Twilight Paris

Back in Paris again this weekend, went to Paris Photo and then had a look around outside the Louvre and Arc de Triomphe. Here are some photos! Try clicking on one and using the arrow keys to scroll through, they look better with a dark surround.

Orléans by Night

I haven't been posting a lot recently, it's been a bit quiet on the photography front, but that's because the rest of my life is currently taking a much higher priority!! At the end of September I got on a one way plane to Paris on my way to where I now live; Orléans. I'm an international student on the ERASMUS scheme studying objet et espace design at Ecole Supérieure D'Art et de Design d'Orléans. I have a flat right in the centre of the old town, with a slight view of the river, and live with a big group of great friends who come from all over Europe.

While I'm here I hope to get through my back log of photography work, get on track with my studies, and hopefully use my spare time to take photos in this beautiful country. My main interest is obviously shooting models, but as my language has a lot to be desired at the moment, I'm taking opportunities to go out and shoot street and landscape until I can arrange myself some photoshoots. So every now and again I'm going to upload some photos that i've taken out and about around the city, some from when i'm up in Paris, and maybe some from when i'm away around Europe etc.

This set was taken between 24h-1h in the morning. Me, Lloyd and Mike ventured out into the city to take advantage of the mist that had decided to settle over the buildings that night.

Shooting in Kyoto!

I'm only in Japan for 3 weeks, but even with a crammed schedule I couldn't leave without doing a shoot! Miku my assistant did wonders finding and arranging a shoot with Yuri, a model from Kyoto, newly signed to a Tokyo agency. Yuri is stunning! She strays away from the generic Japanese fashion culture and is confident enough to be herself, with a starkly different dress sense and short blonde hair which suits her perfectly! So during our trip inter-railing across Japan, we travelled to her home town and did two shoots with her, one at the MASSIVE Kyoto station, and one out and about.

Yuri suggested the station because it's so big and modern and she had clothes to match it perfectly! I'm glad we started in there, it was much cooler there than the 35 degree heat outside.

We always have shots within a shoot which we like but they don't quite make it to the final set. Above is a good example!

Yuri is a genuinely really nice girl :)  My Japanese isn't great, but through body language and knowing the odd word here and there, and Miku providing translations when we just look plain confused, we were able to communicate well enough for her to relax and be herself :) In the end we all really enjoyed it! She has a really radiant smile, kawaii!!!!

It's nice to be taking behind the scenes photos so people can see what my shoots are really like. Thanks to Miku for stalking us with her camera and taking photos that show what's really happening!! All the photos below are hers. Also, I really want to thank her for all the work shes putting into everything. People may think I just say she's my assistant because she's my girlfriend, that's not the case! 

She arranges photo shoots, translates, she take photos behind the scenes, talks the models and makes them feels comfortable, is learning creative makeup, holds the reflector to bounce better light onto the models, she does a hell of a lot! I think the fact we've just done an international shoot, a different country with a foreign model, no link to the UK at all, is really testament to the amount of work she puts in. Thank you Miku!! :D

Check out me using my camera upside down like a pro :P There was a reason for it, I wasn't just being weird, I needed the lens closer to the concrete so it went reflective.

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And finally, here we have a sneak peek at our second shoot with Yuri. This is my favourite shot so far, but I haven't been through all the photos yet so I'm sure the set is going to be great :D Stay tunes for the full shoot in the next couple of days!

Inter-railing Japan - Osaka

After just a week to get our bearings in Tokyo, we were off on a journey across Japan! With a JR inter-rail pass valid for a week, we could get on almost any JR train and go anywhere, so to start we got on a Skinkansen bullet train and travelled across central Japan to the metropolitan sprawl that is Osaka, one of the coolest and most built up cities out side of the capital.

We stayed two nights in a hotel right in the centre of the shopping district, which was absolutely buzzing! It was weird seeing every since shop open until at least 9. The place was so vibrant and lively, with hundreds of people out and about late at night.

Miku loves fish :P So we headed off to a small island on the edge of the city where there was a hugeeee aquarium. Unlike anywhere i'd been before, it started at the top of a huge building and spiralled down through 14 levels around a handful of huge tanks. Crabs and otters and whatnot at the top, sharks and rays underneath them; it was amazing.

The main tank was just massive. 54,000 tons of water held back by acrylic glass the thickness of a tree! There were also dolphins too, one of which came over and had a good long chat with me :D

In the evening we headed over to a building i'd read about in my travel book. It was a tall double skyscraper with a platform spanning between them dubbed the "Floating Garden". As it was going dark we weren't sure if it'd be any good... haha how wrong could we get?! We got a 360 degree view of Osaka, with a view of absolutely everything! Watching everything move underneath you was incredible, especially seeing as this city really doesn't seem to sleep, there was so much happening it could have been the middle of the day!

Also, shout out to Brando from LA! We met him at the top and he seemed as glad as us to be able to speak English to someone! He's travelling in Japan for another 5 weeks, good luck on your journey mate!

Beautiful and vibrant, in a very modern metropolis sort of way, I could have stayed there all week. But business calls! So the next day it was off to Kyoto..... :P

Parco

We found an "English" restaurant/bar today in Parco, a department store in Urawa. Not sure what was english about it serving italian pasta, japanese omlets and amercan burgers... but the music was western, there was English beer and writing around so it was all good fun :D

Also, since when did I become a celebrity in Japan?

こんにちわ　安原さん　＆　松木さん!!

今日はありがとう!!

Welcome to Tokyo

Ittttttttttttttttt's TOKYOOOOOO! Took a trip into town today to check out the famed department store Ichi-maru-kyū, took a few snaps on the way. The store was *-mindblowing-*, so much so that we're planning to go back, but not to shop....

First sight of Japan

Me and Miku have just a week to get used to the rail and tube systems before we go off on our own around the country. Having come from London I thought that I had mastered tube networks, then I saw (just a part of ^) Tokyos.....

Jetting off!

Doing a spot of travelling this month, can you guess where??!!