As I went through the rest of the images from Osaka, there were more than what I’m going to put in this blog post, but after sitting on these images for around a month, clearer eyes and that bit of removal from the romance of being in Japan allowed me to be a bit more selective in my final picks. With work being so busy, I’ve had this push to get work out the door and leaned on the idea that finished is better than perfect. Doubly so with personal work and, honestly, it really doesn’t matter that much anyways seeing as there are no client expectations or really anything else that matters other than what I feel should be representative of my work. That being said, giving it some time and “letting it cook” allowed me to have a bit more clarity and honesty when looking at the images. The emotional ties to the image are lessened and the moment is now further in my memory. Thankfully, I take pictures for a living so I at least have photographic evidence of the things I’ve done that I most surely will forget. Anyways, here is the last chapter in the Osaka series and those images of Mario World I mentioned in Part 1, well here they are. Scroll down to the end for those. And if you didn’t see Part 2, you can click here and have a gander at those, too.
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The Week in Photos: Volume 4..... a bit delayed
in street
I started this whole series of The Week in Photos to keep the creative juices flowing and partially because I have this little camera that I can take everywhere with me and it’s just so fun to shoot with. I debated on whether or not to mix in travel images and maybe some of my actual work, but that seems a little messy and my sense of order wouldn’t let me go down that road. So maybe I should rename this “The week in photos when I’m not working or on the road or have a million other obligations”……probably not. But in any event, I had these photos from right before I headed out on the road and forgot that they were even on the hard drive until I started importing some random images from this past week. These are from around a month ago. So here’s The Week in Photos. From last month.
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Saigon Punk Chronicles
in music
It’s been far too long since I’ve been to a show and I feel like I’ve been neglecting my long term personal project, Saigon Punk Chronicles, so when I saw there was a show this past Saturday, I jumped at it. With work and travel, it’s been a whirlwind since… January. Going to shows keeps me in check, keeps me young at heart, and every time I go, the words of 7 Seconds get stuck in my head “I’m gonna stay young until I die!” Even with work and the everyday responsibilities, the legacy of punk and the scene still shapes who I am every day of my life. DIY, the merry band of misfits, forgetting the outside world and escaping into a community made by us, for us. It’s forever weaved into my DNA.
I didn’t catch the whole show, but I did catch Tariot, Bao, Low Fat, and Cut Lon. I’ve seen Tariot and Cut Lon before but didn’t know what to expect from the others. They both killed it and Low Fat, in particular was soooooo fun. They’re a Japanese outfit out of Bangkok and their energy was wild. Raw, loud and fast… just the way it should be.
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Recent Work: Shang Palace
in food
A few weeks ago, Shang Palace reached out wanting to create some new images for their upcoming menu change and to elevate the visuals. With classic Cantonese cuisine, we wanted to be mindful of tradition while giving a modern take on the visuals. Dim Sum especially brought back memories of countless Sunday mornings heading out with friends and having mornings turn into afternoons - often needing my stretchy pants after eating way too much. So we pitched the idea of creating that sense of morning light coming through the window and a communal atmosphere. We opted to shoot from overhead to lean into the graphic nature of all the individual dishes and condiments that make dim sum so much fun. Not to forget the back of house, we had to show some behind the scenes action with the process of creating all these tasty treats. Shooting in kitchens is one of my favourite things ever - fire, steam, the craft of making things… I love it. All the hard work that it takes to create something beautiful on the plate isn’t celebrated enough in visuals and I’m so happy the team at Shang Palace agreed. They’re some of my favourite frames from the project.
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Travel Diary: Osaka Part 2
Maybe I’ve not been selective enough with my cull of images, but I couldn’t get enough of shooting the streets of Osaka. And this is a blog, not my portfolio, so I’m a bit looser in my picks for better or for worse. Not every image needs to be the show stopper…..Which kind of leads me to a point on how I shoot these days. Often times in travel photography, it’s waiting for that ONE moment. And don’t get me wrong, I do that quite a bit, but the little times in between are just as meaningful in my travel experiences. Showing ONLY the iconic shots is kind of doing the whole experience a disservice. I’ve talked about finding beauty in the mundane and slowing down and how I’ve kind starting shooting differently now with this smaller set up in the Fuji system, so I wanted the images to reflect a more documentary feel. This is personal work and I want to show my experiences for what they were, not just the best shots from the most well known locations… It’s more than that. In any event, here’s part 2 of the Osaka series.
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Travel Diary: Osaka Part 1
in travel
On a whim, I found a cheap ticket to Osaka for a sneaky weekend and hopped on the redeye from Saigon and woke up at 8:30 am in Osaka. Gotta love time travel. I’m absolutely smitten with Japan and the opportunity to spend a few days in Osaka was too good to resist. With the yen at a 35 year low, there’s no better time to take advantage. With no real agenda aside from going to Universal Studios for some rollercoasters and Mario goodness (stay tuned for those images) I just wandered, rode trains, ate all the food, and took pictures of every nook and cranny of this incredible city. I only took my Fuji x100v and the ease of shooting definitely reflected in the mountain of images I had to sift through when I got home. Maybe I need to temper that itchy trigger finger so I can limit these posts to just one part? Maybe not. This will be part one of three so stay tuned for more later in the week!
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Recent Work: Editorial Furniture Photography for Spazio Bressan
in Product
Something must be in the water. In the last few shoots, we’ve been given a metric ton of creative control and while that’s incredible, to whom much is given, much is expected. We were tapped to create some editorial style images for furniture designers Spazio Bressan and after just a short chat, it was pretty clear we were going to have some fun with this one. Hard light, shadows as compositional elements, graphic…all the good stuff. Immediately excited, I ran off to start creating mood boards. With the new AI tools at our disposal, we are no longer limited by searching for reference images. We just create them ourselves. Midjourney is an absolute game changer when it comes to this process. Even if we aren’t explicitly copying others work, “inspiration” can often influence work a bit more than photographers like to admit, so being able to type in the chaos that’s in my brain and have something distill it into something in the ball park of what I had in mind is incredible. In any event, I absolutely love creating images like these and cannot wait to shoot the next campaign for them.
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Recent Work: Kashew Cheese
in food
A few weeks ago we got a call from the folks over at Kashew Cheese requesting a meeting to discuss shooting their new dishes and specifically their new pizzas. For those of you in Saigon, Kashew Cheese makes plant based alternatives to lots of your favourite dairy products and oh man I wish they were around when I was Vegan in the early 00’s. Atlanta was super vegan friendly, but even as a pretty adventurous omnivore, I happily eat Kashew Cheese’s offerings on a regular basis. The little kid in me destroys their chocolate cashew milk. Anyway, the conversation about the project quickly evolved into a chat about art, life and design. My type of meeting and I knew this was going to be a fun one.
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