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 Page 4 of 16
Eri has a hidden talent for seeing shoes that she likes, trying them on and liking them, procrastinating about buying them and upon finally deciding to do so, discovering that they have sold out. She had a bad experience a few years ago with a pair of Miu Miu boots, and the other week we saw a pair of Nike x Liberty Dunks that she (and I), really liked and when we returned to the shop to buy them, found they too had sold out. Yesterday, on going to the Nike Store in Kichijoji, we were pleased to see that they had started to stock them there too, after not having had them when I went to check the other week. I really like these. We're just trying to work out whether to keep the white laces or change to the included purple pair. Decisions, decisions.
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.
Before leaving work yesterday, I turned on iTunes on my computer with the foolish expectation that when I got home it would be ready to play music right away, without me having to start it up (yes, I am that much of an anal retentive). The problem seems to have been that all my music was on my external hard drive, so the computer went back to the default folder. When I got home and plugged it in to the mac, iTunes started loading the library from the external HD again, but when it had finished, the main library was littered with those little exclamation marks that mean that it can't find where the songs are located. I flicked through and worked out about half were lost.
I wondered what to do and after a bit of searching on the web, saved my library file, deleted all the songs and then reloaded the library file. This time, it said something along the lines of "import successful, but some files could not be found". I looked down and the library had been reduced to about 11,000 tracks, about a third of what there should be. I searched the external HD in a panic, but there were about the right number of files there, so, for some reason, iTunes just can't find them...which is bloody annoying.
The only solution I have found, has meant deleting all my songs from iTunes, and then just dragging and dropping the iTunes library folder in iTunes again. It's worked and the library is back to an (unnecessary) 30,000 odd songs, but it has also deleted all my playlists and all the info about playtimes etc. Really, really annoying. I now have to go through and re-list about 200 odd album playlists. I could of course just not do it, but I wouldn't be able to look at the iTunes window without sweating or something else OCD.
I still have no idea why it may have happened in the first place, so I have no idea what to do to prevent it happening in the future? Anyone experienced anything similar? Probably...
I can't remember quite what I said to my Vice-Principal when he asked me if I was a fast runner, but whatever it was, it can't have been sufficient to persuade him of my complete sporting ineptitude, because when Sports Day rolled around again, my name was in the roster for the teachers and PTA team in the 100m relay.
I enjoyed our Sports Day for once this year. The sun was out, the kids were well behved and the parents were friendly and in good voice. In short, it was a little like something from the Stepford Wives. I did make a massive mistake with my photos though. My camera has a thing on the viewfinder where you can adjust the focus for people with bad eyesight. The problem is, that if you have good eyesight (which I now do with my new specs on), it throws the focusing off completely. I realised at lunchtime, that the tiny dial for this was not quite centred and at f2.2 and above, it meant that about 100 shots were slightly out of focus. Really, really annoying. Oh well, you live and learn and all that.
There was a new (to me) event this year, which, like with so many of the events at a Japanese school sports day, would never, ever be allowed to be done in England for reasons of health and safety, mores the pity. This event, the name of which I forget, involved two teams, each of which had a giant ear-cleaning-bud thing to protect, which they surrounded, so that one end poked out of the centre of a circle of about 20 students. The other team then had to jump onto/through/above these kids and try to grab the ear-cleaning-bud thing and pull it to the ground, (thus also crushing the students around it). It was brilliant. The kids just leapt at eachother, knees into faces and arses on heads. Hilarious. It really should be a part of every school's violence repertoire.
By the time the teachers vs students race came around, it was about 3 in the afternoon and I was knackered after having been responsible for all photo teams and video teams all day. This did mean that my usual lack of speed would be excused somewhat by exhaustion, which was good, although I had a rather nasty feeling that some of the other teachers were actually entertaining the patently insane idea that we might beat the students team, comprising of the fastest kids aged between 12 and 15. It was never, ever going to happen. I ran after the Principal and Vice-Principal, which was basically perfect, as it meant that by the time I got the baton, we were already far too far behind the kids to have any chance of victory. My run was ok-ish, although I had the very peculiar feeling of my feet not quite connecting with the ground, like I was running a few centimeters above it. I have always rather suspected my ability to walk on air and this was a little like confirmation. I also think that my baton exchange with the teacher after me was really rather fine.
It's also interesting that since sports day, my students have all suddenly exhibited a new-found proficiency with English adverbial sentence construction and have seemed desperate to practice it with me:
Student: Hey Olly, nice racing.
Me: Why thank you, young Master Watanabe.
Student: Olly?
Me: Yes?
Student: You run very slowly.
Click for more pictures or click the link for the whole lot.
Incident 1: On Tuesday evening, I had just finished a jog (stagger) round the local park and was walking down one of the little backstreets that leads from the park back to my house. Just up the road were three large crows, the type that can often be seen loitering on the streets of Tokyo. Crows in Tokyo are everywhere and are huge. This is due to an incident in the 60's where nuclear waste was spilled on a pile of rubbish which was then eaten by some crows that mutated and caused a race of mecha-crow that killed all the normal crows and now rule all of Tokyo. They can be seen every money ripping apart rubbish bags, extorting lunch money from little kids and mugging old women.
This time, one crow was walking down the road and the other two were sitting on telephone wires on either side. As I approached, they started squarking, much more than usual. I chuckled to myself, not realising the Tippi Hedren danger I was in, and walked on until I was anout 20 feet from the crow in the middle of the road. Suddenly, I heard a massive swooosh and felt wings hitting my head, as one of the two crows divebombed me from behind and flew only centimeters above me. No sooner had I ducked, pointlessly late, when again, with a swoooosh, the other crow narrowly missed me. A little spooked, I checked to see that no-one was watching, luckily they weren't, and I started walking/trotting a little faster. By now I was only a few feet from the crow on the ground, and suddenly one of the first two blitzkrieg crows swooped down, screaming as it did so and just avoided hitting me again. The crow on the ground then started jumping towards me too, and again, the third crow attacked. This time, I couldn't have given a shit who was watching and I started running off down the street. After about 30 metres, the attacks stopped and I had a chance to catch my breath, exhausted after this extra unwanted exercise. Turning round, I saw the crows attacking another guy walking down the street. Obviously braver or, perhaps, more stupid than me, he was fighting back and aiming punches at the swooping death-birds. I didn't see much after he fell and, screaming, was set upon.
Incident 2: Yesterday, on my way out of school, I was chased by a FUCKING TORNADO. That is all. I think something may be trying to tell me something...
