Indie Spotlight: Koichi Miyase

Each Monday, we’ll highlight one indie photographer whose body of work deserves special recognition. Please enjoy their photography here, and make it a point to enjoy the rest of their work on their website.

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams. A good photographer has the natural ability to use any type of camera that are at their disposal and compose good shots.

Journey of a blue umbrella

This week we shine our light towards the land of the rising sun. Koichi Miyase is a Creative Director by profession and an amateur photography by passion.  Koichi  currently resides in the ancient capital of Nara, Japan. (Established in 710 as Heijo-Kyo, Nara is home to a number of historic monuments, including the remains of Heijo-Kyo’s Palace and various temples dating back to the period of over 1300 years ago when the city flourished as the capital of Japan.)

Journey of a blue umbrella

Kit:

Koichi has a few of cameras in his arsenal which comprises of  a Canon EOS 60D DSLR, a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX30V and a Ricoh GR DIGITAL III compact camera. Despite having an impressive collection of  equipment, Koichi prefers to take impromptu photographs using the same equipment used daily by millions of casual photographers – the iPhone 4S with its native 8MP (3264×2448 pixels) rear camera.

Journey of a blue umbrella

Whenever he sees something captivating, he instantly composes an image in his mind before taking out his iPhone to do his bidding and share it with his friends (and to the world) via Instagram. Now, the 4S camera isn’t exactly the greatest – it’s zoom function will destroy whatever hope you have for a good shot so Koichi will always try to avoid using the iPhone’s zoom function. If he needs to take photos which doesn’t allows him to walk anywhere near the object, he will then utilize his Sony DSC-HX30V’s 20x optical zoom capability.

Journey of a blue umbrella

Workflow:

Since most of his photography happens outdoor, Koichi shoots entirely with natural light before loading his images into various photo editing applications (Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop CS5 & Nik Software Suites) for processing. As for his subjects taken via the 4S, he does it a bit differently – most of his processing is done on the 4S itself. There is an abundance of photo editing applications available on the App Store and most of them are really good if not decent. Koichi uses a myriad of applications (Photo Effect Studio, PhotoForge2, Snapseed, Iris Photo Suite, etc) to edit his photos and sometimes a combination of applications in order for him to achieve the right set of effects.

Journey of a blue umbrella

Tips, Tricks and Techniques:

Koichi doesn’t have any specific techniques that he uses when doing photography. He will just follow his feelings when he see an object worth capturing, and execute those images composed in his mind. However, he has deep interest in trying every new image/graphics editing applications available for the iPhone. He believes that in his style of photography, image editing applications are the key to his power of expression.

Origami structure

Lessons Learned:

Koichi has found a (workable) technique to take what he’s calling a super-low-angle photography with an iPhone. He will first turn his back on a subject, spread his legs open more than the width of his shoulders and shoots from between his legs. Sounds like a weird technique, but he believes if your body is flexible enough, you can shoot an angle close enough to the ground easily.

Long long passage

Inspiration:

Koichi Miyase admires photographic work done by:

• Hiroshi Sugimoto for his “Time” themed photography and strict concept as well as philosophy.
• Wolfgang Tillmans for his sharp viewpoint to cut daily life of the modern society.

Woody town

What’s Next:

Like every other photographers, Koichi dreams of shooting the Earth from space. Alas, that is a far-fetching dream which would take either a miracle or a warehouse full of gold to make it happen so Koichi would settle for a chance to shoot some icebergs at the Arctic and Antarctic. He would also like to try to pick a single theme and do a series of photographs based on that theme.

Sunday’s runner

Links:

Koichi Miyase can be found online on three of his social media network sites; Instagram, Tumbler and Facebook.

Sunday’s walker