After going to the Moriyama exhibition, I wanted to see how my T2 performed with some B&W film, so I bought some Fuji 1600. The shots are obviously quite grainy, but I like how they turned out. If anything, the grainyness adds something to them. The first one below is my favourite, but I think I will need to experiment a little more before I can really get to grips with it. Not bad though at 900円 a roll to develop.
Archive for the 'Photography' Category
One of the blogs I read everyday is by Zoriah, a photojournalist currently embedded with US forces in Iraq. He takes beautiful pictures in what, at the best of times, can be deemed difficult circumstances, and writes with admirable honesty about the situations he finds there. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the situation there.
A few days ago, he posted his report and photos of the aftermath of a suicide bombing attack on US Troops and Iraqi civilians in the outskirts of Falluja. It's a straight piece of reportage on a gruesome and tragic event, but I was left in no doubt that his treatment of both Iraqi and American victims was fair and respectful. It was a shock to read the entry from today, written by his representative, saying that the US Marines Public Affairs had asked him to take the entry down. The representative had not stated a reason. Upon his refusal to do so, the military cancelled his embed with them in Iraq, thus, it would seem, effectively muzzling him.
Initially when I read today's entry, I thought that the military must have perceived an anti-American in the entry, but upon re-reading the original post, I can't believe this to be the case. The entry hardly mentions any behaviour by the Americans that could be misinterpreted, or indeed by Iraqis, except, conceivably, Zoriah's supposition that he was removed from the scene when he tried to take a photo of the injured/dead Marines. This would be a rather harsh interpretation of the report. It would also be strange for the Marines to claim an anti-US agenda from this post in particular, when many of his other posts are much more clearly (and, indeed, rightfully), critical of American action.
If the implication from the military is that any sensitive information could put troops at risk, the relevant reporting from major news outlets (New York Times etc.), is as (or more), explicit than Zoriah's post, so the supression of a less widely-read journalist's work would be heavy handed at best. The same would hold true for any material that would be emotionally distressing for the families of the victims.
So did the military ask him to remove the post? Hopefully Zoriah will be able to explain when he gets to a less volatile location. In the meantime, it's a shame that the military attempt to control journalists like this when there is such a dirth of independent reporting coming out of the country. It strikes me that this is another example of how embedding has contributed to preventing the press cover this war in the depth of those of the past.
This weekend, Eri and I realised that about 3 separate exhibitions that we had meant to see for ages were all ending, and with an impending hangover on Sunday, Saturday was the only day we had free. So, five exhibitions in a day then...
First up was the double Moriyama Daido exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. The exhibition, in two parts was a retrospective of his work in one gallery and then large prints of his Hawaii series in the second. I found that his photos generally got more interesting the older they were. I found a lot of the exhibition a little confusing and realised that I don't really have any idea what made certain shots "good" or not, but a lot of the older ones, particularly the Light and Shadow series, were beautiful.
I wasn't as impressed by the Hawaii series. Some of them are quite nice, but on the whole I find Moriyama's style doesn't work as well outside Japan. I found some of the Buenos Aires ones a little dry for the same reason, although Eri said she liked the Buenos Aires ones most of all, and, being a lot more artistically inclined than me, she could well be right.
After Moriyama, we went down to the basement of the museum for the World Press Photo 2008 exhibition. I enjoyed this far more than the Moriyama. I prefer photojournalism to "art" photos, so this was always going to be far more suited to me. Some of the shots on display here were awe-inspiringly good. I think the photo below is probably the one I liked most; there is a very strange and ominous atmosphere to the position of the men in it that I really love. Click to see some of the other highlights.
