Product shoots isn’t something I do a lot of, most of the product shots I’ve taken have been at events where there is an excellently lit set up and it makes photos easy, this time I had to work with what I had at home. Most importantly, I needed light and this was provided by my canon speedlights, a 580EX and a 580EX II. I used them both as off shoe (ie not attached to the camera) slave flashes and triggered them with a canon speedlight transmitter ST-E2, which I attach to the cameras hot shoe where you usually attach the flash. For this, all you do is set the flashes away from “master” to “slave” settings and hey presto, you can work them up to about 10m away from you camera. Brilliant. Actually, as a side note, even if you have a canon speedlight attached to your camera, you can use it in Master mode and have other off shoe slave units flash at the same time, think it may just be a feature of the new 580EXII, but I could be wrong. Here’s what the transmitter looks like on the camera.

I don’t have a dome for shooting products, so I used a large sheet of A0 size white card, angled it against the dryer sitting in my spare room and held it in place with a couple of small p.c speakers and lit from above with a regular lamp. So, I have my basic setup with the card held in place with a lamp above, then I poured some whisky into one of my whisky glasses, broke some dark chocolate up and scattered it around the glass and then I had my set up. I positioned the speedlights around the whisky and chocolate, angled the flash heads at the ceiling to bounce light off the ceiling and help get rid of shadows. With one flash and one lamp, there would be harsh shadows, with both flashes being used the shadows are mostly canceled and with the flash being bounced, there is no real harsh glare on the glass either. If you flashed directly onto the glass, even with a diffuser there would be too much glare. Easy home made product kit. When you zoom out from the final published image and see the whole scene it doesn’t look that nice at all, but most product shots you see in magazines and banners every day are just the same.

My last submission was Japan only images, I had been to Hong Kong but there were enough images from that trip to form a submission in itself. I am supposed to submit 500 images every three months, quite a tall order when I take other work into account, but at the same time it’s not as hard as it seems. Anytime I go anywhere I can get some stock shots really. A photograph of a lunch I ate or passengers on a train I took can end up being viable stock images. Although these type of images can end up as a small photo to illustrate a point in a guidebook or the likes, they are never going to feature prominently anywhere so I always make a point of getting to photograph something interesting to beef up my submissions. The amount of great festivals here in Japan provide a large source of material for my submissions and I also get to a few museums and art galleries and obtain signed permssion to shoot, otherwise it’s hard for anywhere to use the images without fear of legal reprisals. Sometimes a brilliant shot will get rejected if there is no permission, so if I don’t have it I won’t shoot it.

Shooting the submissions is actually they easiest part. The edits have strict guidelines, I can’t sharpen the images, only very slight cropping is permitted, white balance must be adjusted, there is a limited amount of shadow brightening or highlight reduction I can perform, all dust spots must be removed, so each image edited takes a fair bit of time.

I have a large screen mac desktop which helps immensely, whist out and about I use an old 13 inch MacBook and editing is a pain, so all my big edits are done at home. I always start with each image at it’s actual size, then I can easily identify any small dust spots, make sure there is enough sharpness when fully enlarged, make sure there isn’t going to be loss of detail in the shadows or highlights and the colours are OK after White balance correction and exposure compensation. If anything doesn’t sit right with me I reject it outright. I’ve learned to be strict on myself, if it’s not good I don’t submit. It’s the same for all my jobs, no point sending a mag 15 great images and 5 middle of the road ones, editors tend to remember the crap, so best to leave it out.

Once the editing is done I have to write captions and exif data. Each shot must have the date taken, the city, state and country info filled in, information on property or personal permission given for each shot (with the actual signed permission slips being included, I have to send each submission by post). I find the captioning takes time, the first time I submitted I went a bit overboard and gave too much info, historical background, peoples names and ages etc which I thought would get me brownie points but instead got me a ticking off. For example, I would submit something along the lines of “Mrs Ono (54), the owner of the maple tea house on Shinjuku Dori, Shinjuku Tokyo, serves tea in her 135 year old establishment to a salaryman customer.” This would be changed to “tea being poured in a tea house in Shinjuku.” We all learn by our mistakes. This time the editors were very happy with my images and captions which was pleasing. I have found that some clients in the past have required the long flowery captions, but then someone else wants shirt and precise, you have to just find out what each client wants and give it to them.

Anyway, here are a few of the accepted images.

