Japan 2024 Workshop

Feature 1

In September this year, I attended a five-day architectural photography workshop run by LA-based Mike Kelley and NZ-based Simon Devitt. It was the perfect excuse to visit Japan for the very first time. And what an introduction!

Staying at the Shonai Hotel Suiden Terrasse in Yamagata Prefecture, about two hours north of Tokyo on the Shinkanzen (bullet train). Designed by Shigeru Ban, the hotel was our base and muse for the myself and eight international students attending the workshop.

The focus was not about technique so much as storylines. Beyond the mechanics of composition and lighting, delving into the subliminal messages that a photograph can convey, and how you try to capture that. Words are not my strong suit, so I found this both inspiring and challenging, but the course structure and exercises really helped.

I mentioned earlier that the hotel was our muse, which means all of our photos were taken in and around this sublime Shigeru Ban building. The hotel sits atop rice fields and beautifully reflects its natural surroundings while featuring a bright, minimalist décor inside. It was completed in 2018, with the adjoining Spa completed in 2021.

Mike Kelly is well known for heroic images - buildings and grand scale images, while Simon’s photography, by contrast, is more atmospheric and gentle. His images have a beautiful colour palette and subdued lighting, embracing shadows in that very Japanese way. They embody the mood and energy of a place, not just its physicality, so you really feel like you’re there, which I guess is similar to my own work.

Both are fantastic teachers, and we learnt as much about resilience as photography. Mike works at such a high level internationally and in America, achieving a lot beyond taking pictures – organising conferences and workshops for our profession, while juggling clients and a hectic home life.

The workshop was trying to embed us in the place to find the many nuanced layers of many stories within the one place. One exercise had us stand in the one location for an hour – not moving, just shooting – forcing us to find inspiration in every moment. A reaction of imagination where the bored brain looks for novelty.

Spending five days in the one spot also brought home to me the near impossibility of the architecture shoot, which typically happens over one day. Every day the hotel was different, reacting differently to light and the movement of people.

It was also a great bonding experience to be with people other professionals of differing visions: a reminder that each of us has such a unique point of view, despite workmen in the same medium.

I’ve included a few of photos in this email, mostly from the Hotel, but I have many more I could show you. When I showed them to Mike Kelly (the big picture dude), he remarked that he wouldn’t be confident taking photos like these because they’re so “quiet and intimate”: he called me the ‘small moments guy’. Which I actually don’t mind.

Anyway, back to work. Hope to hear from you soon with a great new architectural shoot commission 😉.

Anthony