m e g a p e r l s

伊豆

Some shots from this week’s short trip to Izu peninsula.

Route 6, by Dirk Rösler.

I felt like experimenting a little today, so I did a little flash project.

During a 90 minute lunchtime walk in Abiko I took about 80 photos and edited them down in about another hour. It is a little like a visual scrapbook. I tried to be as spontaneous as possible in shooting and bit rough in editing. Do some things I normally wouldn’t.

Not all pictures are a success, but I am quite pleased with some of them. And I enjoyed myself.

Entrance to Udon noodle shop, Kashiwa [ Leica M6, Zeiss Planar 2.0/50 ZM ]

The above was a comment on a French site linking to the last set of pictures I had here. Not that it changes the validity of that statement, but I have redone things and properly scanned a series of shots taken with the new 50mm last Saturday. Obviously the scans come out a lot better when you do things properly. Click here or on the picture above to see the whole set.

Looking good so far. Surprised about the number of what I think are decent “keepers” from just two rolls. Maybe the choice of film and developer is not right for the people who want to assess the lens. This is 2 years or more outdated Agfapan APX 400 in either Xtol 1:2 or Rodinal.

First time I used Rodinal. They’re not wrong when they say grain comes out with it, especially since APX 400 is known for that already as it is. I think there are some sharpening artifacts in the grain, even though I only applied 20% USM in PhotoShop and have the scanner (Epson 3200) set to medium.

Most of those were taken on a dull, overcast day, mostly at f5.6 and 1/250 or so. Those that have some sun sparkle quite nicely but are stopped down to f8 or f11. Overall, I am pleased.

It’s been a while since I put out a series, and it has been a long time since I looked at 35mm film. I have to say, that from time to time I silently enjoy looking at my own pictures, especially when some time has passed since I took them. This is a good thing, I hope.

So while this is old material, taken in the course of last year, I have to confess that I really enjoy the directness of those photos. If large format has shown me anything then it is the appreciation of spontaneity. I have taken out the Leica last weekend and to my own surprise, ended up shooting almost two rolls without actually having had the intention. Which was a nice feeling.

With work giving me very little time indeed to do my photography, things are moving a lot slower right now. Those rolls, and some others, have not even been developed yet. But if large format has taught me anything, then it is to take your time and stop chasing after it.

This is the end of an era. Yet another era is about to start. In the past few months, actually most of 2004, I had plenty of time to dedicate to my photography. It was a real comeback for me after a long break of about 7 years. With a little help of great friends. Changes in circumstances will give me considerably less time to spend on taking and looking at photos from now on, but I feel I had my opportunity and I used it. Looking back, I am quite happy with my work produced over the year. Especially the purchase of the Leica in February 2004 propelled me forward, which is strange because normally one should be suspicious about the effects of purchasing equipment. Nevertheless this was the case and the tool used for most of the recent galleries.

Since summer I am also processing my own black and white film again. Realistically speaking, I don’t know how much of a benefit this has given me. I got some of my best results by using the bargain Konica Pan 400 film and having it processed at the shop. I don’t think it is essential to do your own film, although it does offer a lot of benefits all related to the concept of controlling your process, which incidentally is also a keyword for the Leica camera. Control was a big theme for me in 2004, or to be more precise, when to exercise control and when to relinquish it. In that sense the whole street photography experience was brilliant, because you have to accept you are not in control of what is happening in front of you. You have to accept and work what you are being given, which is why I believe it becomes one of the most demanding and fascinating photographic sub-disciplines. More precisely, I am more inclined towards the instance of street photography with people in it, not static street scenes, which for me are variations of landscapes. Should you fail to understand the role of control and keep insisting on maintaining it over what is happening in front of you, you are likely to end up with images driven by reason alone, which is the opposite of the essence of life itself, and your pictures will end up looking cold and rational, empty in spirit.

To close out 2004, in September I acquired a 4×5 view camera and have since then been working with that. It isn’t easy to transplant the working method of a smaller camera to this larger beast. And maybe transplanting is the wrong strategy anyway. A long learning curve followed and I am still in it. An old Japanese chap told me on Ginza:”このカメラでスナップできない。”"You cannot take snapshots with this camera.” I disagreed and felt challenged. I think it is possible, but more importantly is that really my objective to photograph dynamically with a highly non-dynamic tool?

