Mistakes

It all seems rather a long time ago. During the winter of 2010 Eiichi-san lent me one of his Speed Graphic Pacemakers, a Dallmeyer Pentac lenses, and a bunch of 4×5 film holders. Being my usual cautious self, i went out and bought a pack of Velvia 50, loaded up some holders, and went out to get my ‘土門拳‘ on.

Unfortunately, or maybe predictably, i screwed up and loaded the film into the holders backwards. Remember being rather annoyed with myself when they cam back from the lab… still, when life gives you lemons, etc.

Several years later it occurred to me to that my fancy-pants scanner had a 4×5 film holder, and i should see if anything was salvageable.

Obviously not what i had in mind when taking them – slow colour film reduced to underexposed, high contrast b&w, but i’m really pleased with them… to the point where my next consideration is whether they’ll be possible to print!

Edit: proving the point that i’m an idiot, of course i can’t print them they aren’t negatives. Just call me ‘Doh!-mon’…

Fukushimarch

If you’re around in Tokyo at the start of this month please go visit Watanabe-san’s ‘3 months later‘ exhibition in Harajuku.

As i’m sure most of you  know, Watanabe-san is a good friend, and member of our little ‘Fragments of Tokyo’ exhibition team.

These photographs (or at least those that i’ve seen) are incredibly haunting, and well worth seeing. My initial reaction to them was to attempt to get them seen by a much wider audience. For various reasons (conflicting priorities on my side) that never happened, and i’m therefore especially happy that he’s putting on this show.

THIAPS

THIAPS, The International Analogue Photographic Society is a platform for photographers who love the tactile quality of film-based images, who enjoy the wet and warm smell of developers and fixative, with a strong belief that “Film is not dead; it just smells funny.”

I like saying ‘THIAPS‘. It makes a nice sound…

Back in March, and completely out of the blue, i received a request to include two of my recent Tokyo shots in an upcoming THIAPS Urban book. Despite missing the deadline several times (there was a lot going on at the time…) Frans still included them in the final book. Frans, thank you your patience!

A preview of the entire book is online here at Blurb. My two shots are on pages 28 and 29. If you display it fullscreen you can just about make out the scant details. The book looks really well put together and i think Frans made some interesting choices for the theme.

[While we're here: apologies for the lack of updates / communication over the last couple of weeks. We've moved to Europe (Hamburg, Germany, to be precise) and are still in the process of sorting out a place to live, dealing with the inevitable paperwork, and trying to remembering that we did this for the adventure.

A big post on the whys and wherefores of leaving Japan and coming back to Europe will be forthcoming at some point in the not too distant future.]

2nd Annual ‘Fragments of Tokyo’ Exhibition

It’s on! Do drop by if you can.

We’re planning to all be there on the Saturday (3.19). Not sure if we’ll manage to organise a party at the gallery, but if there are enough people around at the end of the day on Saturday i’m sure we’ll find a way to get in to our cups.

Update: my part of the show is now up on the Magnesium Agency site, here.

You’re probably wondering what happened to Mg. The answer is something like ‘it’s on semi-permanent hiatus’. I’m being a little cheeky and using it as a means for getting some better WordPress hosting, with proper galley support…

Nana is Real?

Nana (presumably a collective) is very active in Shibuya right now… Love the “The Angry Girl…” line.

Ride!

Having developed eight rolls of film over the last three days, this is about what i needed to find.

Move towards the light!

Golden Gai (in Blue)

Took the venerable 10d out for a ride the other night. Forgotten how slow and clunky it is to use: autofocus doesn’t work in the dark; it takes an age to save one shot; and the shutter button is almost dead!

Playing with a 50D for a few minutes was a bit of a revelation… perhaps i’ll have to get one of these new fangled digital camera things?

Been a while since i shot and processed a batch of digi-snaps. Hate to have to admit it, but it was quite an enjoyable change of creative pace. There. I said it. Happy now, Adrian?

Wrap

What a week! Last night we took the exhibition down, packed it all up, and went home… after a few beers.

It has been a great experience, and good to have so many people turn out. Don’t really know how many people we got through the door.

On the three days that i was there, there wasn’t a quiet moment… actually, around 6:30 last night, watanabe-san and i were the only ones in the gallery, we both thought it was all over. The relief was cut short by a couple of swedish photographers that we’d met in Golden Gai the night before, followed by a posse of drunk Mg’ers.

I’ve learned a couple of good lessons: everybody likes different shots, you have to get over all ideas you might have about which ones will be popular; pulling a series out of the mess on flickr, getting a consistent set of shots, really helps you see them for what they are; talking to people about photography for hours several days in a row takes it out of you!

The show as a whole came together really well. Even though we worked from a very loose theme, the four sets of pictures worked well together. That was luck, as we certainly didn’t plan it…

Wouldn’t say that, right now, i’m looking forward to doing it again, but give a few months and that’ll probably change. It’ll certainly be nice to get out there and shoot again without having this hanging over me.

Thanks to everyone who came along to the show, especially all of the friends who came along to support and helped out in so many ways. Love you all.

For those of you who couldn’t make it, i’ve posted my shots on the Magnesium site. Will have to see if the others are going to do something similar. If so i’ll send out links.

On the Wall

After the usual dramatics (the styrene boards wouldn’t stick to the wall; one fell down while i was out getting padded tape… which then needed trimming, and forced me to re-order the shots) the exhibition is on the wall at Place M. I should probably mail them about fixing the link to my photograph on the front page.

Here’s hoping that they stay stuck to the wall until everyone gets to see them…

I’ll be there on Thursday from around 3pm, and most of Saturday and Sunday afternoon. The afternoon party has become an evening thing, from 6:30pm until they throw us out. It’s not clear to me how or why the time changed, but this appears to be the final answer.

Watanabe-san made the above poster for me. It’s not actually part of the show. Mostly because i couldn’t get it clean enough. Looks like it was used to clean the house! Feel free to grab it and re-blog it. <hint hint>

Fragments of Tokyo Exhibition

My first photography exhibition is opening next week, Monday, 8th of February, and is up until Sunday, the 14th.

We are having a little soiree on Thursday afternoon (what is a soiree in the afternoon called?), the 11th. It’s a national holiday (建国記念日 – founding of the nation day) so hopefully a few people will be able to drop by, have a glass of wine, and a chat. The gallery (Place M) is open from 1pm, but that’s not a particularly civilised time to start drinking… so how about 3pm? Oh, and don’t get your hopes up, we’re not – so there won’t be cases of wine!

I’m putting up nine pictures… or maybe ten… or eight… won’t really know until i see them on the wall. It has been quite the experience getting from negatives to getting A2 prints hung on a wall. Along the way i’ve lost a little sleep, worried and drunk too much, and acquired a printer. Here’s hoping that it’ll be easier next time… assuming there is a “next time”.

Edit: also, this, which Watanabe-san kindly made as banner ad, but we don’t have anywhere to use it:

It’s great having talented friends.