Discovering What You Can Do with Just a Camera: Photographer Gaito

 

 

 

Everyone Loves Photoshop!!

Whether you’re a cosplayer or a photographer, you’ve probably used Photoshop at least once. It’s really an amazing program where you can do all kinds of things. I mean, just look at these photos!!

 

Model: Sakura (@ruunasakura)

 

Model: Sakura (@ruunasakura)

 

 

…Or Not. No Editing at All?

These photos were taken by Gaito. His talent for turning impossible things into reality through technology and photography is truly amazing!!

 

“Um…these aren’t actually edited…”

 

Huh?? You’re too funny. No matter how you look at it, these must be photoshopped. 

 

“Well, it’s true that I’ve retouched some of the skin and stuff but…that’s about it.”

 

Huh….?

 

“Everything else was done within just the camera.”

 

Re…really…?

 

“Really.”

 

Well then…let’s interview the immensely talented photographer Gaito!

 

Model: Sakura (@ruunasakura)

 

 

 

The Magic of Multiple Exposure Photography

Okay, allow me to ask just one more time. They’re not edited?

 

“They’re not. I just used the camera’s ‘Multiple Exposure’ mode.”

 

Multiple Exposure Mode?

 

“Put simply, it’s taking multiple photos over the same film. In my case, I do it quite a lot per photo, three to four times.”

 

Oh! I didn’t know there was a function like that. So if I used that mode I could make fantasy-like photos like yours?

 

Model: Sakura (@ruunasakura)

 

“Um…maybe (laughs). This special type of photography involves overlaying photos one on top of the other, so it’s a lot harder than expected to get the colors to pop. The key is to keep the colors in mind and not let them fight with each other. Sometimes when I mess it up it turns out all purple or green or something.”

 

Fighting colors…Oh, I see. Overlaying multiple photos on one top of the other can cause the photos’ hues to mix and create a  new color, so you have to think of that when taking them. It’s something that requires experience to master.

 

Model: Sakura (@ruunasakura)

 

 

 

Starting with Night Photography, Not Cosplay

“I first started shooting with Multiple Exposure Mode about three years ago. I saw someone else’s multiple exposure photo and thought it was amazing. I had already been doing photography as a hobby for six years then.”

 

And as it turns out, Gaito hadn’t had any inkling of wanting to do cosplay photography when he started.

 

Model: Sakura (@ruunasakura)

 

“When I was shooting factories at night, a friend of mine who did cosplay asked me to shoot them, and that’s how I started. Until then I hadn’t even done portrait photography, so cosplay photography was really hard.”

 

Gaito couldn’t seem to be able to take photos the way he wanted to, so he delved into the study of cosplay photography. After relearning everything he thought he knew about cameras and how light falls, he gradually got better. 

 

Model: Sakura (@ruunasakura)

 

 

 

The Subject is the Cosplayer, No Matter what Effects You Use

“I did individual photoshoots about four or five times a month. The way smoke coils…well, ‘coils’ doesn’t do it justice. I often say it paints ‘the background. But anyway I learned skills like using smoke and how to diffuse the light little by little.”

 

A magical battle, swirling flames…Gaito’s photos are like magic themselves. 

 

“But what I realized is that effects are not the core of the photos. I can’t make the photos on my own. The cosplayer is the subject, so lately I find myself asking them for more and more for impossible things.”

 

Gaito is often referred to as “Gaito the Demon”, because he’s especially particular about the posing in his photos.

 

Model: Sakura (@ruunasakura)

 

“Apparently I ask for a lot of difficult stuff…like having them hang from a bar or really use their core to pose. Another photographer at the studio I use once told me to stop being so hard-headed (laughs).”

 

Gaito has taken a lot of photos that make us wonder what kind of pose the cosplayer had to hold in it, but perhaps they are the result of both Gaito’s skill and the cosplayer’s motivation and determination.

 

Model: Raina (@Rai_Na_cos)

 

Model: Raina (@Rai_Na_cos)

 

The Event from Hell

Even though Gaito is the one often called a “demon”, he has also had hellish requests made of him, too. 

 

“I once had a 23-hour-long photoshoot. There were seven or eight cosplayers and I was the only photographer. Of course I had to do them one-by-one.”

 

What?! Wait a second…Nevermind coronavirus safety recommendations, we think we would probably collapse from sheer exhaustion.

 

“I don’t remember anything after 2 a.m. Apparently I fell asleep.”

 

Naturally! And the one who had to keep going for 23 hours wasn’t the cosplayer but Gaito himself. Who organized such an event from hell?

 

“M!kë.”

 

…So the real demon was M!kë all along.

 

 

 

Happy as Long as People Think They’re Edited 

Lastly, we asked about Gaito’s goals for his special type of photography. 

 

“Instead of aiming to win prizes for my photography, I’m more interested in trying to figure out the limits of what I can do just with a camera. If the people who see my photos think they’re edited, then it’s a win for me!! I want to keep taking photos like that.”

 

Model: Kyon (@kyon_3021)

 

 

 

• Gaito

Twitter：@gaito_photo

 

 

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