FAQ - Portrait Photos

Outside, unless a Studio Shooting package is requested. Please review our Pricing Page for Studio Shooting packages.

Tokyo, Yamanote Line Loop (green line)

The location for basic portrait photography can be anywhere within central Tokyo on or within the Yamanote Line loop (green line on map) or out east of Tokyo towards Chiba Station. We can go outside our basic service area but it will incur an extra fee for time and the client will be responsible for any travel expenses incurred. Note that we do offer a small discount (¥3,000) if you are willing to come to Chiba Station. If you don't have a specific place in mind, we can offer some suggestions of where we can shoot.

Some people worry about clouds or cloudy days but actually cloudy days are the best days to shoot! Clouds filter the sunlight to give a softer light. Of course bright sunny days are fine too but on sunny days in most cases we will shoot in the shade. As for rain... (see cases below):

Forecast is for rain on the shoot day: If on the night previous to the day of the shoot the weather forecast calls for rain you have three options, A.) Request a reschedule for a different date, B.) Book an inside location (we can help find a place, see Instabase.jp for inside locations to rent by the hour, Japanese language only) or C.) Chance it and hope it really doesn't rain. We can try to find a place with cover but cannot guarantee it. Payment will still be required.

If you want to reschedule please contact us on the night before the shoot and let us know. We will try our best to match schedules but we already had set aside the original booking date so any extra rescheduling dates will be at our convenience.

It starts raining on the day of the shoot: Please try to contact us at least 4 hours before the planned shoot (ie, before we leave). We will reschedule and try our best to match schedules but we already had set aside the original booking date so any extra rescheduling dates will be at our convenience.

It starts raining during the shoot: We will try to find a sheltered place to take the photos or if it's just very light rain we may use umbrellas. It may be possible to find and book an indoor space "on the fly" but this is not guaranteed.

Please understand that we may have other work set at a specific time after your shoot. If you are late, the time will be taken away from the shooting time and the agreed fee will be paid in full. If our schedule is not tight for the day, we may be able to be flexible to some extent but sometimes we must end at the specified time. It's always better to show up early and maybe grab a coffee to wait a bit rather than rush and possibly be late for an appointment.

What you wear depends on what your target audience is, so wear what your target audience expects. For example, if your target is head-shots for a modeling agency you'll want to wear fashionable/semi-fashionable clothing. On the other hand if you want a portrait for your LinkedIn profile, a suit or business style clothing would be best.

We do advise to avoid black (unless black fits your image; i.e. Heavy Metal Band shots) and complicated/bright patters. Generally natural fabrics like cotton and wool that don't shine work well.

Since we are shooting outside, most likely there will be no place to change to a second outfit. It's easy enough to put on/remove a vest/jacket so that is a good option for a second look.

Here is the flow:
1.) All the photos taken on the day of the shoot will be viewable online 1-3 days after the shoot. The amount of photos depends on the package but generally 30-50 photos per hour will be taken.
2.) You can take as much time as you like to select the photos you want as "Final Photos" (the amount of "Final Photos" depends on the package).
3.) After you let us know the "Final Photos" you want, we will do some slight editing to enhance them. These photos will be available for download in high resolution digital .jpg format in another 2-3 days.

We do offer "Rushed Same Day Service" for an additional ¥5,000 fee if our schedule allows for it and you are able to quickly work with us by selecting the photos quickly.

Our Portrait Photo packages allow you to use your photos for private and or personal reasons. You can give them to agents, friends, etc. and or post them on Instagram, LinkedIn, FaceBook or Twitter. However, they cannot be used for "Commercial Purposes", this requires a different license/package. "Commercial Purposes" would be something like using your photos to sell a product or re-selling them. If you are unclear about the Portrait Photo license, please ask.

Your photos will be available for download for 1 month. After that you can contact us to see if we still have them but we do not guarantee that we will still have your photos. We have shot video and photography for many many years which requires too much storage space and older files must be deleted. Please make back-ups of your downloaded photos.

We can do most of these things but these things are not included in our standard fee. For any extra "Heavy Editing" we charge ¥5,000 per hour, minimum 30 min. It all depends on exactly what you want done and although some things can be done relatively quickly, others are quite time consuming. Generally we can give a ball-park time estimate before starting.