A Japanese friend of mine organised a Japanese dinner party with a friend of hers and kindly invited me along. As I’m an amateur photographer, I was excited although slightly intimidated to hear that five of the people coming were professional photographers.

I’m not sure where I got the mental image from, but for some reason I expected all these photographers to be a little full of themselves or something. Anyway, I couldn’t have been more wrong. They were all really friendly down to earth people. There was definitely an arty side to them, something I probably left behind at school!

There was a lot of drink flowing, including the likes of sake and even ume-shu! I found it amusing that rather than the wine I’d bought from Fortnum & Mason being complimented, it was the £3 or £4 box of Guylian chocolates that went down a storm amongst the guests! Next time, I’ll just buy two boxes of Guylians and be done with it.

The host was a Finnish guy who’s really into Japanese culture, food and the Japanese language so we had a lot to talk about. As there were a couple of Japanese people present we spoke a little Japanese and in the end, partly because I was too shy to bring up photography much, I ended up teaching more Japanese than I learnt about the world of photography!

One of the guys was wielding a Canon SLR with a lovely Canon 50mm F1.4 lens. All the cameras had black tape over the branding, apparently to avoid inadvertent advertising whilst at work.  I’ve thought about doing the same, but only so that potential muggers don’t see that my Camera is a (relatively) expensive 40D! Two different worlds, right there. Also, walking through the very spacious studio I noticed a Canon 1D Mark III digital SLR box on a shelf. The Canon 1D Mark III costs over £3200 and that’s with no lens!

Something I could relate to was the Canon S90 digital compact that the host was using for his dinner snapshots. Though it too had black tape over the ‘Canon’ branding, I recognised it immediately as it’s on my shopping wish list.

Next time I meet these guys, I’ll have to get some tips.