I have been working for Jazz at Lincoln Center for many years now and this one was one of my most favorite photo shoots. Jazz at Lincoln Center has great music shows nightly but not even great and legendary musicians can compete with these cute little musicians! Wow, that was a fun shoot. I was so happy to see them printed on their beautiful marketing materials, including these post cards, as well. We might see one of these little kids from this photo shoot perform at Jazz at Lincoln Center in the future. Can't wait to see them! |
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This year during the United Nations General Assembly Week, I had the privileges to photograph some of the events. This one was by New York University's Center on International Cooperation's program with United Nations, Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies. Photo L-R: Timor-Leste Foreign Minister Dionisio da Costa Babo Soares, Uruguayan delegate, Irish Deputy Prime Minister (Tanaiste) Simon Coveney, Namibian President Hage Geingob, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde, Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Tunisian delegate. This photo opportunity was followed by a panel by Swedish State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Annika Söder, Oxfam Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, and CIC Director Sarah Cliffe, about the importance of multilateralism and multinational goals. Please do go to the CIC's website and their blog post about this event to learn more about what the event was and the meaningful and important activities CIC does. |
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I am a photographer, but like many other photographers, I love other Art forms, too. I like going to Art museums and see Fine Art work. I like going through magazines to see different designs. My father is a jewelry designer in Japan and my parents exposed us, my sister and I, to various Art when we were growing up. |
My father always tells me, jokingly, but half seriously, he wasted money on taking me on those Art trips. My sister remembers everything so at least he did not waste money on her... Anyway, long story short, I started working for Newport Jazz Festival in 2010, as an event photographer. I took photos of their events, including the festival itself, side events and Gala parties. After a few years, George Wein, the founder of the jazz festival, asked me if I would design their program book. I actually said no, at first, because I had never done that before. He said, "Ayano, I want you to gather photos you shot in the past a few years and use them for our 60 year anniversary program book. And can you design it?" He said it so easily, but I was like, "Why is he asking me to design it???"
I contemplated for a while, but I decided to take his offer. And after I took his offer, I started studying how to design. |
The images on this page is from Newport Jazz Festival program book 2017. |
So, everyone loves instagramming now. When I work for various corporate events, I see many people, including people called "Instagram Influencers", taking photos and posting on social media. This is something new that started only about 2 years ago. These pretty ladies (Seinne Fleming on left and Bibiana Julian on right) were at a corporate event by Nokia. |
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In my last blog post, I talked about some strong women leading international organizations in non-profit world. I also had a great opportunity to photograph Women in Cloud (Google Cloud) event, organized by AgencyEA, and meet female leaders in the corporate world. I have worked for multiple events by Google and every time, I get impressed by their effort to try to make an unbiased society. Google is of course one of the very top in the corporate world, and influential even to the world outside of the corporation. It seems that they utilize the privilege to make the world an unbiased place. Someone would argue there are so many more male engineers than female engineers. And that is why they have this great events around the globe, which is another favorite of mine, Women Techmakers by Google. I photographed this event in NY this year and the last year and met so many intelligent and fun women during the event. Google staff working on this event are also many female hard-workers. I even met some Japanese women at the event, which is REALLY rare, working for corporate events in NYC. The world is still far away from being equal. However, it is for sure that there are people who work hard on making it come true. |
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As a photographer, United Nations is one of the dream places to work for. I have never worked directly for United Nations yet, however, I worked for this very inspiring non-profit organization, EAT forum, to photograph their event in United Nations HQ. What an honor to meet Deputy Secretary General, Amina Mohammed (left), in her office and photographer her. It is not just because the International Women's Day was coming up soon. Strong women run the world! Gunhild A. Strordalen (right) is the founder of EAT forum. Please do check out her website, EAT forum. Her effort to try to make sustainable global food system to provide healthy food for everyone on earth can be leant on their website. One of the young leaders from Women Deliver, another inspiring non-profit organization I mentioned in my last blog post, also joined the panel discussion during the EAT lancet event. I am so grateful that I get to meet, photograph and learn from great people like them. Yes, women run the world!! Here is the photo gallery from this event. |
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Since I started my photography career, I have been working for multiple non-profit organizations. The very first non-profit organization I worked for and still does is Jazz at Lincoln Center. I also work for Newport Jazz Festival Foundation. I have worked on some projects by New York Philharmonic and New York City Ballet as well. Because of my interest in music, that came naturally. As I expand my business, I started to work for other non-profit organizations. Every time when I work for non-profit organizations, I am really impressed and fascinated by their passion for their own missions, whether if it's for music and dance or environment or climate or energy or women's rights or healthy eating. This photo above was photographed during the "Women Leading The Way" event by Women Deliver last year, that took place during the United Nations General Assembly Week. I am working for them again this coming March. Their effort to bring equal rights to women around the world can be learnt from this website by WOMEN DELIVER. EVENT PHOTOS FROM WOMEN LEADING THE WAY I give discounted rate for some occasions, like long hour / multiple day event, or for regular client, etc, but for non-profit organizations I have special rate even if you are the first time client or have a short event. If you are reading this and in need of a photographer for your non-profit organization's event, please refer about reading this blog post when emailing me. |
My new year's resolution has to be re-starting this blog! I don't know how many times it was my new year's resolution but I am doing this again!
Here is the new year card to you.
