Here is a wedding I shot at Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus, Ohio, just prior to my departure for Japan.  This wedding was actually featured in Columbus Bride magazine so I am not using any of the shots that were published in the magazine since many of you have already seen them.  The Conservatory is a great place to hold a wedding and one of the more accessible unique locations in central Ohio.  The only caveat is that there is no air conditioning and it can get very hot in the Palm Room on a sunny July or August Saturday afternoon.

I don’t usually don’t do any photo art (a.k.a. altering pictures in Photoshop so that they no longer resemble reality), but this was a simple color shift that didn’t look too shocking.  This was not submitted with the proofs the client received.

Here is the Conservatory itself:

And finally, a picture of the junior groomsman shot from the outside balcony with some of the gardens in the background:

Cheers!
michael todd

I came across some cake pictures from a couple years ago, so I thought I would go ahead and put them up here.  I don’t think these were ever included in the couple’s album.  These were taken at Confluence Park in Columbus, Ohio.  I am not sure who did the cake, but I think it is a good mix of traditional and modern designs.

    

Cheers!
michael todd

In the town where  I lived most of the time on my last stay in Japan, a local club hosts an annual party so that foreigners can have the opportunity to be dressed up in kimono and have a tea ceremony.  To me the most interesting part of this occasion in the location in which it is held.  Several years ago a wealthy local man had a huge, 250 year old village leader’s farm house (called Matanosansou) in Niigata, Japan, moved to the small town of Niihama.  I can not imagine what an event this was considering the vast distance between the two cities.  The house has been splendidly preserved and period pieces accurately adorn the house.

Here is a picture of two of my friends getting dressed up and posing with their dresser.

    

Here is a good view of the tea ceremony masters preparing the ingredients and sweets.

This is a traditional fireplace know as irori in Japanese.  There is no flue or chimney.  Since natural charcoal is burned, there is very little smoke produced.

Here is a detail shot above the fireplace.  I have no idea what this item is called nor what it is used for.

Here are two of the volunteers explaining to use some of the lore of wearing kimono.

The following picture was not posed.  I love how this picture how eagerly Japanese share the parts of their culture that their are knowledgeable of and are proud of.

Finally, the ladies get dressed up in kimono as well.

I am really getting the hang of blogging every day!  The biggest change at Xanga the past week is the ability for people without Xanga accounts to leave “anonymous” comments.  So go ahead!  Try it out!  I look forward to hearing everyone’s feedback.

    

Here is a shot of a young couple also enjoying Cook’s.  Nothing was set up (I don’t think they even know I took the picture.) and it uses all natural light.

And finally a picture of a bridge!  Well, this is a pretty big freakin’ bridge.  It is so big that it was featured in an hour long PBS special.  It is much longer and more massive than it appears in the picture.  There are only three bridges that connect the island of Shikoku to the main island of Honshu in Japan and this is one of them.

Cheers!
michael todd

To get our new web site up all of the way, we are currently redesigning our logo.  Here is my second mock-up.  We have a very cool graphic designer out in California doing the final version for us.  As a couple of people have already asked, this is not going to be the final color. 

Being a foreigner in a Japanese company, you are required to participate in every activity imaginable (Well, get your minds out of the gutter!).  The area I was living in had the heaviest portable shrines in all of Japan.  85% of the time they are wheeled around, but the other 15% they are carried by shoulder or hoisted over head.  It usually takes about 210 men to even get if off of the ground.  Since this is a “mens’ festival”, women are not allowed to participate.  And high-school age boys are not allowed to participate because of the strength required and the danger (Someone is killed every year or two!).  The difficulty for foreigners is that our shoulders are about 6 inches above the height of Japanese mens’ shoulders, so we have to crouch over a bit which is much more difficult than just carrying the thing.  The area where I lived have taiko, or big Japanese drums, mounted in the center of the float with two people always banging away.  There are four young men who stand on the carrying poles to direct everyone and to cheer us on.  And finally there are four small men in the very top (“cloud”) of the float whose main responsibility is to keep us from bumping into things–especially wires!  I am the “big” white guy in the middle front (The spot always reserved for foreigners in Japan!).

Here is a picture of our Artistic Director, Akane’, taken late last fall.  She didn’t really want me to post this, so I couldn’t resist.  She is always smiling and really adds a lot of energy to everything we do here at Luminaire Photography.

Finally, here is another picture of myself at Franklin Park Conservatory taken by Bill Morgan.  This one has not been tweaked in Photoshop.  This is a very cool picture and many photographers use it in the backgrounds of their wedding shots at the Conservatory.  If I find out the name of the sculture and the artist, I will post it here.

For those of you waiting for our regular web site, we should have it up this weekend; I will be working with our art director, Akane’, to get up a working page.  For the moment, this blog on Xanga is the best source of information about what is going on here at Luminaire.

Most good photographers have a network of photographers they communicate, socialize and work with; I am no exception.  When I am in central Ohio, I often help out fellow photographers Eric Shinn and Bill Morgan.

