It was a wonderful moment to have PSC Alumni Takeshi Miyamoto visit our shores from Paris, to attend the Photobook Making Workshop, here at the college.  
We seized the moment to catch up with Takeshi to ask him about the international photography career he has forged since graduating.

Takeshi has travelled from Paris especially to attend the Photobook Making Workshop with book designers- Teun van der Heijden & Sandra van der Doelen from Heijdens Karwei in Amsterdam. 
This workshop attracted many prominent international, national and local photographers to PSC over a five day intensive program in December 2018..

Welcome back to Melbourne and PSC Takeshi! 

Tell us how you ended up living in Paris from growing up in Japan?

Thank you. It is very special to be back here and to see many familiar faces.

After graduating from PSC, I worked in Tokyo for about 4 years working for travel magazine, and I thought it was a time to discover new things in my life. I never lived in Europe before, and I was interested in the diversity of art & culture in Paris , so I lived there for one year and ended up staying.

Do you get to work around Europe with your photography?

Yes. It's a career that has given me the opportunity to work and travel anywhere. I have an agent that gives me work throughout Europe and Japan. It might be shooting an editorial, a fashion show, portraits for cinema interviews, shooting for travel and culture magazines, catalogues etc.

Can you share with us your personal work as well and the themes you like to explore?

My photography explores a variety of subjects including gender, body, nature and cultural diversity – which aims to connect them with a theme of universal beauty. I find living in Paris has given me greater creative freedom to explore this theme.

What are you working on at the moment?

I'm working on a project called 'Spectrum' - a series of male portraits in which I search the femininity within them. Every person has a spectrum of energies that travels between the masculine to the feminine; there is no binary distinction in a human energy. This is my long term theme coming from my personal background, and I've been working to publish this series as a visual book.  

What have you enjoyed most about the workshop with Teun and Sandra?

I have learnt so much from Teun & Sandra's Photobook Workshop, especially about how to sequence my collection of images into an interesting storytelling experience with every turn of the page.
I've really enjoyed meeting other participants and seeing how they tell their stories through their images. It has been an inspiring exchange of thoughts and ideas.

I notice you have self-published before, can you tell me briefly what you enjoy about making books?

There is a strong tradition in photobooks in Japanese photography, which I really enjoy. I see it as the most effective way to communicate your personal ideas.
I also like the long-term , hands on process of making a photobook from the concept to print. It's giving birth to a creation!
 

See more of Takeshi's work on  IG @taktaktaktak. | Web takeshimiyamoto.com