Father/Son Photo Shoot: Tetsuo and Issei
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The Wild Ride of parenthood  --  Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 320 — map & image datanearby photos
The Wild Ride
of parenthood

Last week I did what I suppose is my first purposeful portraiture photo shoot. I've done plenty of impromptu portraits (such as these or these), and I've found the use of the word “impromptu” frees me from the worry of having to be good: it's impromptu, so hey, if I come away with something nice that nice, but it's not expected.

This time was different, meeting with the express intent to capture some father/son photos. But the subject matter, a friend Tetsuo and his younger child, Issei (一星), made it difficult to get a bad picture. A general rule that seems to make sense to me is that when doing family stuff, so long as the kids are in a good mood, the camera can do no wrong. Issei was in a good mood.

Master of the Force 1 year 2 day old Issei  --  Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 130mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 720 — map & image datanearby photos
Master of the Force
1 year 2 day old Issei
Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 102mm — 1/800 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image datanearby photos
Still Learning this whole “walking” thing  --  Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 135mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image datanearby photos
Still Learning
this whole “walking” thing
Attack  --  Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image datanearby photos
Attack
Quintessential Fatherhood Scene (differs little from a quintessential motherhood scene, but hey, it's Father's Day)  --  Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 800 — map & image datanearby photos
Quintessential Fatherhood Scene
(differs little from a quintessential motherhood scene, but hey, it's Father's Day)
Tetsuo  --  Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image datanearby photos
Tetsuo

How I met him is sort of an interesting story. Last year on day three of Kyoto's Gion Festival, I mentioned the “exceedingly pleasant” experience I had when I stopped at a Spanish restaurant's stall selling ham and beer. It took six months, but I finally got to go and actually visit the restaurant last December, and had a nice chat with one of the cooks, who prepared my food right in front of me at the bar. It was Tetsuo.

After chatting a while and enjoying his personable nature, we were both surprised to discover that not only did our kids go to the same weekend English-study group, but that I had photographed his wife and younger kid at the group's Christmas party earlier that day. I showed him the photos on the back of my camera, which I still had with me. What a small world.

When looking at the picture of his boy (who must have been six months old at the time) and him, I could see the clear resemblance, and had been wanting to photograph them together ever since. I finally got my chance last week.

Flowers  --  Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 125mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 900 — map & image datanearby photos
Flowers
Happy  --  Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 110mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image datanearby photos
Happy
Juggling Parenthood is a balancing act  --  Takaragaike Park (宝ケ池公園)  --  Kyoto, Japan  --  Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 360 — map & image datanearby photos
Juggling
Parenthood is a balancing act

His daughter was in school at the time, but now that I've got this one-kid experience under my belt, I think I'm ready to try a two-kid (two-parent) shoot, so maybe next week....


All 4 comments so far, oldest first...

These are really delightful. You did very well. I hope Tetsuo was happy with the result; it is hard to imagine how he could be anything else.

— comment by GJC on June 17th, 2012 at 5:07pm JST (11 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink

We had black and white film when I was in Japan. And 120 size for a Richoflex, twin lens camera, similar to a Rolliflex. When color came out in 35mm size I bought a cheaper camera and finally a Canon. But we didn’t trust the color and were shure it would fade so hardly anyone used it. Besides that we had to send it to Hawaii to be developed and printed.

I took a lot of photographs. I can no longer remember what the actual colors were like when I was in Japan but it was different from anything I was used to from Ohio.

I have your site bookmarked and come nearly every day to see what you have posted.

— comment by Abraham Lincoln on June 17th, 2012 at 10:26pm JST (11 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink

Your photos are so good !
Especially I love the “Master of the force.”
Issei-kun’s eyes and his little hands look like to control the distant ball completely.
It’ sooo cute !
I’m waiting for your next photos.
(Is my English OK…?)

usamaru from Osaka,Japan

うん、簡単に分かる、私の日本語より上手です。—Jeffrey

— comment by usamaru on June 17th, 2012 at 10:54pm JST (11 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink

Hey Jeff,

Really nice work you have going on here with your camera. Honestly, I stumbled upon the website while I was looking for your EXIF tool. Dude – that is one nice little tool you have put out there. Such an amazing thing for us photogs to go back and re-construct the whole image in all the technical details, location coordinates and what not. Many thanks to you!

Happy Shooting.

_Rohan Gupte
http://rohangupte.com

— comment by Rohan Gupte on June 21st, 2012 at 1:23am JST (11 years, 9 months ago) comment permalink
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