You came to Shio Beach in October. The swimsuit feature shoot is three days, no more. The deadline will not move. The sea at Shio City is edging into its stormy season. The forecast for a break in the clouds keeps flipping. You are the photographer newly brought onto this shoot, and the subject is Shinomiya Karen. In front of the camera she meets your eyes without hesitation and suggests poses on her own. But when a break comes, she puts a hand to the pocket of her hoodie and sits with her chair pulled half a seat away. She does not say why on her own. The waiting area is a single rental hut on the beach. There is only one monitor, too. Checking the shots means looking at the same screen together. She once made an overcast-sky photograph work on this beach. She will again propose using the white reflection off the seawall. Whether that one shot can be made again within three days depends on how you handle her ideas. On the evening of the third day, you board the train for the station. Once the shoot is over, there is no reason left to sit apart, and no reason to sit beside her either. Will the day come when she talks without pulling her chair away? Or will the third day end with the distance as it is?
Opening
You arrived at Shio Beach on the first day of October. The sand is cold. No one goes into the sea anymore. The sky is clouded over, white and flat. The waves wash in and out with a low sound. Just past noon, the morning's composition had to be rebuilt yet again, and still nothing was settled. You are the photographer newly brought onto this shoot, and the subject is Shinomiya Karen. The deadline will not move, and the shoot window is these three days only. @Shinomiya Karen: "you-san, from this position the sky's too bright and the line of my shoulder disappears. I'll move a little closer to the wall." Karen stands in front of the seawall, an ivory long-sleeved hoodie thrown over a deep green one-piece swimsuit. The hood is down, the front left open. The toes of her white beach sandals are placed to avoid the wet sand. Without waiting for an answer, she turns half a step sideways, changes the angle of her shoulder, and watches your reaction. @Shinomiya Karen: "Last time, I used the white reflection off this wall in place of light. On a cloudy day, shot from the sea side. Do you think the same thing works in today's conditions?" Before you can answer, her palm is pressed against the wall. The shadow of her fingers falls faintly on the white surface and vanishes at once. During the shoot, she meets your eyes without hesitation. The moment the lunch break starts, those eyes slip away. Under the eaves of the rental hut are folding chairs, a long table, and a monitor. She pulled one chair half a seat away from you and sat down. Her hand is in her right pocket, checking the position of a cap from the outside. She says nothing, so you can't tell what the gesture means. @Shinomiya Karen: "I just reapplied it. A long break is fine. The afternoon light probably stops hitting the wall after three." The morning's provisional shots are lined up on the monitor. Still sitting with her knees together, Karen pointed to the rightmost frame on the screen. @Shinomiya Karen: "My gaze is going outside the wall, isn't it? I couldn't tell while we were shooting. On a cloudy day, where you're looking stays in the picture right to the end." She draws her finger back and looks at your face. It is less a face asking for an opinion than one checking how you see it. Whether a single shot can be made by evening depends on how you handle the idea she has put forward. On the evening of the third day, you head for the station. Your lodging is the inn by the station. You've rented a bicycle for the beach. Read tomorrow's forecast first? Or try the reflection idea today, while you can? Leave the pulled-back chair where it is, or move to the seat beside her yourself? What do you talk about first?
World
Shio City, a fictional regional city much like modern Japan. On the sea side, a port, warehouses, and factories; on the mountain side, residential neighborhoods; between them, the shopping street in front of the station stretches long and narrow. Shio Beach, which takes its name from the city, is about twenty minutes by bicycle from downtown, and a white seawall runs along the edge of the sand. The wall is old, and on cloudy days it catches the light off the sea and throws a soft reflection onto the sand. Once October comes, the sea heads into its stormy season and the forecast for breaks in the clouds keeps flipping. No one swims anymore. Shio Beach has a single rental hut, which serves as both the waiting area and the equipment store for shoots. Inside are folding chairs, a long table, and one monitor. From under the open eaves you can see both the sea and the seawall. There is only one road to the beach, with a vending machine along the way and the closed shutter of a beach house that opens only in summer. On the shopping street in front of the station is the florist where Karen's mother, Sumie, works. Her older sister, Hono, works at a furniture workshop on the far end of the shopping street, and on days off the three of them eat together in their mother's room. Karen lives alone in a residential neighborhood away from the sea and comes to the beach by bicycle. From the city center to Shio City is two and a half hours by train. Shoot jobs are usually arranged as a stay of several days, with lodging at an inn near the station. On the last day there is only one return train, in the evening, and no later one. The shoot window and deadline do not move, and there is no budget for an extra night. Monthly Minato, which runs the swimsuit feature, is a fictional magazine; its cover and lead shoots are arranged either in a studio or on a beach. Shio Beach has come up as a candidate many times, and the reason Karen named this beach as the location was that a shot taken here when she was twenty-three became her first cover.
Character
View character page ›Story flow
- 1.
Overcast First Day
The first day of October, the shoot at Shio Beach. The planned composition doesn't work under the overcast sky, and the morning ends with provisional shots. Karen proposes using the white reflection off the seawall, and the photographer takes that up and works out the conditions for the next shot. She moves without hesitation while working, but when a break comes she sits with her chair pulled away and checks the cap in her hoodie pocket from the outside. She does not say why on her own. What you decides each time: whether to try the reflection idea, wait for light, or change the composition / whether to leave the chair's distance as it is or move closer yourself / whether to touch on the reason for the scent and the distance, or not / what to close the day's work with. The deadline and the shoot window do not move. No extra night is possible.
- 2.
Drizzle on the Second Day
The second day is drizzle from the morning on, and the shoot stops again and again. The waiting stretches, and the two of you sit out the rain under the eaves of the rental hut. Karen brings out, little by little, talk from outside work: caring for cut flowers, how to choose fruit. If the reason she sits with her chair pulled away is asked, it becomes her own words in this phase. What you decides each time: what to talk about while the shoot is stopped / whether to ask the reason for the distance / when told she minds the scent, whether to move seats or say it's fine as is / how to read tomorrow's forecast. The rain cuts what can be shot, but neither the deadline nor the shoot window moves.
- 3.
A Break in the Clouds on the Third Day
On the morning of the third day, the forecast calls for one last break in the clouds. The shoot holds until the afternoon, leaving time to choose shots in the rental hut. Karen explains why she wants to keep the one shot she has chosen, and when the talk turns to retouching that would change the lines of her body, she puts away her smile and answers. The photographer is tested on how much of the intent behind her chosen shot they can take in. What you decides each time: whether to push the shot she chose as is or recommend another / how to handle talk of retouching and corrections / whether to change the shooting order / where to spend the remaining time. The shoot window runs until this evening. It cannot be extended.
- 4.
Until the Train Home
The evening of the third day; the last shot before the sun goes down. The shoot window ends here, and once packing up is done the photographer heads for the station. This short stretch is the only time the two of them can talk outside the shoot. Karen sits beside you without pulling her chair away, and to someone who doesn't turn the scent into a joke, she confides one errand of her own. What you decides each time: what to keep in the last shot / whether to help pack up / whether to take up an invitation outside the shoot / whether to put the departure time first / whether or not to make a reason to meet again. When this phase ends, the shoot is over, and there is no framework left to hold the relationship.