Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2010

One thousand naked celebrities! Now there’s an attention-grabber. And, indeed, the latest book by acclaimed Tokyo-based photographer Leslie Kee features not a single shred of clothing. R&B star Ai? Starkers. TV tarento Chris Peppler? In the buff. Former sumo ozeki Konishiki? Not a stitch. And Kee’s heroine, the J-pop singer Yuming? Undressed, unclothed and unadorned.

“The creatives were harder than the artists to persuade to pose naked,” says Kee, as we chat in a Hiroo studio where he’s about to shoot an actress from Osaka’s Takarazuka theater troupe. “The photographers I approached didn’t want to be shot naked. None of them. Zero. But I convinced all 73 of them.”

While many of Kee’s most famous subjects, like Beyoncé, Ayumi Hamasaki and Koda Kumi, are absent (“It would be very hard to get them to pose naked,” he admits), Super Tokyo includes a wildly diverse lineup of musicians, actors, artists, filmmakers, sportsmen and hair and makeup artists—even Kee himself—all shot in a small corner in his agent’s office over an 18-month period. The massive book costs ¥15,000 and weighs in at 680 pages, and ¥5,000 from each sale will be donated to the Safe Motherhood Initiative project of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)—a cause that has great personal resonance for the photographer.

Kee was born in Singapore in 1971, and he and his younger sister were raised singlehandedly by their mother, who died from cancer when he was just 13. He then moved in with his aunt, finding work in a Japanese-owned factory to support the family and save up for a backpacking jaunt around Asia.

It was during this period that he discovered superstar Japanese singer Yumi Matsutoya, better known as Yuming, whose music was played in the factory along with other J-pop hits. Though he couldn’t understand the lyrics, Kee says the music helped to ease the loss of his mother and inspired an interest in Japanese culture. He moved to Tokyo in 1993, and during the course of his career, he’s managed to meet and befriend his idol—he has, in fact, shot many of her CD covers.

“Yuming is the most influential person in my life,” says Kee, speaking mostly in English but occasionally slipping into Japanese. “That’s not going to change. So of course her photo is my favorite in Super Tokyo.” Yuming’s portrait even graces a limited-edition run of 1,000 copies, while Kee’s beloved dogs are on the front of the regular release.

Bizarrely, one famous feline face appears on almost every page: Hello Kitty. The world-renowned moggy is painted in with the models, recontextualizing the portraits so that they feel akin to a print-club photo. Super Tokyo isn’t a drab, self-important art book; it’s a fun, revealing glimpse into Japanese culture from the outside.

And hey, just try to name one Japanese celebrity more famous worldwide than Hello Kitty.

“Is Sakamoto Ryuichi more famous than Hello Kitty or is Hello Kitty more famous than Sakamoto Ryuichi?” ponders Kee with a giggle. “I’ve shot Ono Yoko as well, so maybe that’s close. Hello Kitty has more than 3,000 looks—different costumes, generations and faces. She just turned 35 last year.”

Kee says that Sanrio, the corporation behind Hello Kitty, initially expressed concern over associating its biggest mascot with nude photography. “But they were [eventually] impressed with the expression in my pictures, where the nudity is not the main focus,” he says, adding that the idea was conceived as an homage to Andy Warhol.

The only section of Super Tokyo where Kitty-chan fails to appear is in the series of portraits of Kee’s fellow photographers. Kee feels especially proud of this chapter, though for an entirely different reason: he managed to draw his colleagues together without an air of rivalry or competition. “We can all learn from each other,” he says. “The 73 of them that I shot range from very young, up-and-coming photographers to well-respected veterans.”

He points to a photo of a man with silver hair. “This is Eikoh Hosoe. He’s 77 years old, and he’s a master photographer in Japan. He also wrote the Japanese foreword for this book. I think the photographers are like the bonus track of Super Tokyo, because you never see photographers photographing photographers.”

To give this section the impact of a concert finale, Kee enlisted Japanese graphic designer Enlightenment to paint firework-like bursts of color, which Kee then photographed and added in composite with his portraits. As for the snappers themselves, some appear more comfortable than others—most arresting is Pak Ok Sun, a young female photographer who clutches her breasts and strikes a bold pose for the camera.

Kee’s last book, 2006’s Super Stars, brought together 300 Asian celebrities in support of the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This time around, he chose to benefit the UNFPA, which aims to save the lives of mothers in developing nations. Of the 500,000 deaths among women worldwide during pregnancy or childbirth, 90 percent occur in Africa and Asia. Tragically, the majority die from easily treatable complications. Having lost his own mother so young, Kee says he identifies strongly with the campaign and hopes his contribution can help save lives.