Last time, I introduced about Ms. Akemi Suzuki who suffers from MS and still lives in Ishinomaki city, which was badly damaged by the tsunami. When I met Ms. Suzuki, I truly realized you cannot know the facts unless you actually go there. When the earthquake happened, every TV station in Japan was broadcasting about the earthquake every minute for about a week straight. When I visited Ishinomaki city after 10 days, what I saw there was totally different from what I watched on TV. Although visiting there left a traumatic darkness in my heart, I feel it was definitely necessary. After two years have passed, I visited Ms. Suzuki and Mr. Matsumura, and again I realized how much I did not know about them. If you are interested in visiting Japan, I highly recommend visiting the damaged area, including Fukushima. It could be life changing experience for you. (Please be sure that you do not go to highly contaminated area by radiation.)Mr. Matsumura, who "just went back home", had to face various contradictions, and started his mission to fight against all the unreasonable issues. If you would like to join his mission, please go to his website. He needs funds to keep feeding the animals. If you need help sending money to him, I'd be glad to help. 前回このブログで、多発生硬化症を患いながらも石巻市の仮設住宅に住む鈴木明美さんについて紹介しました。鈴木さんとお会いした時にも痛感したことなのですが、百聞は一見に如かずとは本当です。いくら震災関連のことをテレビやインターネットのニュースを通じて聞いていても、実際に震災直後にあの惨状を目にしたときの衝撃は全くの別物でした。2年も月日が経って、鈴木さんや松村さんにお話を聞いて、また更に自分が感じていたこと、思っていたこと、知っていたことと違う印象を受けました。被災地を実際に肌で感じてみるツアーのようなものも行われているようなので、もしまだ行ったことがなければ訪れてみることをおすすめします。こちらはJPA(日本難病・疾病団体協議会)が主催して行った福島ツアーのレポートです。(福島へ行く際にはくれぐれも線量の高いエリアには行かないように気をつけてください。) うちに帰ろう、と富岡のうちに戻って来た松村さんですが、数々の矛盾や不当な扱いに遭遇して、闘いがはじまりました。もし参戦したい方、松村さんのウェブサイトを覗いてみてください。募金も集っています。 |
飢えて死んでいった牛を見てあなたはどう思いますか? What do you feel by seeing this cow starved to death? |
今回の東北への撮影の旅は企業メセナ:GBFund様から助成をしていただきました。仕事でもなく自費で旅をしていた私のようなカメラマンにとっては本当にありがたい限りです。ありがとうございます!! This project is supported by GBFund. |
What if M9 earthquake happens in your country? Are you ready for that? People who have experienced the disaster are the only ones who can tell you how to educate the society and get ready before it comes. This story is about Mrs. Suzuki who suffers from MS and still lives in the badly damages area. (Sorry for my English!) (http://digital.asahi.com/articles/list/prometheus.html) |
Because sometimes it is not easy to tell how ill she is, she had difficulties getting into a barrier-free temporary home. She applied for the barrier-free temporary home for disabled people, however, because she does not always need wheel chair depending on her condition, the city assigned a regular temporary home for Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki. The regular temporary home had a lot of steps and no grab bars. When her condition is bad, she had to walk on all fours to move around in the house. After about 7 months since the earthquake, she heard that the government is funding for fixing houses for people with disabilities and went to the city hall to ask to add some grab bars in her house. The office clerk told her that she had to pay for it. After talking with them again and again, in January on the next year, they agreed to install the grab bars. Later she found out her home was the first one where the city installed the grab bars and the city even came to take photos of it as a record. Mrs. Suzuki’s friends with disabilities had their bars installed by volunteers or by themselves because the city rejected to help. One day Mrs. Suzuki wondered how the barrier-free temporary home is, and went to see it at her friend’s. What she saw there was not something she expected. There was a slope so the wheelchairs can go up, however, the door was narrower than the width of regular wheelchairs and the chair cannot enter the house unless the person gets up and fold the chair. Mrs. Suzuki went to the city hall again to talk with them because she knew there were lots of people with disabilities who need help. After a few months, they told her they would send some nurses to people who need special care. She was glad to hear the news thinking about the people who have been asking for special help and elderly people who have been living in collapsed homes. |
When the nurse came to her home and said “I am in charge of patients around this area but I didn’t know you, with such heavy disease, live here”, Mrs. Suzuki was shocked. She is registered as MS patient with disability level 1 (most severe) to the government and totally thought the city knew about her, too. After talking to the nurse she found out that patients with intractable disease are organized by the prefecture, not city, and the prefecture was not sharing the information with the city. During the 311 disaster, a lot of people with disability lost their lives because, due to the privacy law, each city did not share the list of the patients with non-government volunteering groups, who were eager to save them. Although the privacy law should be kept within the government except for emergencies, knowing the troubles caused during the 311 disaster, she thought the situation had become better but she was wrong. Although Ishinomaki city, where she lives, had the worst damage because of the tsunami, and the city was not working correctly right after the tsunami, the situation should have gotten better if the government learned from the disaster. Mrs. Suzuki wishes the government reconsiders about the situations of disabled people in case of emergency from the viewpoint of the people with disability. |
As businesses in the town gradually reopens, people in the area started to find jobs. Mr. Suzuki also found a job although it is totally different type of job from what he used to have before the tsunami. I wondered about job hunting for people with disability and asked. “When people in this area started to look for jobs, companies around this area decided to have some openings specified for victims of the disaster. However, there was no openings specified for disabled victims. If there are two candidates with and without disability, companies would naturally hire the people without disabilities” she said. Before the 311, a lot of people with relatively light disability had jobs. “Because their disability is light, they do not receive much disability pension and they need to work.” This issue of people with disability is also outcasted under the massive troubles caused by the natural disaster.
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今回の東北への撮影の旅は企業メセナ:GBFund様から助成をしていただきました。仕事でもなく自費で旅をしていた私のようなカメラマンにとっては本当にありがたい限りです。ありがとうございます!!This project is supported by GBFund. |