A most unexpected circumstance arose last Sunday: I was allowed to take pictures of the hotel in which I work. Conrad Tokyo is a very lavish place where employees are servants to the guests at all times, and this is further reinforced by Japanese culture that tends to take customer service rather seriously. So just as common sense says that attempting to breathe while submerged underwater is a bad idea, also here it is simply understood that employees don’t engage in silly activities like snapping pictures of their workplace. I can’t even come into the hotel on a day off and commit the crime then . . . because it’s still a crime. Well, a blatant violation of common sense, at any rate.

 

However, instead of wedding ceremonies, Sunday was host to a “bridal fair,” which was like an open house for wealthy couples to visit the hotel, be doted upon, and be persuaded to get married at Conrad Tokyo themselves. The two banquet halls where specially set up for this occasion, and the hotel requested Atelier ONE to photograph them. (My hotel holds its nose so high in the air that brand names shared with other hotels can’t reach it, so the branch of Sato Photo Co., Ltd. located here is disguised by an exclusive heading.) My boss kindly handed me a digital, single-lens-reflex camera with a $1500 lens and let me have some fun taking whatever pictures I wanted in the banquet rooms. I would be lying to say that I don’t wish my job normally included this kind of activity.

 

I left that day with a few pictures I’d taken of the smaller banquet hall on my computer—that is, the normally unobtainable photos had crossed the point of no return to going up on my blaug. It’s unfortunate that I don’t have more to share, but every shot is one more than common sense says I’m allowed to have.

 

Pretty grand. The larger banquet room upstairs is even grander, though.

 

 

Flowers floating in midwater. I’d say that there’s more glass than any other material on these tables.

 

Ah, a sample wedding dress and cake. How about the mannequin look for your wedding?

 

The wedding cakes here are ridiculous—they almost look like models of mountains with terraced farming. (I’d still love to bite into one, though.)

 

 

 

Sato Photo isn’t a gigantic company, and so running into the president and his family isn’t rare like I’d expect. He and one of his sons were at my photo studio on the morning of the bridal fair, for example. They showed up when my boss was attempting to get a DVD player and a projector to play a demo video of how great Atelier ONE can make its customers look. (We outsource people from a company called Aetus every week to create videos of the weddings.) But no matter what my boss tried, and the president’s son after him, the video just wouldn’t appear on the screen.

 

They left to seek help, and I started playing around with the Japanese projector while the big cheese sat back and watched. In about 30 seconds it was all working as intended. Sure, it was neat to do the right thing in the president’s presence, though I doubt it counted for anything. But it made me wonder, as I have before: Why have I not pursued some kind of study or job dealing with computers and related technology? I think so literally and, perhaps, logically that programmed devices are naturally easy for me to manipulate. While my boss is on the phone asking for help, I don’t hardly have to think to make the machine work. Surely there is some use for this way of thinking beyond the ability to treat people like Spock or Data, right?

 

These kinds of thoughts came into my mind also because I was weary from the previous day of shooting four weddings. Conrad Tokyo hosts up to four on a given Saturday or Sunday, which is actually less than other hotels. Atelier ONE has just one studio photographer, though, so it ends up being a lot of work. Setting up lights and cameras, taking them back down, trying to remember methods and techniques, coming under the invisible pressure of needing to speedily please wealthy people who are spending a small fortune on their wedding—it’s tiring work. Sometimes I just have to stand around in guest territory for awhile, which of course means the only thing permissible is a rigid, formal-looking, uncomfortable stance that makes me regret having feet.

 

 

I call it a blessing even in the face of the company’s holiday system, which I think is kind of stingy. Employees get a maximum of 105 days off per year—that’s counting weekends, holidays, vacation days, whatever. (I’m not certain whether sick days are included.) Over 28% of the year is time off, which maybe sounds like a lot. But if there are 52 weeks in a year (there are, in fact), and if two days per week are non-working days, then 52 × 2 = 104 regular days off. So Sato Photo employees are allowed two days off per week and one additional day per year, which works out to be New Year’s Day or something like that. If they want to take off more than two days in a row, then they must save up time by not taking weekends and by working overtime. My boss confirmed that most Japanese companies aren’t this stingy, but also that most Sato Photo employees realistically get about 90 days off per year. I’m the exception who’s entitled to all 105. A blessing that is.

 

 

I used my key ring to hold the cylindrical seal in place. The characters on the end are both compressed vertically and reflected horizontally.

 

Here’s a breakdown of the characters that I chose: