Portrait photography for a Tokyo actor

Portraits for actor, Kohei Sonoda

An essential part of the media and promotions pack for any actor is a portfolio of decent portraits. Back in summer of 2018, I was approached by Tokyo-based actor, Kohei Sonoda to produce a set of location portraits.

First part of any shoot is scouting the locations and as I now Tokyo well, I have a few favourite spots for shooting portraits.

On my recommendation we decided to shoot in Asakusabashi, which has some quaint backstreets, a few cool bridges and some great afternoon light.

There are certain bits of gear I’m never without on a portrait shoot. For the Hasselblad that would be an 80mm f/2.8 lens. For my Nikon the 135mm f/2 DC, a 35mm f/1.2 for the more ‘environmental portraits’ and something long. Knowing Asakusabashi well, especially it’s main street underneath the railway tracks, I knew that the 300mm f/4 would give us some great cinematic shots.

We did a three hour session, which was plenty of time to move around all the spots we wanted to shoot in, have a few drink breaks (as it was hot) and take things at a sensible pace.

Kohei was very happy with the spread of shots we got.

If you are an actor, singer, performer of any kind or just need some nice portraits to promote yourself or your business, drop us a line by visiting our contact form here.