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 be shown on Japanese TV eventually. (I asked for a link of some kind but never got a reply about that. I am dying to see the results.)

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:

camera: Sony A9ii (B&H / Amazon)

Lenses:

Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 GM ii (B&H / Amazon)
Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 GM ii (B&H / Amazon)

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.