Social media is a powerful force that’s getting more and more influential with each passing day. It provides avenues for the average person to communicate with masses of people in a matter of seconds. It breaks news and adds an element to the modern business model that many are still attempting to grasp.
Recently, San Francisco-based photographer Carl Costas came to me with a perfect example of the power of social media. Taro Arai, renowned sushi chef and owner of Mikuni Japanese Restaurant Group was recently named Lord of Rice by the global rice industry. Taro posted photos from inside the airplane hangar on his social media feed shortly after he was awarded the honor. Carl then reached out and began a conversation with his marketing team, arranged a shoot, and produced images that will be used to promote Mikuni in all of its eight Northern California locations.
And what better place to shoot the Lord of Rice than atop a mountain of rice? So that’s exactly what Carl did. Everything was carried out very meticulously as Carl dealt with logistic challenges:
Taro is a very busy person, and crews were loading a steady stream of semi trucks with the rice as we were setting up for the shoot. I had one chance to get it right. Taro was gracious with his time and very open to creative direction. I buried him up to his neck in the stuff and even had men use a front-end loader to create a shower of rice. Fortunately the driver had a soft touch. One of the trickiest parts was pouring enough rice to make a heavy curtain but not so much that anybody got hurt. Taro and I both found out the hard way that too much rice dumped from a bucket truck stings like crazy.
Carl shot with the Phase One IQ 260, which he picked up in San Francisco the morning of the shoot.
It’s apparent in the images that Taro is quite an energetic subject, which Carl said was his favorite part about the shoot:
I’m nothing if not forward thinking and optimistic. I launch into projects with the higher goal always in the front of my mind. Challenges, no matter the gravity, pale in comparison to what I know I have to do. The part I enjoyed most about this particular shoot is far and away the chance to put such a fun and energetic character in front of the camera. There isn’t a time I can remember when doing something like that resulted in nothing less than a great image.
Carl has a second shoot brewing that speaks to Taro’s self-appointed title of Chief Dreaming Officer. Carl said that Taro is “not surprisingly” — all in.