Japan Photographer | Blog | Jérémie Souteyrat » press

Publication :: Le Monde (Fr)

Jérémie S — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:21:04 +0000

My portrait of Hisayuki Suekawa, Shiseido ‘s CEO, was published in Le Monde newspaper on November 30. It was shot at the top of the Shiodome tower in the Shinbashi area. Suekawa-san was not really confident when I asked him twice to step back closer to the window…

More pictures of Hisayuki Suekawa.

Publication :: La Vie (fr) – Fukushima, nuclear refugees

Jérémie S — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:53:07 +0000

My assignment for La Vie, French weekly magazine, about Fukushima nuclear refugees. It was published on 16 pages in two issues. The first issue deals with the evacuation area, around the 20km perimeter and in the newly evacuated villages (Iitate, Kawamata, Minami Soma, Katsurao and Namie). The second part is about nuclear refugees, in Tokyo and in shelters of Fukushima prefecture.

1/2 :

2/2 :

More pictures and captions are available for both nuclear refugees and the evacuation zone.

The magazine was interested in a multimedia piece as well. Every interviews I did were recorded and some were included in this video (available in French here) :

Publication :: Businessweek (Usa)

Jérémie S — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 03:39:10 +0000

A 100Yen shop picture of mine published in Bloomberg Businessweek this week.

More pictures of 100 Yens shop.

Publication :: L’Express (Fr)

Jérémie S — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:16:59 +0000

After having spent much money for Christmas, announcers are broke. For the first issue of the year, editors have to add extra contents for their magazine not to look too skinny. Good for me, as I had this assignment for “L’Express”, a French weekly news magazine. They published a special issue about creativity in Japan, as the first issue of 2011.

French issue cover (left) and International issue cover (right)

This was a long 3-week assignment, 25 pages about youth, fashion, design, architecture and food. I shot hundreds of pictures, mostly portraits. The picture editors chose two pictures from my archives for the two opening double pages spreads, the first one was taken at the famous Shibuya crossing and the second one in the Koyasan Oku-no-in cemetary.

The cover picture was much more recent, as it was captured on the 30th of December, my last day of shooting and the day before the editors put the magazine to bed. Actually it was the last but one picture I shot for the whole assignment. I spent the afternoon searching for a “beautiful, fashionable and young Japanese girl in front of a beautiful background”. I went by bicycle to Harajuku, Omotesando and Shibuya, the best spots ever for this kind of assignment. I didn’t shoot much on that day, searching in the crowd for the most beautiful girl in town. Sometimes I was able to stop them for a short time, sometimes I just shot them without asking. Here are two other pictures of this “cover shooting” day and the uncroped version of the final picture :

In the coming weeks I will publish a few posts about this assignment and more generally about architecture, food and design. Stay tuned.

Publication :: Elle (Be)

Jérémie S — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 02:47:18 +0000

The story on Japanese marriage-hunting (Konkatsu) covered last June by the journalist Delphine Lorin-Etuy and me has been published by “Elle Belgique” in its October’s issue.

Konkatsu is an abbreviation of kekkon (marriage) and katsudo (activity), which literally means “marriage hunting”. Several factors seem to push young women, mostly, to konkatsu:

- In 2010, wedding is considered by half of them as “the best life-time employment” and Japan sees a revival of traditional values due to the economical crisis.

- In Japan, 98% of children are born from married parents (compared to 48% in France). If a Japanese woman wants a baby, she has to find an husband first.

- Men are more and more difficult to “catch”. The number of soshoku-dansei, or “herbivores”, is increasing: these men prefer not getting engaged with anyone.

Japanese matrimonial agencies propose many kinds of socializing events like a trash-collecting activity on Miura beach (Kanagawa prefecture), which we have covered in this report. A school named “Infini” also offers private lessons for young women to learn how to bow in front of the future parents-in-law.

Almost half of the pictures chosen by Elle Belgique editors are stock photographies, that I took in different times and locations before this assignment. A few extra pictures of the assignment are displayed below.

More pictures of the Japanese Konkatsu here.

Publication :: Libération (Fr)

Jérémie S — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 03:45:03 +0000

After two recent assignments for Le Monde, I had my first picture published in Libération last week. On top of being one of the major newspapers in France, Libération is famous for the quality of its photographic choices (generally speaking, not talking about myself !…).