First up is an example of a page from the PDF files I get sent with low res images and file numbers of accepted images.

Then there are some photos where I had to get permissions for, at Issey Miyake Design sight 21 21, The National Art Center Tokyo and Tokyo midtown.

Then an image from the Mitama Matsuri (soul festival) in Yakukuni Shrine.

A street scene from Center Gai.

A man in a demon dog mask at the Hachioji festival.

Canon has three 50mm prime lenses, the f 1.8, f 1.4 and the f 1.2L. The 1.8 retails new for about 9000 yen here and it is fairly sharp. On the down side, it’s very light (130′grams), it feels like a toy, the build quality isn’t good and in no time at all it will have dust inside if it’s being used a lot. Also, when autofocusing it is pretty noisy. It’s OK for a beginners lens or as a back up just in case something goes wrong with one of the better 50mm lenses in my opinion. Next, the f1.4, middle of the group in terms of build quality and price (new for about 39′000 yen), but it is a damn good lens. Sharp as a tack, decent build quality and pretty light weight (about 290g). It’s quite quick to focus, isn’t as noisy in the auto focus as the 1.4 but predictably not as quiet as the 1.2L. I have used a couple of f1.4 lens before, the first I got second hand pretty cheap a while back, but it had some dust in it so a couple of years ago I got a new one which I didn’t use much and ended up selling it to Fil who sometimes leaves a comment here (hope the lens is still doing well for you Fil). Anyway, after selling it to Fil I found a lot of situations where I really was needing a prime lens again, mostly for portraits in low light situations where my f 2.8 lenses were just that little bit too slow. I had toyed with the idea of getting another f 1.4 again, I had heard some negative things about the F 1.2L, but after a bit of thought and a bit of a play with both lenses I went for the f 1.2L.

It’s not the cheapest bit of glass out there, here in Japan it retails for about 165′000 yen in the big chain stores, but I managed to pick it up new for about 130′000 in Fujiya Camera in Nakano. I had been looking for it second hand for a while, I did find one in good condition for 125′000 yen, but I thought why bother about saving 5000 yen for something second hand with a 14 day warranty when I could pay the extra for a new lens with a years warranty on it. On the downside it’s the most expensive of the 50mm lenses, it’s the heaviest (560g), it’s not great for focusing at it’s minimum focal length of about 40cm (it is well documented as back focusing slightly with auto focus at this length, but is OK when focused manually) and for these reasons many people go with the f 1.4. I think that’s fair enough really, so what prompted me to buy the 1.2L? Performance and durability.

The much touted weight issue isn’t a problem for me, my camera bodies are heavy and I like having heavy lenses to balance that out, with some of the lighter EOS cameras I could see how the weight would be a big problem. My L series zoom lenses weigh between 800 grams and 1.5 Kilos, so actually it’s pretty light for me whilst it still feels solid and I prefer that. It makes things more stable for me when I am lining up hand held shots. At f 1.2-2.8 it out performs the other 50 mm primes (though from f2.8 through f5.6 the f 1.4 50mm prime comes out slightly better) giving absolutely amazing back ground blur. It’s the fastest and quietest in terms of focus of all the primes and this is majorly important for me. On Sunday when I was working whisky live (which I will blog about it soon) I had to do a lot of impromptu portrait sessions with the high flyers of the whisky trade from Scotland and Japan and I couldn’t make people hang around for long to sort out positions and lighting etc, I just had to work around where they were, focus quickly and accurately and rattle off about 20 shots in a few seconds with the help of my flash and it was great in those situations. Also it was very quiet which was useful as sometimes the people I had to photograph were being interviewed by the TV cameras or writers, in those situations when you are working round other people it’s good to not disturb anyone else and a loud lens whirring next to a TV camera or a mic isn’t going to win you many friends. Perhaps the most important factor in my decision to buy it was the build quality. It is weather sealed to help keep moisture and dust out (you have to buy a weather proof lens protector to finish this off and I did) and with this element of the lens I expect to be getting a good 8-10 years of solid use out of it. With my last two jobs paying for it I have already recovered the cost and then some, from now on it’s just going to be another quality piece of equipment at my disposal which will help keep my clients happy…fingers crossed anyway.

Anyway, here’s a couple of snaps I took of it. These shots weren’t with a macro lens, just my 24-70 lens with a x2 magnifying filter.

