You came all this way.
Be in the photos.
A short session with a photographer who's spent his life documenting people rather than posing them. For families, couples, and travelers passing through Tokyo.
Book a session
A short session with a photographer who's spent his life documenting people rather than posing them. For families, couples, and travelers passing through Tokyo.
Book a sessionYou're in Tokyo for a handful of days and the schedule is already full. This takes thirty minutes.
That's the whole trade: half an hour out of one afternoon, and you go home with photographs of the trip that you're actually in. It's the surest way I know to keep a few days from turning into a blur.
| Package | What the walk is | Length | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mini Session20 edited photos · 24 hours | One neighbourhood, three or four different backdrops inside it, all a few minutes' walk apart. In Shinjuku that's Hanazono Shrine, the lanes of Golden Gai, then the middle of Kabukicho. | 30 min | $199 |
| Full Session with Film80+ photos · 1–2 min film · 24 hours | The same walk with room to breathe, and a short film cut from the day alongside the photographs. I've spent twenty years making documentaries, so the film is the work of a filmmaker rather than a photographer with a video mode. | 60 min | $299 |
| Engagement Session80+ photos · 24 hours | A full session for couples, the way I shot them in New York. Two neighbourhoods, time to change clothes, and enough hours that you stop noticing the camera. | 2 hours | $500 |
Neighbourhoods Shinjuku, Harajuku and Meiji Shrine, or Shibuya. Somewhere else in Tokyo that matters to you is $50 more.
Prices are in US dollars. A $50 deposit holds your date and the balance is due on the day. Cancel more than 72 hours ahead and the deposit comes back. If it rains we move the session to another day of your trip, and if you've already flown home by then the deposit comes back too.
A bound album of your session, sequenced and printed rather than left on a phone. Available with any package for an additional fee. Ask when you book.
A longer walk through the city with a guide who happens to be photographing the whole way. Half a day, built around what you want to see. Get in touch for details.
Before Tokyo there were sixteen years in New York, eight of them spent photographing couples. Central Park in every season, the cobblestones under the Brooklyn Bridge, a taxi on a Wednesday afternoon.
The two-hour Engagement Session is that same work, moved to a different city.
I've spent most of my working life trying to catch people when they aren't performing for the camera.
I'm Kosuke. I'm a documentary filmmaker, and for eight years before that I shot weddings and portraits in New York. I lived in the States for about twenty-five years, sixteen of them in New York and the rest in Hawaii, so we can talk through everything in English and you won't have to guess what I'm asking you to do.
This started from a simple observation: most people leave Tokyo with hundreds of photos of the city and almost none of themselves in it. So I bring the same eye I used on wedding days and documentary sets to a short walk through the city. No forced poses, no studio lights, just you and where you happen to be standing.
A trip ends and the details start to blur. But a photograph of who you were with and how the light fell that afternoon in Tokyo tends to outlast all of it. That's the part worth half an hour of your trip.
Tell me your travel dates, how many of you there are, and which package sounds right. If you're not sure about the package, leave it blank and we'll work it out together.
Or write to me directly at info@tokyominiphotosession.com