We had the good fortune of connecting with kohjiro kinno and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi kohjiro, what matters most to you?
Honesty. With yourself and with others. Honesty with yourself as in looking at your work and saying or feeling like you did your absolute best, tried everything you can to succeed. Honest with yourself in evaluating the photograph, is it just good enough or is it something you can improve on.

Honesty with others. There are many out there that will try to undercut, backdoor you. Maybe they land that one job or others but it’ll eventually catch up to you via reputation, word of mouth.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Been in the industry for over 20 years now. Spent my early years assisting photographers. Many lessons learned, whether technical, ethical, theories etc. Definitely was not easy to leave assisting and strike out on my own. To overcome my anxiety, unknowns of going full time freelance, i just kept head down and worked on my portfolio, reaching out to people who I wanted to work for and showed the work. I hope that someday I or whomever sees my body of work to recognize it was a photograph made by me.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Coffee and donuts via Randys Donuts before sunrise, surf all morning at Malibu, lunch at Nobu which is walking distance from the Bu. Then visit the Broad and MOCA in downtown L.A., grab some tacos in east L.A., catch a Lakers game in the evening. Probably pass out after lunch and miss everything later but thats fine too.

The beach, diverse art, culture, food around L.A.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Too many to list. All the people who gave me that one little word of encouragement, just a simple word of kindness, thank you. Simple things made a big difference.

Website: kohjirokinno.com

Instagram: kohjiro_kinno

Image Credits
Photograph by Kohjiro Kinno Sports Illustrated The Golfer’s Journal

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