The link on the photo above takes you to what I think I my best results so far using that camera. I added some commentary as well, which I hope you may find interesting. I appreciate any feedback on those. I feel I am still a long way off from what I wanted to achieve with that camera, even though I have no concrete goal. But the first thing I realised is that things slow down considerably - which is not a bad thing. I could spend an afternoon shooting and having taken only half a dozen photos. However the keeper ratio overall improves since there is a lot more thinking and selecting going on, and more thinking work with the subject. This has to be a good thing. Do I feel constrained? Not really. It is a new way of working and poses an enormous challenge which I don’t think I have overcome yet. Which is a good thing.

When I went to Germany on my own this time, I expected and intended to try a lot more of Euro street photography. It has been said, by a in this respect and others completely unreliable German source, that taking photos of people in public is much more difficult than in Japan. This comment makes sense to some degree. Apart from receiving a, shall we say, veiled threat from what I can only think of as a Russian yakuza in Japan, there is little or nobody bothering to challenge the street photographer in Japan.

Since we know that Germans like to challenge things and people, I expected a lot more suspicion and resistance. And while for family reasons I did not find as much time for taking pictures as I would have liked to, I did some just to get a feel for shooting in a “foreign” environment.

Rather unsurprisingly, it is pretty similar to shooting in Japan. Naturally, the subject matter is different, and in my personal opinion far less exciting than in Japan, but that’s a different issue. I felt surprised being able to speak freely to people, in the case they joked about me photographing them, or in one case asking me what I am doing this for (I replied I am visiting from far away).

This little series was taken more or less haphazardly when I accompanied my mother to a doctor’s appointment at 8 or so in the morning. The location is a shopping centre area in what in Japan would be called new town, or housing development elsewhere, built in the 1960s. This area has never been of much interest to me, and this hasn’t changed. As youths we tried to avoid it because the social structure of the area was rather different from our backgrounds in the traditional town. We spent little time there, or with others from that area.

Unfortunately I had only the roll of film available, that was in the camera at the time, but it was enough to get into the groove and be able to compare. Don’t know what to make of the photos. I wish I would have had more film, and the market itself was not of such a great interest to me, but the only thing that was going on there at that time of day.

As for the girl in the wheelchair, I had no hesitation taking a photo of her, as she is part of the scene there like the others. We had a brief conversation, and it turned out that she was visiting from Heidelberg and had difficulties getting around in this unknown city. I replied that I have the same problem, which seemed to surprise her for some reason.

As noted before, election campaigns are a noisy affair in Japan. The candidates drive around with their lorries and vans with enormous loudspeakers, bringing their message to the masses. And there is no escape for anyone.

Shinbashi is a popular place for campaigning, especially for the right-wingers with their scary vehicles. So when I left the office one evening, I first thought it was them again hammering our tired ears. The instantly gathering audience indicated however, that this time something was different. This was the Democratic Party of Japan (民主党) doing the rounds for the upcoming upper house elections.

Some people go rather excited because the speakers are well-known politicians. I suppose a symptom of Japanese excitement is taking your camera or mobile phone with camera out and start taking pictures. I was not sure whether some of them were part of the campaign team or not. Anyway, it was a mild spring evening, with some listeners and others like the taxi cabs just minding their daily business, and I tried capturing a little of the atmosphere around the station at the time.

We were invited to a tea ceremony by our friend Satoko (nicknamed Frau Sugane by me) who is doing this as a hobby. I always find it nice to hear that people do traditional things like these as a hobby, for example Naomi recently started Ikebana and we always have a nice flower in the hallway. But back to the tea ceremony. Apparently the teacher of this tea house is quite famous, it is near Mitaka, I have to check the exact location. Once a year they hold an event, where they show visitors what they have learned. Since I hadn’t seen it in Japan, I was keen to go and I enjoyed the two sessions and of course the interior and surroundings of the actual house.

Afterwards we went towards the station and as a snack stopped at this yakitori place, which was full of people, even though it was only afternoon. When I looked at the photos later I realised that even though this was the same day, those things going on in parallel are quite intriguing. First the quiet and graceful tea ceremony, and then the loud and smoky yakitori-ya-san. Then it occurred to me that these seem really like male or female aspects of life, apart from the fact that the customers or guests at those locations were also in reality mostly male or female. I just found this a nice aspect of Japan, that these things can and do co-exist. It is the same day, however one might think these were Two Sundays.