Crazy, fun New York photo session!
I finally have permission from the client to post this. The photos are of a comedic duo named Ganbareruya, who apparantly is (and I quote) super-famous in Japan. We even had Japanese tourists on the street recognize them.
Their management team (?) found me via Instagram, and was drawn to use me because of the dance photography I regularly posted on Instagram.
The premise was this comedic team, Ganbareruya, would be visiting New York, and meet up with a famous dance photographer (moi?!) who would show them dance moves (again, me, of all people!), and they would try to copy me.
Now if you have ever seen Japanese television — the humor is quite surreal. So these two women would hilariously copy my dance instructions, and I would photograph them … while they purposely misinterpret my instructions … and their team of 5 videographers would do video of this debacle. This would eventually be shown on Japanese TV.
This was a wild event. At some points I was literally shaking with laughter while taking the photos.
What I found interesting in a way, is that despite the craziness of this photo shoot, the photos are somehow still recognizably my style when you look at the use of off-camera lighting, and looking at the composition and framing.
Anyway, here’s to the crazy ones amongst us. Good to have met you!
For cameras, I used two Sony A9ii bodies, each with a dedicated lens on it:
Lenses:
For off-camera lighting, the combination of the Profoto B10x and the collapsible Profoto 3ft softbox were instrumental in allowing us to move quickly and be ready quickly. It was also useful when we had to move amongst the crowd in Times Square.
- Profoto B10x flash (B&H / Amazon) and
- Profoto 3ft octabox (the collapsible one.) (B&H / Amazon)
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Google-fu challenge accepted. :) Possibly sketchy russian website, and untranslated, but the 14 Sept 2025 episode of the Japanese variety show Sekai no Hate made Itte Q! is viewable here:
https://vkvideo.ru/video-14414281_456248874
The NYC Ganbareruya segment starts around the 1hr 8min mark, and filming your shoot starts around 1hr 13min in.
Thank you for finding this! I have now added the specific video section to the main post here.
Glad to help! Looks like a blast was had by all. And the phots are amazing.