Author: travel67

Mount Asama Eruption

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Mount Asama, one of the volcanoes in central Japan erupted yesterday. Eruptions are not a rare event in Japan. Mount Sakurajima near Kagoshima regularly has a column of smoke rising from it. Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain, is quite literally a time bomb waiting to explode. At the start of 2000 I was living in Otaru, Hokkaido. On March 31st,  the morning TV news showed that the local volcano, Mount Usu, was smoking. (Note I saw the pictures on the screen, but didn’t understand what the newscaster was saying.) A couple of friends and I had the day off so we decided to go and have a look. We drove from Otaru to Lake Toya, but got a little lost on the way and ended up taking little back roads rather than the main highway. We arrived at Lake Toya to find it was very quiet and there was only a single news photographer standing  at the lake edge. I took a few photographs of the Mount Usu erupting in front of us. The news …

Seat of Power

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Over the last month I have done my 40 km bicycle commute 4 times. My time dropped from close to 2 hours to 1 hour 38 minutes for the ride there, while my fastest ride home was 1 hour 30. (The university is at the top of a hill.) I’ve learned some important things about riding: When it’s cold, riding faster warms up your muscles but the wind chill means you are still freezing. Most car and truck drivers are very considerate and give cyclists a wide berth. However it would only require one idiotic / sleepy / distracted driver  to make a real mess of your shiny bicycle and limbs. Defensive cycling is an necessity rather than an option. Riding in the rain is fun the first time, but the novelty wears off fast. There is an infinite number of varieties of asphalt, and a cyclist can feel every nuance through their bottom. The stock seat that came with my bicycle had a rather annoying squeak, and was not specifically designed for a triathlon bike. I am …

On the bookshelf – Night & Low-Light Photography

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In my recent blog about tripods I mentioned that one of the uses of a tripod was for night shots. In reality most “night” shots are actually taken during twilight. The reds and purples or the sunset add some visual interest to the background, while the slightly lighter sky allows the building to be silhouettes rather than disappearing into the night. Lee Frost (a fellow Pentax 67 shooter ) gives a good introduction to shooting at night, dawn and twilight in his book The Complete Guide to Night and Low-Light Photography This is the book I have on my bookshelf, but there are numerous similar books available and many of the more recent ones are slanted far more toward digital users. There is always the exception to the rule. Jason Hawkes doesn’t use a tripod for his night shots but as an aerial photographer prefers to use a giro-stabilizer attached to a helicopter. The results are fantastic, my favorite of which is this one here.

Japan Train Timetables

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I’ve been sitting at my computer planning my next trip. I fly from Okinawa to Tokyo, but will travel by train from Tokyo to Hachinohe to Aomori to Niigata and then back to Tokyo. A decade ago figuring out the how, what, when and where of this journey would have been tricky even for a Japanese speaker. Now in the age of the internet, and with a growing appreciation of English speakers in Japan there is a solution, visit the website hyperdia  and simply enter your start point and destination. There are a few niggles in the system (It seems to assume Tokyo always mean Tokyo Disneyland) but overall I have found it a fantastic resource when planning trips.  

Baraka

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A couple of years ago I met up with Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, a Tokyo based photographer who produces fantastic images for clients ranging from The Guardian to Greenpeace. During our conversation he asked which photographers I was inspired by. There was a rather embarrassing pause, followed by me admitting that I had always been inspired more by TV and movies than photographers.  The truth is it was the images from documentaries like The Trials of Life and movies such as Dances with Wolves and Braveheart that were truly awe-inspiring. There is one film above all others that really affected me  – Baraka. Baraka is a fantastic journey through 24 countries with breathtaking cinematography.  I was amazed when I saw it 14 years ago as a university student, and it still inspires me. One wonderful thing is that I have now been to some of the places captured in the film. I have witnessed snow monkeys relaxing in their hot spring pools, and thousands of commuters surge through Tokyo’s stations. In a previous post I talked about film size and the tradeoff between film size( …

Do you use a tripod?

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Short answer: Yes, most of the time. Longer answer: As mentioned before the Pentax 67II is a big heavy camera. You can use it handheld, but it is both tiring and you don’t get the same level of sharpness you would with a steady base. I don’t use a tripod when I am moving around at festivals, as I am usually shooting portraits with a fast shutter speed. 90% of the time, however, when I fire the shutter I have the camera firmly mounted on the tripod. This is essential when you are taking night scenes, you are working in low light, or when you are shooting a landscape and want both the foreground and background in focus. Even longer answer: There are several factors that determine what is a good tripod, but the importance of these individual factors will depend on the needs of the photographer so there is no one perfect tripod for all photographers, you have to find which works best for you. There are several factors you should consider. Weight: A …

Childhood Inspiration

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  There are a few really memorable people from when I was growing up. Family not included, these people tended to inhabit the grey box in the corner of the living room.   This morning I saw on the news that one of my TV heroes, Tony Hart, had died. He inspired a generation of kids to draw and paint through his show Take Hart on the BBC.  As a child I used to watch in amazement at he chatted to Morph, his animated plasticine sidekick. There was also something strangely calming about “The Gallery” when you stared at the creations kids from all over the country had sent into him while a mezmerizing jingle played in the background.     Both Tony Hart and Morph will always be a wonderful part of my childhood, and I am sure the feeling is shared by thousands if not millions more.

Police Performance

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The South Yorkshire police recently acquired a new pursuit car in the form of a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. British police have for several years used Mitsubishi Evo’s and Subaru Imprezas which have helped catch numerous wayward motorist and provided a steady stream of exciting chases for shows like the BBC’s Car Wars.  The main police car in Japan is the Toyota Crown (rebranded in the US as a Lexus) but they also have a few special cars including a Godzilla… and a wonderful, yet somewhat impractical, Honda NSX.

Edy & Free Flights with ANA

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Flying around Japan is expensive. There are no discount airlines offering ridiculously cheap fares. For the most part, there are just two options ANA or JAL, and neither are cheap. You can save some money if you fly around your birthday with the special birthday tickets offers, or by buying tickets more than a month in advance. Another option, which is very popular with Japanese, is to get a hotel flight package from a local travel agent.  The cheapest way to fly, however, is to use an airline’s mileage programme and get tickets for free. Both ANA and JAL have a mileage club, and both are affiliated with numerous other airlines to help you build up miles.       Last summer when I flew back to the UK the cheapest flight was with Qatar Airways. The flight was good, and as a bonus the mileage from Qatar Airways could be put onto my ANA Mileage Club card. At the start of December I checked my mileage balance and saw I had  10,400 miles. Unfortunately, …