Lena Ihara
Fine-art and editorial photographer working between Tokyo and Reykjavík since 2014. Long-form series about artificial and natural light at the edges of the day, printed as pigment editions and shown in Tokyo, Reykjavík, Gothenburg and Amsterdam.
Biography
01 / 05
I photograph the hour when places stop performing — fog before the ferries run, sodium lamps after the last train, ice the day before it lets go.
I grew up in Sapporo, where winter arrives early and stays. I studied printmaking before photography, which is probably why I still think about a picture as something that ends up on paper rather than on a screen — every series I make is planned around the print it will become.
Since 2014 the work has moved between two cities. Tokyo gives me the sodium nights, the wet crossings, the studio in Yanaka where the portraits are made. Iceland gives me weather I cannot argue with. Both places taught me to wait; most of the frames in the portfolio are the fourth or fifth morning of trying.
Editorial commissions run alongside the personal series and feed them. I take a small number each year, usually in winter, and I would rather do four assignments properly than twelve in a hurry.
- Based
- Studio Yanaka, Tokyo · Grandagarður 16, Reykjavík
- Representation
- Gallery Kasumi, Tokyo · Hafnar Gallery, Reykjavík
- Series
- Half Light · Sodium · Cold Static
- Clients
- Lumen Press, Quarterly Review, MARGIN, Hearth, The Larder, Halide
- Languages
- Japanese, English, conversational Icelandic
How a shoot runs
02 / 05Enquiry
You send the location, the window you have in mind and what the pictures are for. I reply within one week with a firm quote, an availability window and an honest note on whether the light you want actually happens at that time of year.
Date held
A one-page agreement and a 50% deposit hold the window. For field commissions we add a scouting day and I start watching the forecast for your dates from about three weeks out.
Shoot
Studio portraits run to a schedule; field work runs to the weather. If the light does not arrive on a field commission we move to a hold day at no extra fee — that flexibility is the whole reason the field package is priced the way it is.
Contact sheet
A full contact sheet reaches you within 72 hours of the last frame. You mark selects; I flag the two or three I would fight for. Nothing is graded until we agree on the sequence.
Delivery
Final files arrive in 10 working days for a single day, 20 for a field commission — layered TIFFs and web-ready JPEGs, colour and monochrome. Archives stay live for seven years, so re-licensing later is a single email.
What clients say
03 / 05“We asked for a cover in February in the Westfjords, which is close to asking for a miracle. Lena went out five mornings and brought back the one frame that made the issue. She never once made the weather our problem.”
“The contact sheet arrived two days after the shoot with her three picks already marked. That kind of judgement saves an editor an entire week. We have booked her every winter since.”
“I sat for a portrait expecting the usual hour of being told where to put my hands. Instead we talked, she made about forty frames, and the one she chose is the only photograph of me I have ever liked.”
Enquire
04 / 05Tell me what you want photographed and when.
The more specific you are about the place and the light, the more useful my reply will be. Every enquiry gets an answer within one week, including the ones I have to turn down.
- studio@lenaihara.com
- Tokyo
- Studio Yanaka, Taito-ku
- Reykjavík
- Grandagarður 16
- Reply time
- Within one week
Enquiry received
Thank you — your enquiry is with the studio. You will have a reply within one week, including a firm quote and an honest note on the light you can expect in that window. If it is urgent, email studio@lenaihara.com directly.