m e g a p e r l s

…with a digital SLR was last Saturday, as mentioned before. It appears that Canon had invited about 200 people over the whole weekend, spread over time slots of around 3 hours. We arrived just after eleven in the morning and were greeted -as it is custom in Japan- by staff with Canon signs lined up at the station and on the way to the venue, where we checked in.

Naturally, we underwent a setsumei-kai i.e. a meeting for the purposes of explaining how the basics of the camera worked, fire some test shots, changing lenses and cards etc. After that we were given our zoo tickets and were free to roam until 2:30. Due to the rainy weather and the fact that it was lunchtime and we had not eaten yet, we missed the return time slot by an hour, but again as it is custom in Japan, nobody raised an eyebrow.

When we returned, we were given a pack of 10 sheets of paper and led into a conference room filled with desks, on them Canon Pixus printers with cables ready to connect our camera to. Again we were explained how it all works and spent almost another hour or so printing, with staff looking over our shoulder. When we were finished (otsukaresamadeshita) we handed our gear back to the reception and received a bag full of marketing materials, as can be expected. All very well organised, courteous staff (even hovering around us in the zoo, offering to take pictures; not very good photos though, still appreciated) and generally appearing very generous.

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Just finished our Family Satsuei, courtesy of Canon.I will write something in more detail soon. For now all I can say is that I am quite impressed by the equipment and event and enjoyed the afternoon, despite the bad weather.

That’s what I will do next Satuday. Canon is running some sort of promotion where they invite families for a day in Ueno zoo and you can use the New Kiss digital SLR camera (aka 350D or Digital Rebel XT, depending on where you live) with a couple of lenses for the day. Yesterday we received a note that we have won this and I am pleased to mess around with a DSLR for a while without having to buy one.

Too bad I have sold or lent out most of my Canon lenses, as the stuff they provide are just the slow consumer zooms. But it is during the day, so it should be bright. The other thing is that they will print 10 prints only, for the rest you have to bring your own CF cards to take the pics home. I was expecting that you would get the images on CD at least, but that does not seem to be the case. I only have one 128MB card and two 32MB cards, but if I set it to smaller file sizes and compression, maybe I’m OK.

Let’s see how it goes with my first DSLR experience.

At the time of the Louisville Flood (1937) © Margaret Bourke-White/Timepix

I came across this remarkable photograph by Margaret Bourke-White the other day in a black & white photo magazine.

I have just come across a news article stating that Iraq is probably the most photographically documented war ever.

OK, you think, that is probably a good thing. Well, there’s more. What they actually refer to is the widespread personal use of digital cameras by the troops. We have already seen the torture images from places like Abu Ghuraieb prison and this phenomenon seems quite similar. It is about people picturing themselves with what can only be viewed as some sort of trophy: burnt bodies of enemy combatants, splattered bodies after suicide bomb attacks, human bodies literally shot into pieces. Next to them smiling soldiers, cracking jokes, thumbs up and all, as if we have gone hunting or fishing.

Then someone creates some sort of online forum or gallery web site, where you can submit your pictures under categories like “clean head shots” or “guess the body part”. I don’t have a link as it was not provided, and I am not keen to research, as you will appreciate.

In a way I can grasp the phenomenon, and the strange need having to photograph oneself in the most extraordinary and violent of circumstances. On the other hand, this is clearly a case of mental derailment and seriously unhealthy.

Whenever we have seen a breakdown of respect towards human dignity and life, bad things followed. Photography is an interesting medium. One reason is that all we keep looking at is an image of ourselves, the beings behind the cameras.