Mar 8, 2017
Shinjuku
Victor GR-C1
(You might recognize it as the one Marty had in Back To The Future.)
Videographer / Photographer: Shoichi Aoyama owner the rental darkroom Amateur’s Labo
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Vietnam
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Czechia
seen from France
seen from China
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from France
seen from United States
Shinjuku
Victor GR-C1
(You might recognize it as the one Marty had in Back To The Future.)
Videographer / Photographer: Shoichi Aoyama owner the rental darkroom Amateur’s Labo
Ripping up a VHS tape on 8/6/23
2 camera shoot. Which camera looks better?
(the tape was harmed in the name of art)
(I'm sorry, don't soccer lady me)
On September 13th I posted a shot of my English pal Thomas Beswick with his Nishica N8000 and JVC VHS camera as he was getting ready to shoot Vogue Fashion’s Night Out in Omotesando on the 12th.
The result of his evening out can be seen in this 2min music video that he shot on honest VHS (no iPhone app here) and edited himself. It’s awesome. He has also started a website for his VHS videos- tokyovhs.com (and a matching youtube channel) that you should check out.
While he was shooting VHS he was also snapping away with his 35mm film 3D Lenticular camera- those shots are the black and white still interspersed in the video. The GIF animated results can be seen on his tumblr here.
Listen, Thomas does this all on his own. Like me he’s a full time English teacher in Tokyo. We work 40 hours a week NOT doing photography. That’s why with time constraints like these one might think that there’s absolutely no reason to do any of this kind of tough-stuff- unless though, you love to and you just need to. So for him to do it as well as he does is fantastic.
It would be easy for him to shoot a Canon 5D and not Super 8mm movie cameras, it would be easy to use the VHS iphone app and not a real VHS camera, it would be easy to shoot a Ricoh GRD and not a 35mm black and white film through a Contax T2- but these “un-easy” choices are due to a love of the process and look- and also due to a hunch that it’s precisely through the process that something else unexplainable is added to the work itself.
If you need video work shot in Tokyo and want a look that’s NOT the current standard of Canon5D / f1.2 DOF soft-music-floating-crafty-fonts thing that everyone is doing with video please contact Thomas and see if you can work something out. And if you’re a production studio, straight-up hire him because you’ll not find as laid back and technically capable yet absolutely pretension-free fellow to work with, anywhere. He’s the real thing.
Thomas Beswick website / tumblr / flickr / youtube / vimeo