Takako Uehara

Takako Uehara (上原 多香子) (born January 14, 1983) is a J-pop singer. She is a member of the group Speed. Uehara was born in Okinawa, Japan. Her highly anticipated first solo single 'My First Love' was released in January 1999, and was produced by legendary Jpop superstar Ryuichi Kawamura (of Luna Sea). "My First Love" was the beginning of a prosperous collaboration between Uehara and Kawamura. The single itself was very successful and topped the charts selling over 500,000 copies. The promotional video along with the cover and leaflet photos for 'My First Love' were all shot on location in Hawaii. Uehara followed up with her second and third singles, 'Come Close to Me' and 'My Greatest Memories'. In July 2000 following the disbandment of Speed, she became the first member of the group to release a solo album: My First Wing. After Speed, Uehara continued with a moderately successful solo career as well as acting in various TV dramas. Takako is also a highly sought after model endorsing many famous brands such as Shiseido mainly on Proudia & Tsubaki Shampoo, Dunlop Tyres, NTT DoCoMo, FujiFilm FinePix Camera, SAGAWA, FamilyMart, KC Card, Meiji Chocolate, NEC FOMA and other food & beverages. Her most popular campaign was when she teamed up with Vivian Hsu to promote Shiseido's 'Proudia' range of products aimed at the more youthful market. Uehara has also been a favorite pinup model among teenage men. She has released three photobooks. The first being '17' which was released in the year 2000. Her second photobook was Vingt Takako (Vingt means 20 in French). Vingt Takako was extremely controversial as the book contained many semi-nude and erotic shots of her - some containing rather explicit poses. This book upset and surprised many of her loyal fans as she has often came across as being really innocent. However, Uehara assured that the photos were tastefully done and shot on location in France by an all female crew. Uehara's third photobook Veintitres (meaning 23 in Spanish) was of similar nature to Vingt Takako but contained less daring photos of her. Veintitres was shot on location in Mexico, this time with a mixed crew. The photobook contained a bonus 'making of DVD'. Uehara's has a special preference for her photographs to be taken with minimal make-up and cpu touch-up/alterations. In essence her pictures tend contain a rather ambivalent tone to them in which she tends to come across rather natural/pale looking. Uehara was selected by Taiwanese singer, Leehom Wang, to be the female lead for his music video, 'Heartbeat'. This is the 1st collaboration between the both of them.