Hideki Ohmori founded PowerShovel in 2000, and since has changed the world of Toy Cameras. Other companies like Lomo sell cameras, but what they sell are just repackaged variations of other people’s products. PowerShovel makes cameras. They design them from the ground up to be the most innovative on the market, and do so with a close group of employees who all are part of the creative process. We know cameras like the Blackbird, Fly and the Golden Half, but they are also leading the 110 market as well with the Ikimono 110 Camera and the Demekin Fisheye. They are about to release their first digital camera as well. Some of you have asked what the difference is between PowerShovel, and their sister company SuperHeadz, here is a brief description from their site:

“We have two names, SuperHeadzINaBabylon and PowerShovel. SuperHeadz is one of the most radical creative teams in Tokyo, where we design, edit and plan to collage fragments of this city. PowerShovel is our corporate name and it is used for our more-business-oriented part. They are like two sides of a coin. They never face each other, like light and shadow, but they reverberate in unison as flower and water do.”     Hideki Ohmori

I have had the chance to speak with them many times via email, but recently Hideki Ohmori himself took a few minutes to answer some questions that had been on my mind, and a few that readers sent in as well. Part one deals with the design process, and how they bring these wonderful cameras to market. Stay tuned for part two, where we discuss the expansion into the United States and more…

What made you decide to create Powershovel and Superheadz? 

We had no company or work we liked. So we needed to create one for ourselves. Which became our company, PowerShovel, and this group of expressionists, Superheadz.

Being the first company to import the Holga into Japan, what was the original reaction? 

Well, when I first started this business, I never expected this camera to garner this much attention in Japan. For me, it was more about the excitement one would feel when discovering a weird creature that no one knows yet in the whole world. Selling the Holga is like sending myself a letter, a childish and mischievous act. So yes, I didn’t expect a playful act to develop into an actual business.

When designing a new camera, what are your inspirations? And how do you decide what type of camera is next to build?

I get inspiration from imagining someone holding a camera, imagining that finally someone will get to see the world one wanted to see through the lens. I always imagine the moment right before someone clicks the shutter, the moment before someone loads the film, the moment before someone develops the film, the moment someone is holding a camera for the first time. Someone in the world is feeling that kind of experience through a camera. I always imagine that.

We have plenty of ideas already, we only need a bit of time to decide what will be the next camera we build. Long design processes or advanced marketing philosophies are not what we spend time on. What we finally create is what occurred to us in the first place.

What is the process for designing a completely new camera, and how does the team at PowerShovel come together in the process?

First, we sketch out ideas. Some of us then draw a rough figure. After that, finalising decisions are made in the process of exchange with the product plants. Everyone gets to try the prototypes and make suggestions. 

What was the original inspiration for the Blackbird, Fly?

We knew right away that we wanted to make a twin-lens reflex camera, and we also knew that people had been waiting for it. We aimed for a camera that would give a new perspective and a design that would appeal to a teenage girl buying a camera for the first time. Usually, we instantly decide on names for products, but for this one, we couldn’t decide for a while. The name, ‘Blackbird, fly’, suddenly popped out of my head one day, and we got the concept.

With the Golden Half, you gave the camera to a few dozen models and had them document their lives with the camera, resulting in a book.. [Link here] do you have plans to do a project like that again?

We’ve done similar projects for a long time. Once, we handed out cameras to random people in the street, made them come back in an hour and did photo exhibitions with their photos. We are in the middle of making a similar project in Lagos, Nigeria. More recently, we released a new photo collection, ‘TokyoSlits’. For this project, we handed out cameras to ‘gurabia aidoru’ (Japanese youth idols). We plan to do these type of projects as often and as in many places as possible.

 

In part two, we’ll talk about Powershovel’s new American office, and how that will help distribution into the US market. We’ll also have some photos of the crew, and links to some of their new and ongoing projects….

[Thanks to Patrick Ng for his photos of the Powershovel Studio]