[Touhou Project Anime team building] A Ten-Year Promise: Private Night view of cherry blossoms Photoshoot

This private shoot under the Night view of cherry blossoms was a long-planned project. To recreate the scenes that flashed in our minds when hearing that song ten years ago, everyone spent a long time preparing. The complexity of these outfits was beyond imagination—putting on the lace trims, ruffles, and oversized hats alone took nearly half a day. Seeing the five dresses in different color palettes grouped together provided a powerful visual impact.

To capture the ambiance of the Night view of cherry blossoms, we set up multiple outdoor strobe lights on location, carefully avoiding ambient light pollution to ensure the background cherry trees were illuminated while providing soft fill light on our faces. Light management is crucial during night outdoor shoots; especially against expansive dark backgrounds, light power and color temperature required repeated testing to achieve the desired effect.

Since this was an Anime team building event, the shoot wasn't as solemn as the final photos might appear. The meme-censored sticker and no-smoking sign in the first image authentically reflected our mood at the time—staying outdoors at night left us freezing and exhausted, leading everyone to let loose and be goofy. The muscular Touhou pose in the seventh picture was actually taken while resting indoors to cheer each other up; though totally absurd, it had everyone laughing to tears and chasing away our fatigue.

However, once rolling into official shooting mode, everyone adopted a strictly professional mindset. For extreme close-ups like the eighth image, precise facial expression management and posture control were necessary to showcase the intricate neckline and garment details. While gorgeous, the heavily layered Lolita style fabric was quite heavy, and together with the bulky wigs and headwear, put substantial strain on our necks and shoulders, requiring us to support each other during breaks.

Beyond close-ups, we also used wide-angle lenses for environmental portraits. Compositions stretching along the cherry blossom trees blended the characters seamlessly into the nighttime scenery and lighting. Although we pulled an all-nighter and felt completely sore while removing makeup afterward, seeing these moments captured in the camera made every bit of effort worthwhile, officially freezing ten years of memories into time.