ICEBAR

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After Tokyo Disneyland my friends and I headed out to the ICEBAR in Ginza, which was built by the company that made the ICEHOTEL. When you first enter the bar, you are required to put on their heavy coat and gloves before making your way to the bar.

Everything was ice-carved until it was shinny and smooth. They accented the room with blue lighting, which gave it more of a colder atmosphere. There was a thermometer on the bar that always remained at -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit). The drinks were poured into ice-carved glasses and you had an option to add different colors to the drinks to make them look alien.

Shooting inside was a bit difficult because as many of you know, low temperatures and batteries don’t mix. I only used my SB-800 for a few minutes before the batteries crapped out. Not a problem, I will just put some new ones in.…crap they got too cold as well. I guess ambient will have to do. I was really hoping to do some great portraits by gelling the flash. But you just have to work with what you got.

I used long exposures to try to bring out more of the blue in the ice and I think they turned out quite nicely. Everyone had to hold still for about a second, which was a bit hard to do since it was so cold.

We stayed for about an hour before heading back home for the night. The ICEBAR, even though it was a bit on the small side, would be a great place to do some marketing or advertising shots for alcohol products. The place offers lots of possibilities.