The Japan Experience with Scott Robert Lim and Matthew Jordan Smith.
The one word to describe this whole experience is AMAZING..!!!
This was my first visit to Japan, a place that I have always wanted to see, the workshop was based in the beautiful City of Kyoto..... After a gruelling 20+ hour flight from the UK via Paris I arrived at Osaka airport excited at what this week had in-store for me, that excited soon got dampened when Air France kindly told me that my suitcase was still back in the UK and not scheduled to arrive in Japan until the Tuesday Evening, luckily all the important stuff (camera equipment) was in my hand luggage... Oh well 3 days in the same clothes, it was just like being at a festival ...lol...
The Monday afternoon was spent relaxing in the hotel bar having a couple of those Japanese beers, I didn't want to have a drink but I thought it would help me with the jet lag and you know what I was right :)
The workshop officially started on the Monday evening with a meal and general chats about our aspirations and goals for the week, you know the weirdest thing was that when we were travelling to the restaurant we were driving through a blizzard, totally unexpected...
The lectures given by Scott and Matthew were worth the tuition and travel fees alone, the knowledge they both shared with us has enhanced not only my photography but me as a person and the way I'm looking to move my photography career forward, although I've been home for a month now I am still buzzing from the workshop...
The thing I love about the Scott Robert workshops is that it attracts so many amazing people and truly outstanding photographers from around the World, it is wicked being a part of this awesome community. You know in life when you meet people and you just click, you may not speak to them for months on end but when you meet up it's like you have never apart, that's when you know you are gonna be friends for life.... For me I get just as much satisfaction from these workshops seeing the look on others faces when they've captured a great shot as I do for me when I capture my imagery, you feel a sense of togetherness and willingness to succeed for everyone.
For me the highlight of all the locations we visited was the Bamboo Forest, I have never seen anything like it before you'll see from my slideshow that my shots from here feature heavily I just found it amazing. The models we had for this shoot in particular where real troopers, the weather started out as drizzle then just gradually got harder as the shoot wore on, the legendary digestive biscuits I brought from the UK played their part too to keep moral up. Our models didn't complain about the rain or the cold temperature (not that I know of as my Japanese isn't the best lol..) and helped us all capture brilliant imagery, thank you girls :))
When the workshop finished on the Friday, most of us took the bullet train from Kyoto to Tokyo, to be honest the journey was all a haze for me as I was really suffering from the karaoke bar the night before, til this day I think someone spiked my drinks or it could of been a touch of food poisoning from a chicken nugget which I later found out was a knuckle of some kind, I tell you the thought of that still makes me feel sick, why would you serve something like that up and disguise it as a chicken nugget?? :))......
Tokyo now what a place that was, just wish I had more than one night there to explore, this was personal time extended onto the workshop, it actually completed the journey and this experience really well. We hung out in restaurants, temples and this park which was cherry blossom heaven (what was the name of it again people?). On the Friday night JD, Evette and myself went out cameras in hand exploring the streets of Tokyo til around 2am seeing the empty streets (apart from the drunk businessman) was amazing and something I will never forgot. Looking back now Tokyo would have been a great place to shoot with models, next time, when I return..!!!!
The Saturday night Bandele, Evette and me the hardcore English folk got the bullet train back to Kyoto as we were flying out of Osaka, the whole journey back we were in stitches from B's bingo stories to Evette ordering the smallest ever chicken burger thing and washing it down with a bottle of sweat to the chicken curry that I'm sure didn't have any chicken in it and the side portion of approx 5 chips.... hahaha... great memories!!!!
If you have an interest in Photography and are thinking about investing in education then you really should look into these workshops you will not find anything better out there I promise.
Please feel free to visit the websites of everyone involved, trust me you will be amazed...
Scott Robert Lim, Matthew Jordan Smith, Bandele Zuberi, Evette Chiverton, Gurm Sohal, JD Cooper, Christina Chung, Linda Tamarpirat, Tauran Woo, Jeremy Chan, Esther JuLee, Marco Antonio Tang, Kinga Dyrda, David Lok, Tasha Walker, Gayle Iest, Charles Yeh, Riz Crescini.
Special thanks to Riz, Akira and Nozomi for organising everything for us and our models Kanae, Taeko, Miki
Scott for being an awesome mentor and Matthew for just being you and supplying us with priceless information that will help progress our future careers to be the best we can possibly be oh and the signed photo of Tyra Banks :)
After reading about this great experience I hope you can find the time to view my personal slideshow of Kyoto and Tokyo, please feel free to leave any comments.....