The assignment was a portrait of Takehisa Yaebashi, called “Papa Prius” in the article. As a senior car engineer, Mr. Yaebashi led the developement of the first Toyota Prius. At 67, he is now retired from Toyota company but is still active as an independent consultant.

The portrait was shot at the 41st floor of Shinjuku’s Park Hyatt Hotel, in the “Peak Lounge”. While Mr. Yaebashi was being interviewed, I had time to check out the place and pick up four shooting spots which could be interesting. In most pictures taken during the 15-minute shooting, Mr. Yaebashi stood in front of mini-forest of bamboos, which was quite a relevant image for the “green” impact of the Prius. Then, while Mr. Yaebashi showed us some car pictures on his I-pad, the idea of the “Earth” pictures came to my mind (see below).

A few shots were then made near the window – which turn to be not really interesting, I had only a couple of minutes to shoot the last two locations : at the top of stairs and in the armchair. The very last shot in the armchair seemed to be the good one, as it was chosen by the picture editors at Libération.

What about you, would you have made the same selection ?

To me, the choice of pictures reflects a kind of debate between “Prius is a green car” vs. “Prius is a car so it pollutes anyway”…

Story can be read here (French only).

More portraits of Takehisa Yaegashi.

Publication :: Le Monde (Fr)

Jérémie S — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:39:16 +0000

Receiving two assignments from French newspaper Le Monde within three weeks is not something usual. For several months, Le Monde has only been requesting stock photographies about Japan from me. Then in August, I was asked to shoot the international far-right meeting in Tokyo and, in September, a portrait of Misato Mochizuki, a Japanese music composer living in Tokyo and Paris. Indeed, Misato Mochizuki will perform at the Paris Autumn Festival on October 18, 2010, and her portrait will appear in Le Monde supplement about the festival.

Because of the time difference, getting assignments from French newspapers is really difficult. Picture editors in France only know a few hours before the publishing deadline whether the articles will go out with a picture or not. Usually they start looking for images around 10:00 am in Paris. That is 5:00 pm in Japan (in summer) which is too late to cover any event here. Luckily (mostly for them), news agencies like AFP or AP can usually provide pictures of the event afterwards. But then all newspapers get the same images of the event, so where is the diversity of the viewpoints in that case?

Fortunately, pictures editor sometimes know their needs a few days in advance, which was the case here. I was contacted by Le Monde at 10:00 pm on a Friday night, the appointment with Misato Mochizuki was scheduled on the following day. I had then plenty of time to send the pictures to Paris before the next Monday. What a luxury.

So, as a freelance photographer in Japan, what should I do to get published in European newspapers ?

Solution#1 : Waiting for calls…

Solution#2 : Shooting events all day long then trying to sell the pictures in the evening. I actually stopped doing that since it is too much time spent for little results.

Solution #3 : Working in collaboration with the Japan-based writers (correspondents). I just come back from an assignment for Libération, to be published next week.

Follow this link for more pictures of Misato Mochizuki.

Publication :: Tsugi (Fr)

Jérémie S — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:48:27 +0000

次 (tsugi) means next in japanese. Tsugi is also a French magazine about electronic music and new trends. In the issue of this month, a six-page portfolio of my pictures of the Fujirock festival 2010.

Publication :: Zoom Japon (Fr)

Jérémie S — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:49:07 +0000

The third issue of French free magazine Zoom Japon is now available in France but also online.

This assignment was about Tokyo Tower (東京タワー) losing its Japan’s tallest tower rank. The new Tokyo Sky Tree (東京スカイツリー), located in Oshiage area of Sumida Ward, will be completed in 2011 and will reach a height of 634m. Since March 2010, the Sky Tree is higher than the Tokyo Tower.

The cover picture was picked up from my archive and was shot from the Mori tower (Roppongi Hills).

For the first inside photo, I used the Tilt function of a 24 mm Tilt-Shift lens to reduce the depth of field.

And lastly the picture of the Sky Tree was taken at dusk from a bridge over a small canal with other fellow photographers. Old Japanese photographers are always aware of good spots to shoot from… The picture has been seriously cropped and lightened.

For more pictures of the Tokyo Tower and Sky Tree, this way please.

Publication :: Les Echos

Jérémie S — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:40:00 +0000

Les Echos, French financial newspaper, is publishing today an article about Japanese women and their difficulties to find or keep a job after having a baby.

The author is Michel De Grandi, Les Echos’s correspondent in Japan.

The picture editors choose a picture of mine for this article, the Shinjuku red-dressed girl, who embodies youth and dynamism.