After the photos were went to Omotesando for Eri's Blythe Once Upon A Wonder World Exhibition and Beauty Contest. Eri has come out recently as a bit of a Blythe fan, despite hating herself for doing so. Girls and women who like Blythe in Japan have a (deserved) reputation as being on the verge of the goth-loli cosplay kind of scene that Eri loathes, but nonetheless, she finds herself liking the doll itself. I can't really complain, considering my own interest in toys though. The Blythe exhibition was properly wierd. There were six areas where Blythe dolls had been dressed up in costumes to represent characters in Fairy Stories (Little Red Riding Hood etc), and then in the middle of the room were are hoardes of Blythes all in costumes designed by international fashion houses. Serious looking women were walking round with voting ballots choosing the costumes they liked best. There's a big gala event in July to crown the winner...which just kind of beggars belief. (Photo by Bubujojo)
Last was the yearly Medicom Exhibition in the Parco Art Gallery in Shibuya. I thought the gallery space itself was a little less nicely designed than in previous years, and there seemed less on display too. The highlights for me were the (much lauded) wooden Bearbricks, the new Star Wars figures, and the Mick Jagger doll. I didn't win a prize this year though, which somewhat ruined the event for me.
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I've found myself favouriting less photos this month than the couple of month's previously. I'm not sure why - probably partly due to being busier at work than I would like. These are my favourites from April; I think my favourites are the "Riding the Skies" shot from "ezee" and the untitled shot from "nsbkaizen". Good work. I haven't been taking many photos myself lately either, other than snapshots, but I need to start again. No time right now.
This Sunday was the annual One Love Jamaica Festival. Organised partly by the Jamaican embassy, it is one of the many "international" (Thailand, Brazil, the all-encompassing Africa etc), festivals in Tokyo in the late spring/early summer. The Jamaican festival has lives acts, performances by Japanese dancehall queens (including Junko, the Japanese dancer who - astonishingly - beat Jamaican girls at their own game and won the World Dancehall Queen contest), and an ill-conceived Bob Marley song contest. There are stalls selling general "ethnic" tat, the same ones that were selling the same stuff last week, bedecked with Thai flags at the Thai Festival, here again, this time with their Jamaican flags. Most importantly though, there are Jerk Chicken stalls. Ummmmmmm, Jerrrk Chicken...I love me some Jerk Chicken.
This year, Eri and I arrived late, about 5 o'clock. Honestly though, it was pretty amazing that I felt well enough to go at all as I was pretty hung over after the previous night's stag festivities. Unfortunately, (though I didn't let Eri see how annoyed I was), we missed the dancehall queen show, and arrived in the middle of the Marley song contest which we quickly left. Walking through the stalls, we stopped at the hilarious "Speak like a Jamaican" stand, organised by the Jamaican Embassy people. Here, an "authentic" Jamaican was teaching Japanese people how to speak Jamaican. It was brilliant, like a wierd version of one of my lesson's, with all the embarrassment factor of when one of the elderly teachers asks you to teach the kids "something youthful" and ends up greeting you as "blud" for the rest of your time in the school. The Jamaican teacher was shouting out:
"Repeat after me: Wha gwarn?!"
The crowd shout back: "Eeto Huwa guwarnu?"
Brilliant.
The jerk chicken queue though, was long. It took us about an hour to get to the front of the queue where I found, to my horror, that the proper rice and peas had been sold out and replaced with just white rice. Sacrilege. Still the jerk chicken was good. The other that that we really noticed was that in the years we have gone to the Jamaican festival, the crowd has really changed. At first, the crowd was much more of a roots/reggae style crowd, more hippys and lots of smelly hair. Now though, it's become much more dancehall, loads more girls in little tops and (strangely for Japan), better endowed. As ever though, the larger endowment has been followed by a bit more of an aggressive attitude, not quite as nice as it used to be. Still, everything has its price...
Saturday night was my friend Steve's stag night in preparation for his nuptuals next weekend. I took the Lomo with me and the flash, but for some reason the photos all came out a little, well, shit. These are probably the best of a bad bunch. Also, I am going to experiment a little here with the "continue reading..." function of the blog. I think the lightwindow gallery confuses some people and they don't see all the photos, so hopefully this should help fix that. For those that know how to use the lightwindow and prefer that, the usual gallery is still there, click this first photo, otherwise click the "continue reading" link:
Golden week has finished. It wasn't the best one to be honest; I was in bed for the first two days with a cold, and then the weather wasn't great for our barbeque on the third day, but it was still a nice break from work. These are some photos I took over the weekend (and a couple from a bit earlier) with my T2. I think I am starting to get the hang of it a little more and I really like the colours the camera produces. Really nice greens. Click the photo below to see the rest:
