Traditional Purifying Water Vessel, Kyoto, ©George Nobechi   Ever since Leonard Koren introduced the Japanese concept of “wabi-sabi” to the West in his seminal book “Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers,” the idea of wabi-sabi has become commonplace in artistic circles. While its wider acceptance in the world is a good thing, it has also become overused and often misunderstood. Here is the latest installment in my 2-minute Japanese Artistic Concept video series:       Wabi-sabi is one of the artistic concepts I introduce in my class Sunday N ..read more

Adachi Museum Garden and Background Landscape ©2019 George Nobechi Matsuyama Castle View from a Park ©2019 George Nobechi Mountains and Seawall, Taxi Stand, Setoda ©2019 George Nobechi Empty Lot, Seto Inland Sea ©2019 George Nobechi Continuing with my series of Japanese artistic concepts that can be applied to photography, shakkei is an originally Chinese concept often used in traditional gardens throughout Japan. The idea is to incorporate the existing background landscape into the design of the garden, providing a back layer to the scene that seamlessly blends with the garden enclosure ..read more

Late winter morning light in a living room, Tokyo ©2017 George Nobechi I often find myself engaged in a futile search online for a good English translation of the term: nukumori. Just about all websites translate the term as “warmth,” which is not wrong, but gosh does it ever leave out so much. In this video, Tokyo-based photographer George Nobechi, Creative Director at Nobechi Creative speaks about the Japanese concept of "nukumori," loosely transl... Much of Japanese descriptive language is like this in that it is a far more expressive language, in my opinion, than is English. Translations ..read more

Tokyo Metro, ©2018 George Nobechi During Arno Rafael Minkkinen’s presentation on Evenings with the Masters I noticed a comment from one of our participants: it said “We have lost the magic of touch in our society.” That comment was very helpful (thank you J) for I had been sitting on the contents of my next blog post for a while and this spurred me to take this up again. Since the pandemic began, I have been consumed by a fire that was ignited inside of me. That fire burns with the strong desire to face our challenges head on as a photographic community—and overcome them. Some people may conf ..read more

Contemplation, da Vinci’s Il Cenacolo, ©2016 George Nobechi It was around the time of the Renaissance that “creativity,” heretofore something only attributable to the deeds of the god(s), became part of the realms of mere mortals. Creativity, in its broadest sense, is not exclusive to the world of arts and humanities, but also applies to the sciences as well. For a time the process of creativity was prioritized in a near-global manner, with innovations and inventions emerging in the sciences and incredible works of art coming into existence both in the West and the East. But the pursuit of ne ..read more

© 2016 Jamey Stillings During his first trip to Japan, Jamey Stillings undertook a new chapter of Changing Perspectives by documenting a myriad of renewable energy projects above the country's complex urban and rural landscapes. Jamey and George's close collaboration enabled a well-researched and planned series of flights around Tokyo and Kobe/Osaka. Jamey, after many years of wanting to visit Japan, what finally brought you here? © 2016 Jamey Stillings I met Takeki Sugiyama at Review Santa Fe in 2013. In 2016, Takeki invited me to be a guest artist and keynote speaker at the Mou ..read more

© 2020 Allen Clark Allen Clark is a renowned photographer from Nashville, Tennessee, with a diverse portfolio and an outstanding list of clients (check out his bio here ). He and George Nobechi became fast friends in 2015 when they met while taking a workshop taught by fellow Nobechi Creative instructor Sam Abell, who recently appeared on Allen’s new podcast The Photo Untaken, which you can listen to here. Allen will be joining us in Japan in the near future for a workshop that is all about slowing down and learning the importance of the Japanese concept of Kodawari - a relentless devotion to ..read more

© 2020 Michael Clark When did you realize you wanted to become a photographer? When I was really young, my family and I found out I had a God-given gift for art and could draw things very nearly photographically real. From then on I was in a wide variety of art classes before I ever went to school. I spent time working in just about every art medium there is including drawing (pencil, charcoal, prismacolor, pastels, etc.), painting, mixed media, lithography, wood-block printing, sculpture, glass blowing, and photography. As a teenager I tried out photography and even interned with a local pho ..read more

© 2020 Ibarionex Perello In December of 2019 Ibarionex Perello and George Nobechi collaborated on a ground-breaking new style of photographic workshop in Tokyo, Japan.  Tokyo: Explorations in the Metropolis was a smashing success as participating photographers not only learned to identify the strengths in their respective sensibilities, but over the course of eight days were able to apply that vision more consistently to their photography, breaking away from “gotcha” street photography and typical “travel” photographs and diving deeper into poetic, layered photographs that not only conve ..read more

Cyptomeria Forest at Dusk, Kumamoto © 2020 George Nobechi It's March. Spring is around the corner and the cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom. Supermarket shelves are empty of bread, milk and eggs, as well as canned goods and instant noodles--anything that would last a while and is packaged properly is gone. The stock market has collapsed and even the best of companies have seen their values cut in half. Everyone is afraid to go outside. Most of us think we will get sick, and perhaps even die. Sound familiar? This was the scene in March of 2011 in Tokyo. At that time I think most of ..read more