Black and White
Shadows
Street Photography
What’s the Story?
Perceive light and shadow through the eyes of a master of high-contrast black and white street photography. Sunlight, stripes, tiles, architectural elements—all inspire dramatic compositions of leadings lines and repeating patterns. People occupy these geometric compositions as stark silhouettes—the human form becoming inextricable from the urban geometry.
What We’ll Shoot
Locating ideal subjects for such a specific style of street photography is half the battle. You’ll be taken to ideal spots for creating high-contrast monochrome images and coached on the ideal settings for creating the iconic effect. Feedback on composition, framing, and timing will also help you produce photographs that capture decisive moments in the streets.
Where We’ll Explore
Architecturally rich areas are plentiful in Tokyo, but we have narrowed down the course to three main locations. We begin in Ebisu, with its sprawling Garden Place painted in shadows cast by its trellised canopy. Next, we head to Roppongi for a few hidden spots before entering the impressive National Art Center to take advantage of its massive glass facade, and the shadows it casts. Finally, we’ll head to Yurakucho for an exploration of the hidden depths of the Tokyo International Forum.
729stevene –
My son and I did urban geometry with Lawrence. It was a fantastic experience. We learned new photographic techniques and explored areas of Tokyo we would have never seen on our own. My highest recommendation to both Lawrence and the tour.
phantomzone –
Wonderful workshop full of insight and tips! Laurence gave such an amazing personalized tour and shared a wealth of information around street photography and reading the light and location hunting. Really helped me to up my game. Also we got to different locations around Tokyo which was a bonus. Highly recommended.
storyofheinrich –
I’ve booked three workshops with EYExplore in April 2019, Tokyo Vertigo, Tokyo Metropolis and Urban Geometry with Laurence. With Laurence, me and my girlfriend had a private workshop for about four hours and it was a great experience I can recommend to you. You will capture great stuff, I recommend to use the b/w mode with high contrast. The results are amazing and Laurence is a very nice guy with a lot of experience and he takes the time to explain all the necessary stuff for composition and camera settings. So if you would like to improve your urban street photography skills, then go for it and book this workshop. Worth every yen! Greets from Germany.
conrado007 –
This was my one of my first experiences with EyExplore. All three workshops I have taken with them are positive and educational, friendly, professional and inspirational.
Laurence is a great guide! A bit soft spoken and very creative-he has inspired me to take more street photos on my own, both while in Japan and back in my native San Francisco. I opted for the hotel pickup—he was on time and ready to start. The walk to the metro station was well spent with a mutual intro and an overview of what we were going to do for the session.
We took photographs mainly in Meguro, Roponggi and Minato, and that was more than enough. Tokyo has so many opportunities to take photos of people and architecture that I felt we could have even stayed in just one location to shoot. I especially liked how Laurence showed me to look for patterns and backgrounds against which to take people shots—I feel that this opened up the street photo genre for me.
For this workshop, I recommend bringing a light kit (one body, one zoom lens). If your camera has an articulating LCD or performs well in bright sunlight, even better, since you will be outdoors a lot! It was very sunny during this session, and it created very dramatic contrasts in the shots that I took. We walked a lot, so comfortable shoes, a light jacket for when the breeze picks up, a head cover, sunscreen.
I really enjoyed this workshop, and I feel it added to my skills as a photographer.
Orchid F –
I spent a fantastic 4 hours with Laurence on this workshop. It turned out that I was the only one that day so I had his undivided attention. Laurence has a great eye for seeing patterns and shadows and he took me to places that I would never have found on my own in a few days in Tokyo. Even though the day was overcast and the shadows weren’t strong, I still got some very good shots as Laurence knows where to go. In several places where few people were walking due to the time of the day, Laurence acted as the model for me. Even though I have been doing photographing for a long time, I still learned a lot from Laurence ‘s insights. His workshop is invaluable, well worth the price as it saved me a lot of time searching for places when I had limited time. I have no hesitation recommending Laurence and his workshop to any photographer who want to photograph a different perspective of Toyko.