
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.

(A late notice for those who are not following me on Facebook or Twitter.) The Fukushima crisis has not ended yet. Everyday, there are updates about the nuclear accident in the news. The news are less worrying than before but more detailed information are progressively coming up: tainted beef meat, hot spots in the Kanto [...]

A few pictures of the Lodz festival exhibition catalog, featuring my work about contemporary houses in Tokyo, 東京の家 (Tokyo no ie). This work is still in progress and as you may notice, new pictures were shown in this book. For those interested in Tokyo architecture, I highly recommend Tokyo metabolizing exhibition currently displayed in Tokyo, [...]

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 [...]

Protests are really not common in Japan, except on three occasions : – Workers on May 1st – Residents against US military bases in Japan/Okinawa – Right-wing nationalists (almost every week) Now we can probably add anti-nuclear power plants protests to the list. Since the quake and Fukushima accident, there has been almost a demonstration [...]

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

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, [...]

Two pictures of mine in this month’s issue of Ulysse magazine (France), about Japanese food. One of the picture was taken at Rengejo-in temple in Koyasan and is part of my work “Koyasan, birthplace of Japanese buddhism” (2010). The other one is a portrait of Shuzo Kishida, 35, the youngest Michelin-three-starred-chef in the world. I [...]

Lucky Belgians! For those who missed our story about Konkatsu (Japanese marriage hunting) in last month’s issue of “Elle Belgique”, you can now read “Voyages Voyages” magazine and our story “24h in the skin of a buddhist monk in Koyasan”. The text is by Delphine Lorin, even her name does not appear in the magazine [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Zoom Japon’s october issue is out! The main feature is about Akira Kurosawa’s 100th birthday this year, with a cover picture I took in front of the current exhibition in the National Film Center, Tokyo. Zoom Japon website. National Film Center exhibition. More pictures about Akira Kurosawa and this exhibition.

My first picture published in Japan! As a “Photo of the week”, in the current issue of Tokyo based English-speaking magazine Metropolis. You can even vote for it on their website. The house is called “On a cherry blossom” because the main room overlooks several cherry trees. The architect is Junichi Sampei / A.L.X. This [...]

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 [...]

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.

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. [...]

I had an assignment this week for the French newspaper “Le Monde”, published yesterday (Dimanche 15 aout – lundi 16 aout), about the international far-right meeting in Tokyo. This nationalist fiesta was organized by Japanese party Issuikai, headed by Mitsuhiro Kimura, who invited European far-right parliament members and in particular French leaders of the “Front [...]

In May during an assignment for a French TV program, I had the opportunity to take pictures of J-Pop band AKB48. This band is composed of three teams (A, K, B) of 16 young japanese girls. AKB48 idols perform every weekday in their own theater on the 8th floor of Don Quichote supermarket in Tokyo’s [...]

After Jakucho Setouchi, the nun and her cellphone novel, I had another assignment last december for the French magazine Télérama, published in this week’s issue. Once again a story about Japanese literature, following in the footsteps of the writer Akira Yoshimura (1927 – 2006). And once again a nice meeting with Setsuko Tsumura, the writer’s [...]

A picture of mine was published in one of last month’s Bloomberg Businessweek issues, a US weekly economical magazine. The article deals with the consequences of BP disaster on bluefin tuna. The picture was taken during the night at Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. Tsukiji market is the biggest fish market in Japan. For my [...]

The new issue of ZOOM JAPON, the French free magazine about Japan, is out. After the japanese detective novel last month, this month’s main feature is about close relationship between mangas and movies. I was lucky enough once again to make the cover picture. Very different than last month’s issue : no murder, no screaming, [...]

In this month’s French issue of Glamour : a story about fast fashion in Japan and the Tokyo Girl Collection, a bi-annual giant fashion show, accompanied by Japanese Pop concerts, open to 25 000 anonymous fashion victims. Unfortunately I didn’t know any models or singers, but I think the girls really enjoyed the show… More [...]

Zoom Japon is a new free magazine about Japan, published in France. I had an assignment for the main feature of the first issue : Japanese detective novels. We had a lot of fun with Michael Goldberg and Japanese model Kana Shiraki, especially when the neighbours walked by and saw Michael holding a knife and [...]

It is always a bit frustrating to discover a 1/4-page picture when having expected a double-page spread. But, well, the experience was really great so why am I complaining? Last November, I worked on an assignment for Focus, a german weekly magazine. The magazine asked me to take pictures at Kotoen, a kindergarten and nursing [...]