Photos taken in Antarctica by digital artist and astrophotographer KAGAYA have been getting lots of love on the Japanese internet—and we can certainly see why!
photography (Page 9)
If you want to become a geisha, maiko, samurai or courtesan, gender is no barrier at this Asakusa photo studio.
Split-second timing leads to amazing results when photographing the alley cats of Japan.
Check out one Japanese Twitter user’s adorable vision of what her home would be like if Eevee actually existed in real life!
Humans aren’t the only animals that benefit from a little professional styling and photography. Cats, cute as they already are, can up their game too!
With all the pretty lights, there are a ton of photo opportunities during the holidays. Give your pictures a unique look with this simple technique!
Black and white photos of the Philippines from as far back as the late 1800s look shockingly modern with just a splash of color.
Show off your prettiest historical self at this Nara photo studio where you can dress like the Edo Period’s high-class courtesans!
If you’ve ever wanted to turn back time and step into the clothes of a well-dressed geisha, a pipe-smoking courtesan or a sword-wielding samurai warrior, we’ve found the perfect place for you!
After the sun sets in Japan, new landscapes emerge, with twinkling lights on land and at sea creating night scenes so stunning a “night view summit” is held every year to rank the best sights around the country.
While cityscapes continually take the top spots year after year, there’s one talented photographer who’s drawing our attention away from the twinkling lights of the city and towards two surprising new locations: factories and airports. While the places might seem ordinary, the images are the most stunning we’ve ever seen.
Believe it or not, our crack Japanese-language reporter, Mr. Sato, has been struggling with his self-image recently. In recognition of all his hard work, we decided to spring for a makeover for the poor guy, and not at a pet grooming salon like we did before.
No, this time, Mr. Sato is getting the full-on host bar treatment, complete with a photo session commemorating his transformation into a guy so hot women would pay money just to sit and drink with him.
Though it may not seem like it, Japan is actually a fairly sizable country, with a lot of ground for sightseers to cover. It’s so big, in fact, we imagine it’d be difficult to a regular tourist to see all of it.
But what if you grew up in Japan and spent all your free time traveling around the country? Well, in that case, we bet you’d get to see a whole lot more of it, and for one Japanese Internet user, that exactly describes their life—but with one very cool addition. It turns out this anonymous traveler loves to take photos of cats at their various destinations.
Check out the awesome and adorable photo album below!
We never stop talking about the different ways that people pay tribute to Studio Ghibli. Artists and designers create some amazing work that stems from the themes and ideas that the famous Japanese animation studio put on the silver screen.
One photographer from Thailand was struck with Ghibli-fluence after watching The Secret World of Arrietty and wondered, “What would life be like from the perspective of miniature people?” Take a look after the jump to see the secret world of tiny people not named Arrietty.
When we wrote about Samurai Studio earlier this month, we have to admit we were more than a little excited to head down and try it out ourselves. Hey, who doesn’t occasionally (or constantly) wish they could run around dressed in Japanese armor with a couple of swords strapped to their side?
Samurai Studio opened for its 10-day limited run today, and we were literally the first in line! In case you’re on the fence about going or just want to see what the process is like, you’ll want to check out our full report, complete with lots and lots of photos.
Barring the most delusional individuals, cosplayers don’t really think they’re becoming their favorite anime or video game characters by putting on a costume. Cosplay is all about playing make-believe, and recently more and more cosplayers are willing to share the “make” portion by revealing the silly process by which they create a cool photo, including all the embarrassing slouching and off-camera assistance they get from their friends.
Anyone can pick up a camera, but it takes a certain level of artistic talent to produce the kinds of photos that you’ll see below.
The work of Japanese photographer Takashi Yasui has been exploding in popularity on major Western websites recently, and for good reason. Yasui has a knack for capturing tranquil moments of time in both the natural world and urban cityscapes in his native Japan. In particular, he’s a master at manipulating light during dawn and dusk, adding an almost otherworldly quality to his vistas. Now take a moment to sit back and relax in order to completely appreciate the scope of Yasui’s craft.
Beauty ideals can be strange things. In Japan, the concept of hattoushin, a perfect 1:8 head-to-body ratio and the idealisation of kogao, or small face, reign supreme.
This obsession with creating a slim face has brought about some weird and wacky contraptions. If you don’t have time to stick to a routine that includes face rollers, cheek-lifting masks and facial exercises, there’s now a quick fix at hand: a lens that slips over your phone camera to give you that kogao look.
There’s something about abandoned buildings, such as Nagasaki’s famed “Battleship Island,” and the ghost skyscraper in Bangkok, that is so creepy and mysterious that we just can’t get enough of them. One Shanghai-based photographer recently journeyed out to the nearby Zhoushan Archipelago to document the remains of a once-prospering fishing village, now abandoned and being consumed by nature.
While being an anime or manga artist takes a huge amount of artistic talent, they do at least have the advantage of complete control over the mediums in which they work. Making one person taller than another is just a matter of drawing longer lines. Want more people in a crowd scene? Just pencil them in. In a 2-D world, everything, even laws of physics like gravity, exists at, and can be bent to the whims of, the creator.
Cosplayers don’t have it so easy, though, and trying to recreate their favorite characters and scenes under real-world constraints can be a tricky task. These clever costumers have figured out some simple yet ingenious techniques for getting around those obstacles, though, and another behind-the-scenes peek at how they put their shots together reveals that sometimes an awesome final product only comes after some pretty silly-looking cosplay setup.