Tuesday 5 October 2010

A Special Japanese Portrait





  Kensuke Shiota- a great friend...



During my first week at Kansai Gaidai University I met many people with whom I started to hang out. My fear of meeting new people disappeared the moment I went out for dinner with people I only knew for a few hours…



at Kansai Gaidai Houseclub






This is how I met Kensuke Shiota, a KGU student who practices Judo  at university.  I went to visit Caleb, a ryugakusee who started practicing judo this term; after the practice I had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of all his teammates. I was curious about Judo and I asked few questions…This martial art was completely new to me and therefore I thought of visiting more often.  Thus I asked the members if I could come and take pictures of their future practices. A few weeks later, they invited me to a judo tournament.  I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to get to know them better.




Judo Tournament


 winning the match

Kensuke, my model for this post, is a handsome, funny, intelligent guy who always cheers people up when he makes jokes in American slang. I admire the fact that he is ambitious and he concentrates a lot on his club work.  It was a wonderful experience to see him performing at the tournament, which was different from the regular practices at Kansai Gaidai University clubhouse.





practicing before the judo match







Going to the practices on a regular basis allowed me to understand and observe his personality and behavior towards his teammates and international students. Moreover, after the competition we all went out and had a great time. Kensuke is always happy when I ask him to take pictures of him. He sometimes jokes that he would be a superstar after reading this post. Hope he will be happy about this text too… :)



Winning the prize






not "a real" portrait but still funny...

3 comments:

  1. You have some really nice shots here. You seem to capture the many sides of him. It seems as though the quality of your photos and your subjects should make your blog go viral. Then both you and Kensuke will be superstars. I hope you will include his portrait in your photo exhibition.

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  2. Thank you for your comment!
    I enjoy spending time with the Judo team and when I have the opportunity to take some pictures I always do so.
    I already though of including his portrait in my exhibition since I think he poses quite well :)!

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  3. I enjoy the sincerity in both your descriptions and photos. He really looks like a friend. I find really transmitting what you feel through photography kind of the point. Many photographers miss this point for the sake of technical innovation. Keep it up!
    PS: good lighting and framing ;)
    by anonymous a.k.a. luca

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