A couple of weeks ago James Pankiewicz and I headed down to Tomigusku to the dojo of 9th dan gojuryu karate master Shigetoshi Senaha. I had been hoping to photograph this particular master for a while as he is the sensei of a good friend of mine James East. Senaha sensei posed for the portraits and then showed us his old photo albums.  Through a series of  small black and white photographs, we were taken on a journey through Senaha’s life, and through his karate career. There were images of him training as a young man in Okinawa and later performing at the opening of the Budokan in Tokyo. Many of the recent photographs were of him touring other countries, spreading karate around the world. Before I left, I took a photograph of Senaha-sensei performing a kata in his dojo. Perhaps he’ll add it to his album, to be shown to other lucky visitors at his dojo.

The dates are now confirmed! I’ll be hosting Martin Bailey’s Pixels 2 Pigment  2-day Workshop in Okinawa on August 4th & 5th. Martin has put together a few details about the workshop on a Pixels 2 Pigment website, but also check out his main website and his podcast. This is a great opportunity for photographers to expand their knowledge base. Color management is such a fundamental part of a photographers workflow, but it is often misunderstood, or simply ignored. Martin will guide you through the various steps that will make your life easier. You can take control of color, so you spend less time trying to correct mistakes in Photoshop, or wasting valuable ink and paper. A course outline should be available in the next few weeks. The 2-day workshop will take place from 10AM to 5PM on both days. The course fee is US$250. The Okinawa workshop will take place at my home in Uruma City. To book a place on the course please email me chris (at) travel67.com and put WORKSHOP in the subject …

La-kun is a large dog. When Japanese people see my labrador, they often say things like 大きい!! (Big!!)  and Bear is only 27 kilos. La-kun is over 60 kilos, and could be mistaken for a tuskless mammoth. Fortunately La-kun is also the most docile creature I’ve ever met. He lumbers around slowly and then lies down for a rest. What I didn’t know was that Newfoundlands are water dogs and, like labradors, very good swimmers. La-kun has been trained as a water rescue dog so hopefully in the future I’ll use the underwater housing and take some shots of him in action.

It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. Once the sun has dropped below the horizon, you can continue to dive, you just have to bring your own light with you. Night divers normally have a large, bright dive light and a smaller backup dive light. Some strobes have a modeling light which can act as the main dive light, but you still need at least one other dive light. In someways it is actually easier to take photographs at night, the fish are often dopily lounging around while crustacea like shrimps have come out of their crevices and scuttle about the reef. Diving at night, with or without a camera, is a strange if not surreal experience. It’s a bit like being in the middle of an Alien movie: labored breathing, flashlights peering in to the darkness, the ease at which disorientation sets in, and an awareness that something toothy might be lurking just outside your …

I got a call from Pentax yesterday saying that from September 19th to October 1st 2012 I will have a solo exhibition of my matsuri (Japanese festival) images at the Pentax Forum Gallery in Shinjuku, Tokyo. There will be about 30 large prints, highlighting my favorite photographic subject. It’s several months away, but thought I’d let everyone share in the exciting news and hope to see some of you in September.