Having had a lot of fun at last years HyperJapan, I was keen to go again this year at their larger venue.  My only complaint about the show last year was there were just waaaay too many people, both in the queue and inside the smaller Olympia venue.  This year they traded up to Earls Court so there was more room to move about (unless you were hungry at lunch time) and everything was on a single floor which made things flow a bit better.

As last year, there were loads of little stalls and shops plus a sake tasting area (all you can drink for £20 I believe…dangerous at any rate so we avoided it) and a sushi competition.  You can’t really make it out in the shot of Mt. Sushi above, but there was a pool of water with some smokey dry ice at it’s base.  Far too glamorous to actually eat in any event!

We wandered around for about an hour looking at all of the weird and wonderful things, and even contemplated having lunch but the queues and cramped quarters of the food hall turned us off a bit.  It’s really too bad as there were some mouth watering smells and the dishes we did see looked delicious.

After we were more or less finished browsing we stopped to watch the Frills & Frolics kawaii fashion show.  It consisted of about a dozen or so guys and girls dressed up in various types of kawaii fashion followed by some interviews at the end.  We didn’t stick around for the interviews as we’d already been standing in one place for about 45 minutes (the seating for the stage area was limited).

I’m still planing on doing a kawaii photo shoot at some point in the near future, though I’m struggling to find a willing model.  Most of the girls who own this sort of fashion aren’t actually models, so it makes sense.  We’ll get there in the end though.

We had a good time again this year, though I didn’t spend nearly as much time there as I did last year.  I think that’s in part due to the fact that my nerdy cohort Robert is no longer in the country so there was no need to spend hours drooling over books, movies and toys.  I have the same complaint this year as I did last year in that it just seemed so packed.  I suspect they’re just victims of their own success as there aren’t many larger venues to be had in London.  At least there were no queues when we arrived around lunch time this year.

It’s doubtful that I’ll attend next year, but that’s more due to the fact that I very likely won’t be living in central London by the time it rolls around again.  We’ll see though!

There are a couple more images in the gallery, but not many.

Danni and I made the lengthy bus ride from West Brompton to what was worryingly describable as a ‘ghetto’ on Sunday.  Fortunately, the ghetto was just where the bus terminated and London’s lovely Richmond Park was just down the street and around the corner.

We don’t make it out this far that often, so we had a purpose in mind.  A lot of my fellow photographer friends come to the park in order to photograph the wildlife like the many, many deer that can be found here, but we were after a doe of a different kind.

Danni was kind enough to get dolled up and pose for a few photos in the chilly winter air.  She was a real trooper as it was only about 3°C and she hadn’t actually picked an overly warm outfit for the day.

All three images were shot roughly the same way.  One great, big softbox sporting 2 of Canon’s 580 flashes as a main light, and a single, unmodified flash (another 580) as a rim light.

Normally this is where I’d link to the remaining images in the gallery, but as it was so cold we only took about 15 shots in total and quite a few of those showed my poor wife visibly shaking from the cold.  You’ll have to make due with 3 images I’m afraid!

I’ve finally gotten around to making a quick post about the course I took in July.  It was a week long outing with Ross Perkins of AClassPhotos, which encompassed a lot of different things.  Lots of off camera lighting like I was hoping, but also posing models, location scouting and a healthy dose of photoshop training.

It was a great trip as well as a great learning experience.  Prague & Brno are really cool cities and I’m pretty sure you could spend your whole life there and not run out of places to shoot.  Plus, it’s always nice to be able to get out in a city with big cameras, lighting stands & gear and not get chased off by the police or security guards.  Some days, London can really suck for things like that.

Those are a few of my favourite photos from the week…the rest can be found here.