MiuKIMONO photographer

Our photographer is one of the few Japanese photographers working at a kimono rental shop.
His main profession is editorial design for photo magazines and commercial publications such as women’s, automobile, and game magazines.

 

In tourist areas, many photographers can be seen.
What sets him apart lies in his “starting point.”
While most photographers began their path through camera equipment, I entered photography through digital image correction (retouching) on a computer.

 

What does “magazine level” mean? It means reproducing colors accurately and appropriately.
In magazines, if the color of a published photograph differs from the actual product, it becomes misinformation.
Publishers receive product samples directly from manufacturers, and therefore, photos must faithfully represent the product’s true color.

 

Photographing from an editor’s perspective means selecting and balancing what to show, what to omit, and how much space to leave — creating a consistent visual story.
An extreme example of inconsistency would be a smiling portrait of someone touching a statue next to a sign that says “Do not touch.”

As an editorial designer, I have handled countless image data shot by professional commercial photographers for publishers and advertising agencies since the film era.
The “eyes” trained by seeing an immense number of photographs have shaped who I am today.

 

As an editor, I have conveyed the intent and composition of projects to photographers.
I believe that “photography” consists of two processes: the “pre-shooting stage,” taking photos with a camera, and the “post-shooting stage,” editing the data afterward.
In the first, I apply my editorial sense of structure; in the latter, my skills as a designer.

 

At the beginning of my design career, during my editorial years, I worked with film SLR cameras, and about twenty years ago, when I became independent, I began using mirrorless cameras.
At that time, I gave up once, unable to fully understand camera mechanisms.
Now, however, it feels as though the evolution of the camera has finally caught up with me.