Bonjour à tous!
Last 3 years I have been spending my Christmas and New Years time in France, and since 2017, my first photo shoot of the year has been with the same person - with Hiroyuki Kanzaki, a fashion stylist and buyer from Tokyo. I used to travel around and shoot street fashion for him - in Paris, Milano, and LA - by approaching to stylish people, taking photos, and asking where they got their items from. It was such a fun project for almost 2 years. Even now I stopped shooting street fashion, when I come to Europe, I notice that I am checking out people’s outfit and think, “I’d definitely go say hi and ask for a quick snap”.

Hiroyuki used to be an actor in theaters, and now a fashion stylist and advisor to anyone who is interested in fashion, improving the impression for business, and for media, etc. He has been also writing articles on Note - if you read Japanese, his articles are fun to read :) He has been also the stylist for a TV personality Kon Arimura these years. It’s very nice to see how Hiroyuki expands his horizon to various gigs since I first met him.

This time, we decided to shoot around these three areas - Le Bon Marche, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and Champs-Élysées. Le Bon Marche is a big department store, and one of Hiroyuki’s home-base in Paris. Saint-Germain area has nice Parisian backgrounds, and Champs-Élysées has beautiful fashion districts and the view of Eiffel Tower.

Fun fact from his Facebook posts - every year when he goes into boutiques in Paris, he gets “Bonjour Madam” (“Hello Ma’am”) from shop persons at least once lol Maybe it’s because he is not as tall as French guys, or he has relatively longer hair, or too stylish…? But when I read his feed about this, I wanted to include some of his more masculine side in the selections. To do so, I suggested how to look more confident, masculine, and professional by adjusting how to stand, where and how to put arms, what to do with jackets, etc., and I think we created some good “dude” photos this time!

I like creating something together with my clients. Talk to them what they are looking for, how they want to present themselves, and add some of my 2 cents in the shoot too. This kind of team work is a fun process when it comes to shoots with other professionals :)

Below is the collage of some of my favorites from our shoot this year - you can see who Hiroyuki is, and how he works with his clients when he is working as a stylist/advisor. I hope you enjoy it!