Where to begin!?
Yes, it’s a LOAD of pictures. But I guess when you’ve been trying to edit 9000 pictures down to around 1700 and tweak the white balance and colour for each, they start to grow on you. What has inspired me more than anything are the smiles in all the pictures. This team are a happy bunch and it makes life a LOT easier to edit 9000 smiles.
So every year for the past 5 years or so I have been the photographer for the Tensyouren team. This basically makes me a member of the team which requires me to be where the team is to document the two days the event runs.
Part of the requirement is to make sure that everyone’s picture gets taken both days. When you have 110 members that’s not easy. Especially when they are waving their hands all over the place the entire time :-)
With so many people to shoot and each group having their own little routine I need to work my way up and down the whole team several times during one session ensuring I capture each group. This requires I duck and weave my way through the team as they dance past and then rush back up past them to catch them and do it all over again. This is straight forward on wide streets but really difficult on the narrow streets.
Then there is the choice of lens.
I only have one camera body so I either stick to one lens for one session or change half way through. On long wide streets the process is less stressful because there is more time to capture what’s going on as well as space to move. But on narrow streets changing a lens can be impossible due to the lack of space. All you need is one spectator to push past and you’ll see a lens bounce down the road.
The most difficult part about the whole process is the huge difference there is in capturing a narrow or wide street. Because of the wide / narrow street variation and the speed at which the event happens, gaining experience in lens choice, which angle works, how to dodge the spectators and dive up and down the team as they dance becomes a multi year process. And the event is only once a year over two days so there is no other opportunity to gain experience.
The whole event has such an amazing atmosphere and the team is so enthusiastic it makes any issue a non issue.
So I leave you with too many photos as proof that the Tensyouren team had a fantastic time at this years Koenji Awa Odori.
