TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography

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Masaaki Ikemiyagi, Hanshi 9th dan, Goju-ryu Okinawa Meibukan

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Masaaki Ikemiyagi, Hanshi 9th dan, Goju-ryu Okinawa Meibukan

Masaaki Ikemiyagi, Hanshi 9th dan, Goju-ryu Okinawa Meibukan photographed at Naha’s Budokan on July 16th 2014.

Masaaki Ikemiyagi, Hanshi 9th dan, Goju-ryu Okinawa Meibukan

Soma Nomaoi – Yoinorikeiba

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Soma Nomaoi Samurai Horseman Festival

It’s a long hot trek from the three outer shrines to the Hibarigahara-Saijochi, but some made the ride in style, and in the shade.

Soma Nomaoi Samurai Horseman Festival

Once at the track, the riders and horses had a rest before mounting up for the afternoon’s races.

Soma Nomaoi Samurai Horseman Festival

The horses are fast, but the equipment is pretty rudimentary. There are no modern helmets for head protection, so you have got to be a great rider or know how to tuck and roll.

Soma Nomaoi Samurai Horseman Festival

Takashi Okuma, Hanshi 9th Dan Okinawa Goju-ryu Karatedo Kushinkan

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Takashi Okuma, Hanshi 9th Dan Okinawa Goju-ryu Karatedo Kushinkan

Takashi Okuma, Hanshi 9th Dan Okinawa Goju-ryu Karatedo Kushinkan photographed at Naha’s Budokan on July 16th, 2014.

Takashi Okuma, Hanshi 9th Dan Okinawa Goju-ryu Karatedo Kushinkan

Pentax 645Z and the Double Big Mac

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The new Pentax 645Z sensor is 51.4 megapixels. Great for image quality and an amazing amount of detail, but this can lead to a few issues.

A 64GB memory card can hold only 566 images. (Compared to 712 images on the 40MP 645D or 1198 on the Pentax K3)

Larger files mean that it’s slower to download the data from the SD card, and slower to import into Lightroom, and slower to create 1:1 previews, and slower to edit in Photoshop.

With the 645D, I’d got used to setting things running on my old Mac Pro 1.1 and then taking the dog for the walk or making a cup of tea. Recently, however, when shooting more frames, and at higher resolutions the speed of my workflow was no longer efficient.

I wanted a Mac with 32GB RAM, and a PCIe SSD with about 500GB of memory. The easy option would be to look at the new Mac Pros, but a model with the specs I wanted would be around 5,000 dollars. Instead, for around half the price, I got a hot-rodded 2009 Mac Pro from OWC that should have similar performance. I also spent another hundred and fifty bucks on another PCIe card so I have some USB3.0 ports for a USB3.0 SD card reader. It doesn’t have thunderbolt ports, and I can’t use 4k monitors, but this isn’t an issue for me.

Make that a double

Of course, the new Mac Pro is compact and elegant in it’s piano black case, but I still like the industrial look of the giant aluminum cheese graters. What’s more, a decade from now, all I’ll need is a rectangular piece of glass and I can make an awesomely nerdy coffee table.

Masanobu Sakugawa 9th Dan, Shorinji-ryu

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Masanobu Sakugawa 9th Dan, Shorinji-ryu

9th Dan, Shorinji-ryu Master Masanobu Sakugawa, photographed at Naha’s Budokan on July 16th, 2014.

Masanobu Sakugawa 9th Dan, Shorinji-ryu

Soma Nomaoi Festival – Shutsujin Ceremony at Nakamura Shrine

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Soma Nomaoi Festival, Nakamura Jina, Soma, Fukushima

The Soma Nomaoi samurai horsemen festival takes place each July in Fukushima Prefecture. Following the devastation of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami it was cancelled, but it restarted once again in 2013. I attended this year to document one of Japan’s great festivals, and the resilience of Fukushima’s people.