Last fall The Wall Street Journal sent me up to Yokohama to photograph Hisashi Koinuma, CEO of Koei Tecmo, the legendary gaming company. This was an exciting assignment for me, being a casual gamer and having played many Tecmo games as a kid.

The assigning editor asked for a few portraits, but I knew I also should try to grab a few storytelling shots, just to give the page designers something to work with. I had 30 minutes scheduled with Mr. Koinuma–not a ton of time–but his people let me arrive an hour early to look around and set up lights if needed.

They had initially planned for me to shoot in a rather formal looking conference room, but I thought the building had potential, so I asked for a quick tour. Koei Tecmo’s headquarters is a multi-level concrete maze, and on our quick walk-thru I felt like I was inside a video game. I wanted to do something with that, so I was looking for interesting angles, light, frames.

The first and most obvious portrait location I came across was an outdoor courtyard featuring a tile mosaic of Oda Nobunaga (織田信長), a 16th century daimyo, and the subject of one of Koei Tecmo’s most important game series. The building rose up around the courtyard, so I chose a window three stories up where I could shoot down at Koinuma-san with a long lens, and use the mosaic as my background.

When I’d first arrived at Koei Tecmo headquarters, I had noticed some artwork in the lobby, and thought I might try to incorporate it in a shot. This is where I set up two speedlights, one raking across the background to illuminate the art, and the other on a stand with a snoot to create a spotlight effect on my subject. I was looking for some contrast and drama in the lighting, not dissimilar to what you might see in a video game.

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As we walked from one location to the other, I grabbed a quick shot of Koinuma-san in a hallway with some really nice window light. This was my safety shot–nothing fancy, clean and easy to read.

I had used up my time with Koinuma-san, but he was liking my ideas and wanted to try one more of his own. So we set up next to a star constellation chart next to an elevator bank and made one more set of portraits, again using the snoot. This one didn’t run, but I really liked his idea. It’s always great when a subject starts having fun with the shoot.

Now I had my portraits, but I had another shot in mind. I asked my hosts if they had any games on the premises, and they brought out some of Koei Tecmo’s classics. This shot was really crucial to this story about the future of gaming, as it showed the history, these physical artifacts of console games.

And finally, it’s always good to get more shots than you are assigned. So I made sure to grab a quick exterior shot of the company headquarters, which also ended up running.

Ultimately, I had a lot of fun with this assignment. My editor was very happy, as was Koinuma-san. The photos illustrated the story well, and several of them ran in print and online. Portrait shoots are always a challenge because there are so many people to make happy. When you’re able to please all stakeholders AND come away with a complete photo story, that is a shoot I consider a success.