This past fall I shot as a 2nd for Bill Morgan on a straight forward engagement shoot.  Bill and I also took the opportunity to take pictures of each other in action.  It seems that most photographers have very few pictures of themselves.  Perhaps that’s because we feel much more comfortable behind the lens rather than in front of it.  Bill has really progressed over the past two years.

One of our favorite activities together is going on photo safaris; this basically means we take our cameras and minimal equipment to a pre-determined location and just go from there with no rules and no goals other than to have a good time, socialize and take some great pictures.  It is amazing how people react when they see two photographers loaded down with pro gear; they assume that something big must be going on.  Ha!  It leads to some good conversations from interested parties though.

Above is a shot Bill took of me at the engagement shoot this fall.  This is at the former Japan pavilion when AmeriFlora was held in Columbus, OH, on the grounds of the wonderful Franklin Park Conservatory in 1992.  Bill added a little bit of his Photoshop skills to round this picture.

The preceding and following detail shots were taken at a fund raising event for BalletMet Columbus.

Finally, here is a group shot from Gary Fong’s Digital Intensive class that I attended back in October of 2003 just outside of Cincinnati, OH.  I am in the back row on the far left.  This is also the same day that Gary met his fiance’ Missy Carl.  I believe that this is the first picture taken of them together.  The picture was taken with Gary’s camera with a Lightsphere II attached by a hotel staff member; not bad, huh?

The class was a great experience and I met a lot of great photographers.  It was really more of an enriching experience than you might guess at first.  My next seminar/workshop will be with Scott Robert Lim up in Chicago.  Some time later this year or the beginning of next year I would like to drop down to Atlanta to attend Denis Reggie’s great four-day workshop. Denis is probably the most visible wedding photographers in the world.  I am really looking forward to it!

I have had a lot of requests to see some of my Japanese wedding pictures, so here are a few peaks.  Japanese weddings are getting more and more like weddings in the United States, but they are still different!  The actual ceremony is very short and usually not performed in a church, but the reception (“wedding party” in Japanese) is much more of an elaborate affair.  Since people generally don’t dance at receptions in Japan, there is much more of a push to have every second of the three hours totally accounted for.  They do introduce the bride and groom (sorry, no bridal party at Japanese weddings), cut the cake and have dinner; while they don’t have a prayer, have a garter toss or have a bouquet toss.  They fill the space with several costume changes, singing, speeches, elaborate candle lightings just to name a few things.  I don’t think any one in America would be shocked by the festivities, they would be would be always on alert for what is coming up next.

Here are some pictures from the first wedding I shot in Japan.  I am not going to include the picture of the twenty guys in their tighty-whities running around serenading the bride and groom.

Here are four young guests right before the reception.  If you notice there is a mix of kimono and dresses.  Everyone generally dresses very well.

Yes, I take lots of detail shots in Japan too!  This is the obi knot from the back of one of the guests kimono.  I think this material is gorgeous.

Here is the bride with her assistant finishing up all of the details after one of her costume changes.

And finally the bride out on the run way among the guests.  The groom is following right behind.  I guess I could say wife and husband at this point, but it just doesn’t seem as romantic for this young couple.

Another detail shot.  This time looking up at one of the light fixtures (chandeliers?) in the reception hall.

In case you were wondering, Japanese still love cameras; although they have gotten significantly smaller than in days past.  But I think almost as many Americans now carry cameras as Japanese do with the advent of the new, pocket-size digital cameras.  This is obviously a December wedding.  The fog was actually a nice touch, and not as nearly cheesy as it could have been fortunately.

Here are two more young guests enjoying dinner.  This was a very typical, nice Japanese meal.  Fortunately they saved a big plate for the photographer!

Finally, here is the groom with his two best friends.  If this was an American wedding, you would be looking at the best man and one the groomsmen.  This was a young couple (19 and 20), so there were a lot of young guests as well.

This was a great experience and I am really looking forward to shooting more international weddings in the future!

Things are going very well here at Luminaire Photography–even a little too well perhaps (Is that possible??).  People are contacting us faster than we can get everything geared back up, but we are doing everything in our power to provide our current and prospective clients the highest level service possible.

A bin of Tibetan prayer flags for sale.

A Tibetan prayer wheel.  You may have seen some of these if you have ever seen any of the great movies on the life of the Dalai Lama such as Kundun or Seven Years in Tibet.

This little statuette is really spectacular.  Unfortunately I have no idea what god this represents.  If you know, please post it in the comments.

OK!  I just got word from my mentor, Dr. Barbara Ito, in Japan that this is Kālī.  Kālī  exists in balance with Shiva in tantric Buddhism.  Both are opposing views of the exact same reality.

Welcome to Luminaire Photography’s Xanga blog site!  I have just returned from a one year assignment in Japan and am getting things geared back up; it is a exciting time for me!

Here are a couple of pictures taken on a small island (Ooshima) off the coast of Imabari in Shikoku.

This picture was taken at the highest point of the island.  Here sweethearts can seal their love with a lock.

This is just a simple picture of some machinery on board the ferry.

I am always amazed at how much beauty lies in some of the most mundane things in our lives.  And most of us are in too much of a hurry to stop and just look around and be thankful for all we have.

Cheers!
michael todd