Electra K. Vasileiadou

Photos for Palm Me Up 

My friend Electra (isn't that a cool name?), who is from Greece and has been living in Tokyo since 2011, is a photographer and travel writer.

For the ones, who have been following my blog posts since the beginning, you know that I have been working on a website that is about tropical prints. For THAT website called Palm Me Up I wanted to have personal photos, so I could use those to introduce myself to my future audience.

I’m very insecure in front of the camera and I knew that for the photo shoot I needed someone, who is not just skillful but also an understanding and trustworthy photographer. Although I had met Electra only once, my gut feeling said that she was the woman for the job. 

I was very happy to hear that she didn’t mind coming all the way from Tokyo to Osaka and the fact that she stayed over at our house was wonderful as it gave us both a chance to get to know each other more. I told her about my insecurities and how I think that my lack in self-esteem was a reason for my clumsiness in front of a lens. 

She listened and she heard me. 

Getting ready for the photo shoot 

But even before the photoshoot I was impressed by how well she communicated with me, guided me in things she needed to know. Things like: What is the mood and the goal of the website? What scenarios did I have in mind? How did I want to pose? What clothes did I want to wear? What make-up did I want to put on? etc. She asked me to give her as much information as possible, so she could get a round picture of what’s expected of her. When she summarized everything back to me, I knew that Electra understood what I wanted for my Palm Me Up. (I'm still working on Palm Me Up and haven't been able to update a lot.)

Strike a pose

On the day of the photoshoot I was very thankful for her ideas, her support (her goofiness to get me to relax and laugh), her patience (telling me stories to get me in the right mood for each shot), her flexibility (her spidermanlike physical efforts to get what we needed) and her talent to keep an eye on the time and to make sure she got a good bunch of various pictures in order to finish her job. 

At the end of the day we were both exhausted for different reasons but I couldn’t have had a better photographer and friend for that matter to do this for me. 

In EDITion 

A week later Electra presented me the selected and edited pictures and I was thrilled to have  so many photos I truly liked myself in and that I could not only show in Palm Me Up but also use for other promoting purposes. 

If you live in Japan (preferably in Tokyo or Osaka area) and you have always wanted to have some personal photos for yourself, then let me tell you that Electra K. Vasileiadou is your woman. If you're looking for someone, who is pragmatic, organized and skilled on the one hand, and sensible to your ideas (given you also share as much information as possible about that with her), a great bonder, and a good listener on the other hand, then she is definitely someone you should get in touch with. 

You can check her out on Instagram (electra_vk) and Facebook.