality and look right out of the camera, but I generally have a vision drawn in my head of what I want to do later in Photoshop.

Sisters in Zenkoji

This is a photograph of my two daughters Sasha and Aily at Zenkoji Temple. Aily is wearing a traditional young girls Kimono outfit. Generally in Japan, young girls of ages 3, 5, and 7 participate in ceremonies at local area temples in celebration of their progress in life. Boys do the something similar but wear different outfits of course. I thought this was a nice photo of the girls perched up on the steps in front of the famous Zenkoji Lanterns. Sasha as always is gazing her big brown eyes at the camera.

Taking Aim

This is another photo from the self portrait photoshoot I did a couple of days ago. Again this was taken with one SB-800 and an umbrella. I a couple of unique lighting arrangements added in for added light, but also to add some ever so slight color into the mix. Lately I like to experiment with different types of light because they post process differently in Photoshop. The light mixture I used to take this shot worked really well for me in Photoshop, so I am happy with the direction I am heading thus far. I am still experimenting a lot, but that's the fun part.

Photoshoot Japan Aya

This is a shot of Aya that I took a while back at a photoshoot I did in Japan for a Hair Design company called Magee Salon. My wife Yoyo did the hair and fashion. Aya is a great model and I thought I was able to get some great photos. This photograph was post processed in Photoshop a bit to enhance the fashion look I wanted. Nails are very popular in Japan and it's quite common for gals in Japan to sport nails like the ones in this photo.

Photoshoot Japan Self Portraits

Added some color to this photo to give it a sort of Vintage Sepia look. Photograph was a self portrait taken with a Nikon D200 and 17-55mm lens with one SB-800 and umbrella. I also added another regular light off to the right which was diffused using a scrim. I had a lot of fun experimenting with different lighting positions here. Used the Nikon infrared remote timer on delay to give myself some time to do my thing. Used curves, contrast, and a few other things in Photoshop to get the desired look.

Japan Wooden Textures

Founds some interesting wooden temperatures on at a photoshoot near a temple in Nagano, Japan. I really like the old time look of the wood and the grunged up kanji characters. Photographs were tweaked in Photoshop.