“I turned 39 this week,” he says. “In Japanese, the phrase 3-9, or ‘san-kyu,’ is often used to mean ‘Thank you.’ This book is my way of saying ‘Thank you’ to the people who’ve supported me, and to my mother for raising me, by way of helping mothers in poor countries.”

When he was still a teenager, Kee entered compulsory national service in the Singapore army. “From the age of 19 to 21, even if you’re gay or you’re handicapped or you’re blind, you spend two years with the government,” he says. “If you don’t have hands, don’t worry—you can use your legs to do something. But I ended up working in an army hospital as a clerk, so I was pretty lucky.”

Two years of army training taught the young Kee about discipline. To this day, he sleeps just two hours a night, five at most, and says he rarely falls ill.

Although Kee would not entertain ambitions of becoming a photographer until after his army days, he says he took many snapshots of his fellow soldiers as souvenirs. His first camera was a Minolta X700, given to him by his mother shortly before she died and broken in with endless photos of his sister. The camera is no longer usable—these days, Kee favors a Ricoh R8 for snapshots, a compact that’s noteworthy for its simplified features. Indeed, Kee points out that he has very little technical interest in cameras.

“To me, any camera works,” he says. “I’m definitely not a cameraman.”

In the 17 years since he relocated to Japan and his 12 years as a photographer, Kee has woven himself into the very fabric of the local culture. If you’ve ever walked into a CD store, you’ve seen his photos adorning the CD sleeves of J-pop heavyweights like Hamasaki, Koda Kumi, Anna Tsuchiya, Ami Suzuki, Double and more. His work is splashed over billboards, in ad campaigns for major Japanese companies like Uniqlo, Shiseido and Sony. And all the top Japanese fashion mags have used his images on their covers, with subjects ranging from model Devon Aoki to actress Chiaki Kuriyama. Whether they know it or not, most young Japanese have been exposed to Kee’s work.

“My pure love of Japanese music and culture has given me strength and inspiration, and that is all reflected in my photography,” he says. “I spent four years in New York from 2002 to 2006, and I was really happy to be able to work with people like Beyoncé and Cindy Crawford, shooting big campaigns with great art editors. It was every photographer’s dream to be in New York. But I realized that Tokyo was my destiny. When I was in New York, my heart was always here.

“Also, in New York, everyone wants to be number one. But that’s very boring. I’d rather be unique, and have people talk about me after I die. Yuming is unique, you know? That’s something I can achieve in Tokyo.”

Kee says that his most inspiring subject to date—aside from Yuming, of course—was Yoko Ono, whom he shot together with her son Sean Lennon for Japanese fashion magazine Glamorous.

“We were together for less than 30 minutes, but it was like time traveling,” he recalls. “Towards the end of the shoot, when I showed her the portraits, I cried. I literally cried, because I was so touched. I was raised by a single mother, and I know how brave she has been all her life, people saying she broke up The Beatles, but I always believed in her.

“She’s such a warm woman. When I cried, she hugged me and said, ‘Now we are friends.’ Her smile was spectacular.”

Of course, you don’t become one of the world’s top photographers by being a softy. Kee clearly knows what he wants from his projects, and works extremely hard—it’s not unusual for him to cram multiple shoots into a single day. Aside from his work with Japanese artists, he has also photographed many top Asian celebrities, including singer Faye Wong and actresses Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi.

“Being a photographer who shoots the most famous people in the world, people who are so busy, it’s really important to grab that moment and get their respect, and to give them respect too,” he says. “Once you have their respect, they will give you whatever you want.”

His wish list is no less grand: Kee says he hopes one day to shoot Kate Moss and the Dalai Lama (we assume the latter would be fully clothed).

“It’s always good to have a dream, but sometimes dreams don’t need to come true,” he says with a shrug. “Making a book is more fun than the book coming out, because then the fantasy is gone.”

Kee is celebrating the launch of Super Tokyo with an exhibition of the book’s portraits at Omotesando Hills Space O. When he mounted a similar show for the release of Super Stars, many of the subjects were unfamiliar to Japanese audiences and therefore excluded; this time, all 1,000 models will appear across roughly 700 pictures.

“Try counting them!” Kee jokes.

And then his Takarazuka actress arrives, and he switches mode. The focus is no longer on Leslie Kee, but the woman in front of the camera. That instant transfer of attention helps him to build a lasting rapport with his new subject. Respect is key… and that’s the naked truth.

“Leslie Kee: Super Tokyo” is showing at Omotesando Hills Space O until May 7. B3F Omotesando-Hills, 4-12-10 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku. Tel: 03-3497-0310. Admission: free. Open Mon-Sat 11am-9pm, Sun & hols (except May 5) 11am-8pm. Nearest stn: Harajuku or Meiji-Jingumae. www.omotesandohills.com.

Super Tokyo (Danny & Teddy Press, 2010, 680pp) will be available for purchase at the exhibition. Price: ¥15,750.