m e g a p e r l s

Went to Shibuya and watched a “performance” of Superidol Hino in front of NHK Hall. There were so many outfits doing something, some serious and skillful, others painfully badly or even unsettling (like the guy in baseball outfit, swinging a little branch again and again).Superidol did well, as anticipated, and attracted a decently sized audience, plus a breath-taking number of requests for autographs and keitai photo posing.

This was the second time I visited another south-east Asian country, after Bali/Indonesia. Like Bali, I was a bit apprehensive in the beginning, mainly because Asia is such an unknown quantity for me. I am not a born traveller. But in the end my worries were completely unfounded. On August, 2nd we set off from Narita airport with tickets bought via accumulated air miles - some pay back at last.

The flight took around five hours and we caught the airport shuttle bus from the airport to the centre of town (100 Baht p.P, ~¥300), where we reserved the Swiss Park Hotel via HIS in Japan. Traffic is dense and the view from the road not too great, but it made a nice welcome to the city of Bangkok. This was the view from our hotel window.
Read the rest of this entry »

The title of this post is a quasi-quote from the artist and legendary street photographer Garry Winogrand. It has become my main mantra of late, not only about photographic matters, but about life in general. It is a very difficult objective to keep an open mind, especially since I think that the interpretation of experiences and resulting conceptions are very closely bound to human nature, a natural way to make us feel emotionally safer. Brands and advertising, for example, exploit this longing for familiarity and make us reach out for packaging and colours we have seen before.

In itself, there is nothing wrong with this. However, there are certain times, if not most of the time, where we should be self-aware of our preconceptions, if only to prevent us to become easy prey for stereotypes and prejudices, positive and negative. Maybe we have heard something similar several times from from different sources. Or we have heard fractions of facts and our creative mind tries filling in the gaps. The purpose of this is to help making sense of the world in one way or the other, if only temporary. Would we feel the full effect of knowing that we know nothing, we would probably go crazy.

It is in this period of thought, where an email from a friend reaches me, and I am surprised that it discusses a very similar thought that I have been having and have recently articulated in an article for the German-Japanese Society of my hometown. Many people think of Japan by imagining sushi, temples, geishas and other “typical” things. While of course these things exist here, they by no means represent Japanese culture. In fact, I think they are rather offensive as they simplify and distort reality.

In my photos I am trying to show aspects of daily Japanese life, any and all aspects I personally come across. And even though I am not trying to exclude sushi, temples and geishas, unlike others I am also not looking for them. I capture what presents itself to me, and those obvious Japanese things are just several of many, many other things that make up the puzzle of this country. I can’t say I have succeeded, but just like they say in British news when they don’t know for sure: “The Police are keeping an open mind.”

I am quoting - with permission from the author - an article written for Tibetan Review:

Shattering the Shangri-La Stereotype: Tibetans re-branded
Read the rest of this entry »

This T-shirt will make your street work more efficient, while at the same time increasing positive karma.Optional “Thank You” back print.