David was taking Dave out to deepest darkest Golden Gai with one of his translators and I had to photograph Dave in a couple of bars we visited as well as snapping each establishment to get a bit of a feel for the area. Golden Gai is an area of Shinjuku which despite being only a few small blocks in size is condensed with over 200 bars that are anything but main stream. The bars are all pretty small, most of the clientele are regulars and some even have systems whereby you can only go there if you are introduced by a patron and then pass an interview. Despite this process, the bars aren’t exactly high class, they are small and atmospheric, perhaps not the most hygenic places you could ever drink in, but the atmosphere is unique and you aren’t likely to forget the places in a hurry.

First off we went to a small place called Nabe which the owner (Mrs. Nabe) told us used to be a brothel. There was the main room for clients who would stay for a night on the second floor (which is now the bar) but they also had a back stairs to a third floor for those who fancied a “quicky.” Only the second floor is accessible now, you reach it via an extremely narrow flight of stairs (wouldn’t want to go down them after a few drinks) and then you come out onto a long narrow room, some tables and chairs at one end surrounded by books and records, a cabinet full of “keep bottles” in the middle and then a bar with a few seats at the other end and the owner plonked behind the bar, serving drinks and cooking food for the customers, whilst smoking away. Health and safety rules just don’t apply. We sat there for perhaps an hour, Dave interviewing Mrs. Nabe and taking notes as customers slowly trickled in and the 8 seats surrounding the bar slowly filled.

After that we had a little while until our next appointment, so I used it as an excuse to take some portraits of Dave outside in the streets of Golden Gai. There are so many good spots there, there isn’t much light, so I had to use what was available from signs and lanterns as well as bouncing some flash from my speedlight off some of the lighter walls. One of the portraits with Dave between a red lantern outside a yakitori shop turned out to be my favourite shot of the night.

Then we went into the second and final bar for a few hours. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of the place, but it was run by comedian and writer Chin Naito who I have to admit, I had never heard of until then. This bar was my favourite, still small, maybe 8 seats at the bar and a table for 3 or 4 next to it, but a friendlier atmosphere and a bit more funky than the previous place. The crowd here was a bit younger, the walls adorned with posters from cult movies and photographs of artists, with a variety of objects including plastic airplanes, Godzilla models and a pigs leg hanging from the ceiling. Dave sat and interviewed Naito san for a couple of hours and he wasn’t at all like any other bar owner I had ever met. mainly because he doesn’t try to make money from the endevour, it’s a place for him to hang out and meet people, he has other sources of income and doesn’t want to make cash from selling booze, he just wants to meet people and enhance the lives of himself and others through human contact. In his bar there is no interview or introduction system, you can just roll up and talk with whoever is there. Think I’ll go back sometime as a customer.

We’re staying in a quiet area called Insadong. It’s noted for it’s galleries, tea shops and art scene. A lot of people selling their crafts in shops and stalls, you can often see people making things and it’s a good place to spend at least a few hours wandering around. I like it at night, most people disappear but the backstreets full of restaurants and watering holes light up and it’s a good spot to unwind.

Something that’s caught my eye here is the amount of people transporting goods with good old manpower. There are a lot of stalls all over town and people just push their stalls all the way to where they are going to be. Some people have small trolleys to transport things as well.

However, for those who need things transported over longer distances, or in a hurry, motorbike messengers are the ones to do it, you see them buzzing about all over town, transporting food, clothes and even people.

Next, street eats. Half the street vendors sell food, half of them sell clothes and fake designer goods. I don’t have much need of the latter, but I do spend a fair bit of time at the food stalls that are on every street here. Absolutely delicious and extremely cheap.

I think the highest concentration of stalls of all kinds must be in Myong Dong, which is mainly shopping area that is so full of Japanese people it feels like I could be back in Tokyo. It’s a pretty lively area, good if you want to do a bit of shopping, but it can get so crowded at times it can be a bit of a pain in the arse as well. It’s an odd set up, they will have a shop selling name brand clothes and accessories, but just outside there will be a stall selling replica items at a fraction of the price. I thought the stores would be a bit pissed with this, but apparently if the stalls clearly state their items are fakes it is OK.

Anyway, some random images, first, metal chopsticks, it’s said that this tradition started with Kings of old who were afraid of being poisoned, so they used silver chopsticks as they believed any poisons would taint the colour of their chopsticks and therefore provide a life saving warning.

Gimbap, very like Japanese norimaki, but filled with pickles and spicy meats. A fine way to start the day.

