There is a moment in Kanemura Miku’s CP+2026 seminar where she says something that stopped me cold: “I don’t expect too much of myself.” She is talking about self-portraiture — about standing on both sides of the camera — but the philosophy cuts deeper than photography. It is a statement about creative freedom, about what happens when you stop measuring yourself against the masters and start listening to what your own eye wants to see.

Kanemura is a member of Hinatazaka46, one of Japan’s most prominent idol groups. She is also, increasingly, a serious photographer. These two identities don’t just coexist — they feed each other in ways that are genuinely fascinating to watch.

Nineteen Chapters of Learning in Public

Since late 2024, Kanemura has been writing a column called “Create My Book” for Commercial Photo, a respected Japanese photography magazine. Nineteen installments and counting, each one a different genre — self-portraits, monochrome, live concert photography, film, landscape, old lenses — each reviewed by a different professional photographer.1 The pace is remarkable, roughly one chapter per month, and each one amounts to a public lesson. She is learning on the page, and she is not hiding the stumbles.

At CP+2026, the premier camera and imaging exhibition held annually at PACIFICO Yokohama, she appeared at Sony’s booth alongside an editor from Commercial Photo to reflect on three of those chapters. What emerged was not a polished artist statement but something better: an honest map of how a young photographer thinks about her own growth.2

The Philosophy of Not Expecting

The self-portrait chapter is where the philosophy lives. Kanemura studied photography at Nihon University’s College of Art, graduating in March 2025. Her university work included extensive self-portraiture — shot with a tripod and a Sony remote, every element handled alone: wardrobe, makeup, location scouting.3

But the more she studied great photographers, the more pressure she felt. The bar kept rising. The solution she found was not to lower her standards but to release the structure of expectation itself. “I don’t expect too much of myself” is not self-deprecation. It is permission to experiment, to fail, to find something unexpected in the frame.

This resonates beyond photography. Anyone who has ever stared at a blank editor, a blank canvas, a blank terminal knows the paralysis of self-imposed standards. Kanemura’s answer — don’t lower the bar, just stop staring at it — feels like something worth stealing.

When Mistakes Become Method

The monochrome chapter reveals something equally compelling: Kanemura’s relationship with failure. During a shoot for the column, she made what she openly calls a mistake — she shot in color when the assignment was monochrome, then converted the images to black and white in post-processing.2

At CP+2026, in front of a Sony booth audience, she did not spin this as a creative choice. She called it what it was: a miss. Her instructor’s response was not to scold but to teach — “if you want to emphasize light, push the contrast harder.” The moment is small but telling. In a culture that often prizes the appearance of effortless mastery, Kanemura chose transparency.

This is also where her taste in photographers surfaced. She mentioned admiring Henri Cartier-Bresson — the decisive moment, the geometry of street photography. Her instructor gently expanded her horizons: “You should look at Robert Adams too.”2 Adams, the New Topographics pioneer known for his meditative images of the human-altered American West, operates in a completely different register from Bresson’s kinetic urbanity.4 The suggestion hints at a broadening of Kanemura’s visual vocabulary, from the drama of the captured instant to the patience of sustained observation.

2,500 Frames of a Different Kind of Knowledge

Perhaps the most striking chapter is the live photography experiment. For Commercial Photo’s sixteenth installment, Kanemura went undercover at “Shinzanmono,” a stage show featuring Hinatazaka46’s fourth-generation members, held at Shinjuku Theater Milano-za. Disguised to avoid being recognized by the audience, she shot the entire performance as a live photographer.5

The numbers alone are impressive — roughly 2,500 shots across the show, using a borrowed Sony α1 II with three lenses: a 24-70mm f/2.8 GM, a 70-200mm GM, and a 16-35mm GM. She prepared by attending the dress rehearsal, mapping out lighting patterns, setlists, and stage movements.5

But the real story is not the gear or the frame count. It is what professional photographer Tanabe, who provided real-time feedback during the show, observed afterward: Kanemura has something most concert photographers don’t — she knows what it feels like to be on stage. She knows the moments when a performer wants to be photographed, and the moments when the camera should look elsewhere.5

This is domain expertise in its purest form. A photographer who has never performed can learn technique, timing, and composition. But the intuition of “right now, she wants to be seen” — that comes from having stood under those lights yourself. Tanabe’s assessment was direct: “You can shoot things that only someone who has been a performer can shoot.”5

The Gear Question, Answered Honestly

Kanemura’s relationship with equipment is refreshingly undogmatic. She has used a Sony α7III since around 2020, primarily with a 40mm prime lens. At the seminar, she described it as so familiar that she cannot imagine using anything else — “it has become part of my hand.”2

Yet after using the α1 II for the live shoot, she was candid: “Once you use it, there’s no going back.” She did not pretend that her beloved α7III could match the flagship’s autofocus tracking or burst speed. She simply acknowledged the difference while continuing to value her own camera for different reasons.2

This is a mature stance that avoids both gear obsession and gear denial. The α7III is not “good enough” — it is hers, shaped by six years of shooting. The α1 II is extraordinary but belongs to a different relationship. Most photographers, amateur or professional, could learn from this distinction.

The Dream Beyond the Frame

At the end of the seminar, Kanemura shared a quiet ambition: she wants to hold a photography exhibition featuring portraits of her fellow Hinatazaka46 members.2

This dream sits at an interesting intersection. An idol photographing other idols is not just a creative project — it is an act of reframing. In the idol industry, members are overwhelmingly the subjects of photographs, positioned and lit according to someone else’s vision. For Kanemura to step behind the camera and photograph her colleagues on her own terms would be a subtle but meaningful inversion of that dynamic.

Whether or not the exhibition materializes, the ambition itself says something about where Kanemura is heading. She is not treating photography as a hobby that supplements her idol career. She is building it into something that could stand on its own.

Why This Matters Beyond Fandom

I will be honest: I am a fan of Kanemura Miku, and that colors everything I have written here. But I think there is something in her trajectory that speaks to anyone engaged in creative work.

The idol industry, at its worst, can flatten its members into interchangeable products. What Kanemura is doing — publicly learning, publicly failing, publicly developing a distinct artistic voice — is a quiet act of resistance against that flattening. She is not rebelling against the system. She is simply becoming someone the system did not specifically design her to be.

The photography is real. The growth is documented. The philosophy — don’t expect too much, embrace the mistake, trust what you know from lived experience — is applicable far beyond the boundaries of J-pop fandom.

And if she ever does hold that exhibition, I will be first in line.

  1. Commercial Photo (玄光社). Kanemura Miku’s “Create My Book” column, running since approximately September 2024, with 19 installments as of February 2026. Referenced in CP+2026 seminar. Accessed 2026-03-31. ↩

  2. Sony (Japan). “Create My Book CP+2026出張編 — 金村美玖と写真の「今とこれから」.” CP+2026 seminar, published 2026-02-26. Accessed 2026-03-31. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  3. Kanemura Miku graduated from Nihon University’s College of Art, Department of Photography, in March 2025. Referenced in CP+2026 seminar and multiple media profiles. ↩

  4. Robert Adams. “Robert Adams.” Wikipedia. Accessed 2026-03-31. ↩

  5. 日向坂ちゃんねる. “【潜入】金村美玖が”新参者”でライブカメラマンに挑戦！【Sony α1 Ⅱ】.” Published 2025-12-13. Accessed 2026-03-31. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4