Taken inside of the Kamakura Daibutsu statue.

The calm and crisp atmosphere was quite different from Tokyo. Though there weren’t many people,

and they weren’t getting much use out of their bus stops, it was a refreshing change of pace.

From the father and son team doing some free skiing on a small incline in a parking lot,

to the ducks meandering in a local pond,

there were many opportunities to relax and take in the sights. That is, as long as you are able to handle the cold.

The weather didn’t stop me from enjoying some bizarre ice cream flavors though. Burdock root and rice being a highlight.

However, I didn’t try the curry udon in a can I found in a local vending machine. The sign makes special note that you can buy your canned noodles with cigarettes together as an added convenience. What a combination.

Full gallery here.

That’s not to say there wasn’t extensive cleanup on the hair, face, and other areas of the image. Separating the girl from the background was time consuming, including making the holes in the hair on the top of her head still show the background through them. Some parts of the image weren’t in the photo and were made from parts and Photoshop tools. I’m still no photo editing expert but I think it turned out OK. Wish us luck!

So I went to the photoshoot about two weeks ago. The model was Romanian, her name was Alina, and yes she was attractive. Ogura-san was there making sure the hair was right and directing the styling. There was also a photographer, a make-up artist, and a professional lighting rig. It was really cool to get to see this kind of setup.

I just recently had the photos delivered and have spent some time editing some of my favorites. Ogura-san and I are still hammering out what the final image will be, and the below two photos I edited are not going to be used, but I thought they ended up looking pretty nice and I wanted to share them. Which do you like? Blue or red?

99% of the credit goes for these images goes to the team who originally created and captured them. My edits primarily involved removing a lot of stray hairs covering Alina’s face, removing minor skin blemishes (if you can even call them that on this girl, her skin was basically perfect), and adjusting the levels and color tone of the images. I also did some shadow tweaking and a minor bit of reshaping.

It was fun spending a bit of time learning about the process. As with all skills, it takes a lot to become an expert and I am far from that. It is scary how much can be edited even at a beginner level. I’m sure everyone knows this already but you definitely can’t trust any image you see in a magazine.

Photo editing skills will definitely come in handy in the future. If for nothing else but to humiliate coworkers by putting their head on this guy (NOT SAFE FOR WORK, unless you are a former coworker of mine then you’ve probably seen this image before).

I took this photo at the Geisai art festival. The huge video wall made for fairly interesting photos with short exposure times. The silhouette of the man – who was also taking a photo – adds a reference point.

This is an intentionally over-exposed photo of the ceiling art in the entrance of Omotesando Hills. No post production.

I like the little specs of color that come in from the refracted light. Also, the pathways created by the layout of the glass look cool with the perspective. Choose a path!

I took my camera out again and did some more long exposure photography in Ebisu. I thought this picture turned out the best.

One taxi is stopped. The other is at hyper speed!