Guards outside Bongisak belfry in traditional costume.

On the underground trains people can get a signal on their phones and don’t think twice about shouting down it. This would be heavily frowned upon on Japan, but I kind of like being on the trains here, they feel a bit more lively.

The Korean declaration of independence which has been inscribed onto the wall of Dongnimun station and a statue dedicated to those who fought for independence from Japan outside the station.

Some scenes from Korean style markets where you can sit down with the locals and sample the weird and wonderful foods on offer at dirt cheap prices. The deep fried food and anything spicy tastes amazing and you can fill up for a couple of hundred yen (about 2 dollars)The things that look like bugs are boiled silk worm larvae. They smell terrible and taste awful. When in Rome though….

Cheonggye stream which runs from the Dongdaemun shopping area in the North of the city down towards the financial and political districts in the center of town is a good spot for a stroll of an evening and is very popular with couples. At night the stream is lit up, it has some light and sounds shows and its worth wandering along to get a decent night view of down town Seoul whilst avoiding traffic at street level. At the end of the stream is a rather odd shaped sculpture named “spring” which looks a bit like an icecream. Just a few blocks away on either side you get to see ancient belfries and palace grounds sitting in amongst the modern buildings. It easy to spend a few hours just walking around, taking in the stark architectural contrasts and seeing what you find.

Other than the cold, the weather has been pretty good. The sun is really harsh in the morning and early afternoon, but at night there has been some good sunsets and the night sky is pretty good for photography.

The other day I wanted to get some shots of Seoul at night, so I trekked up the path to Nam Sam tower which rests on a mountain in the center of Seoul to see if I could get a good view of the city. On a previous trip I took a trip up to the top of the mountain via cable car and I found the view was often blocked by trees, whih forced you to go to the observation platform of Nam Sam tower, which does give a great view, but I am never a fan of shooting through glass windows if I can avoid it. After about 40 minutes of walking up the 2 km of stairs in the minus 12 cold with a strong wind blowing, I wasn’t finding anywhere with a good view and I was beginning to think I had made a bad move. Then I turned a corner and came to an outcrop on the mountain with nothing obstructing the view. It even had a special viewing platform.This spot was only 5 minutes down from the top of the mountain, but the effort of walking up made the find more rewarding. The sun was beginning to set, so I went up to the tower for a wander whilst there was still light and I got treated to a nice sun set over the south part of Seoul.

After that I headed back down to the viewing platform as the sun was disappearing and I took some nice long exposures. It was freezing cold, no-one else was about, so I was pretty happy having the spot to myself to take my time getting things right. I even forgot about the howling wind and the freezing cold. After wards when I got back into town I had a nice spicy hot pot full of seafood and a beer and I soon heated up again.

As I said though, not too fussed about getting loads of images, will just wander about with my camera and the 24-70mm lens most of the time, only taking my bigger (and much heavier) 80-200mm lens out if I have something specific in mind to shoot. Think we might be heading to a festival one day, so it will be useful for that. I think I’ll probably take a few videos as well though. My tripod is stowed in my suitcase, but my camera bag is hand luggage. I think I am allowed up to 5kg of hand luggage, but my bag is always about 14kg fully packed. Always a worry until I get on the plane with it, I would refuse to get on the plane if they made me stow it. Fingers crossed.

This time tomorrow I’ll be enjoying some spicy Korean food, washing it down with a nice dark beer and enjoying not fully understanding what everyone is saying. Not sure if I7ll be able to blog much, will give it a try anyway and see what I can do.

Today I went through some of the photos I took there, I had selected a few for publications and kept them together, but today I looked at shots that hadn’t made the cut and it made me remember a lot about the life on the streets there. Here are a few of them:

People threw their house waste out into a designated area of town and someone would shovel it into a skip.

The waste is dumped out of town, sometimes in landfills, sometimes next to rivers. Animals eat the waste. The trash pile overflows and the river gets polluted, the cows get sick.

In the backstreets open sewers flow uncovered. Kids play there, people step over them going about their daily business.

A teenage boy at a makeshift book store. Education was barely existent, to get any education people had to teach their own children with second hand books from stores like this.

A displaced woman begging on the streets.

The local black market. You can get anything you want here. If it isn’t available, someone will steal it for you.

Children on the streets.

Wrecked vehicles.

Indian electrical workers in town to get supplies.

Iraqi fashion.