Red Pepper

Recently we shot an editorial titled "Red Pepper," an exclusive editorial for Design Scene. 

Instead of going for the traditional clean tan skin, this time I experimented with a more raw and organic look. In order to achieve that effect, I tweaked the skin colour to an almost ill-looking state, whereby I added a large amount of grain in the final processing stage. The complete story can be viewed in my gallery. 

Hope you all enjoy this story, and a big shout out to my awesome team mates!

Nadja (Elite Toronto)

Vanessa Garland (HMUA)

Michelle Davis (Stylist)

Sand colour

This time, it was my intention to make the model's skin tone look like the colour of sand by the ocean. I wanted to create a dry and worn out feeling while remaining edgy and fashionable.

I still need to figure out a way to lessen the information in the mid range colour tones so that the image looks more graphical. Nevertheless, I am grateful to have been able to try out this new method thanks to great team work by Sher (MUA), Uno (Hair), and Michelle (Stylist).

Recent work

The other day, I had the opportunity to work with Keltie who temporarily in Toronto to build her book before heading back to New York.

It was a breeze styling her this time as she already had a unique look and strong features.

When it comes to my editing process, I started colour grading in the raw stage this time instead of doing it later on in Photoshop.

In my opinion, you can achieve a more unique colour result since there's more information to manipulate in the raw format ;)

HNY + First Beauty Session

The other day, we had an opportunity to set up a beauty editorial with the talented makeup artist Sherlyn Torres. For this session, I tried a couple of gobos in my studio experimenting with what type of light shape I could make. I used a relatively hard light to preserve the edge nicely, and tried various objects such as duct tape and table placemats.

Here's the photo created with light shaped from duct tape :)

Pale Skin Tone

I often edit models' skin tone to be more on the tan side, increasing the saturation to add impact. This time I took a different turn and went for a dewy pale look. To enhance her naturally pale skin, I added a blue gel in the fill, as well as further manipulation in post-processing.

Here's a photo from the session with the artistic model Anica from Elite Toronto :)

Back to Toronto, Back to Business

I went back to Tokyo for a couple of weeks to reinstall my identity from where I grew up. It was interesting to feel my perspective slowly changing towards my country. Hopefully I can shoot some fine art photography when I go back there in the future.

This is a photo from our first session after a long break.

Please check my gallery page for more photos :)

Model: Charlotte (Elite Models)

HMUA: Rhia Amio

Stylist: Michelle Davis

Ira Maslennikava

Before Summer is over, we had one last location shoot with an awesome model, Ira Maslennikava. We collaborated with Paula Lanzador on make up, who had very impressive talent. Our beauty concept this time was a mixture of dirty and elegant. As I was editing the photos, I was able to see her work up close and I began to realize just how skillful she really was. Paula is one of the best HMUA artist we've worked with, so I appreciate her collaboration a lot. And thanks always to the wardrobe stylist, Michelle Davis.

Stanley Park

The other day, we had a location shoot in Stanley Park. I was fighting with lots of insects during photoshoot....haha.

We had a great opportunity to work with Jordanna Leah, a local fashion designer. Thanks to Isla Hughes, the model (John Casablancas International) and our great styling team of Tracey Le, the MUA, Katie Webster, the hair stylist, and Michelle Davis, the wardrobe stylist.

Please check out the whole editorial in my gallery :)

Garden

Today we had a photoshoot with Claudia Bakehouse (John Casablancas International)

It was supposed to raining today so we decided to make an impromptu studio set undercover the balcony in my garden for this photoshoot. Sometimes I can feel the joy of my imagination coming together well in a shoot, and today felt like that kind of day for me. I especially loved the sophistication in Claudia's hands in the photos. I highly recommend other photographers to work with her.

A big thanks to our HMUA Toby Lee for collaborating with us today for the first time, and as always, I appreciate my wardrobe stylist Michelle Davis.

Check out my new work in my "Fashion_location" gallery

Last photoshoot this year

The main concept was close up portrait focusing on the model's face with water drops on it to create a unique texture.

We also did another shoot which was styled more classically with the model wearing matching tweed top and bottoms and silver textured jewellery, which engages the viewer simply using texture again.

Thanks to the awesome make up done by Joanne See and styling by Michelle Davis.

Here is today's edited shot: