After photographing Fuji Rock Festival, I managed to meet up with my friend Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert in Tokyo. We’ve been having these brief rendezvous over coffee for the best part of a decade. We’d discuss photography, our lives in Japan, assignments and the state of the world. I’d amuse Jeremy with tales of shooting Yakuza bottoms, and he’d inspire me with his images of whaling, Romani gypsys and Japanese cultural icons. A few days after our last meeting, Jeremy and his family moved back to Glasgow, Scotland. He doesn’t need me to wish him luck with his career, but I’ll continue to follow his adventures, albeit from a little further afar.

For those who like their information in under 140 characters, I have now set up a Twitter account. I’d stayed clear of Twitter until now, with the view that people didn’t need to know what kind of soup I’d just eaten or that my dog had peed on the floor. I have since been told that Twitter is a very powerful tool for professionals, you just have to know how to use it. Following the advice of my photographic compatriots I shall add my occasional tweets to the 24-hour dawn chorus that is Twitter.

After reports that it might be the strongest typhoon in more than a decade, Typhoon Bolaven was somewhat anticlimactic. This is a good thing. Fewer blackouts, fewer downed trees, fewer injuries. I went outside and got a few photos of the waves on Monday morning, but it became clear that what people really wanted to see were images of Bear conducting her lab reports. I didn’t see it at first, but a friend pointed out that the wave in the photograph below looks like a screaming banshee.