m e g a p e r l s

Weighing 1.6kg and containing only the film to let you to take a maximum of 20 photos. This is a clue to my next project which I will start during my stay back home in Germany from tomorrow…

See you soon!

Water trough, Fusebententoukai temple
You know you’re selling out when you post photos of Japanese temple scenes. In this case I just could not resist, not least because I am getting more and more satisfied how tones come out in Fuji Presto 400 in Xtol 1:2, even in contrasty scenes like this. I realised that by mistake I did two inversions per 30 seconds instead of my usual one. Somehow it must have been beneficial, so I will always do two inversions from now on. The compressed image got a little too much contrast, the negative looks really beautiful indeed.

Photo taken in a really very nice temple in Akebono Park, not too far from home, which is, unbelievably, also part of Kashiwa (if you follow the link, a glimpse of the usual Kashiwa madness awaits).

The Everyman Photo Contest is a privately organised photo competition, which only non-professional photographers can participate in.

So for the sake of argument, let’s just say that I would be interested in entering it. Looking at the categories to enter, we see:

black & white
landscape/nature
people/portrait
travel/architecture
macro/abstract

Say I want to enter with one of my black and white photos, depicting people from Japan. What is the right category?

Does it mean black and white photos all have to go into the first category, and the others all contain colour photos? And even more difficult, what exactly are travel photos? How can you tell that a photo was taken during travelling? A photo from Japan can surely count as a travel photo, but the problem is that I am not travelling, I am living here. Because there is a high chance that there will always be people living at the location depicted by the photograph, how can any photo be a travel photo?

Maybe I am overly sensitive, but isn’t the concept of travel photo a rather arrogant thing? If a photo is not taken in the Western world, than it is an exotic location and can only imply that someone must have travelled somewhere. This reminds me of the term Far East, that I heard many Asians dislike. Far from what?

These notions make us forget that other parts of the world are also places where other people live, and for them your photograph, while temporarily being there with them, is hardly a travel photo. It is a photo of their home. Travel photos degrade that home to a simplistic scenery listed in a travel brochure. So let’s not view or take travel photos, let’s simply enjoy looking at pictures of places where other people live their lives, go about their daily business. Just like we do… here… wherever we are.

…of the thousand reasons why we have to love Kashiwa.And yet another one to carry a camera with you at all times.

Another reason is your wife being given a “Host club and substitute boyfriend service” flyer in your presence…