Commissioned travel articles and photo shoots
Second day started with lovely clear weather so before the dancing began I took the cable car up the mountain to get some shots of the city. Overall I think I got a good selection of images from the event. Hopefully enough for a photo essay on the festival, but that’s the decision of photo editors not humble photographers.
One of the problems with photographing Japanese festivals is that the hordes of spectators mean accommodation is often booked out weeks if not months in advance. After being unable to find anywhere or anyone in Tokushima that had a bed or patch of floor I could sleep on, I remembered a friend had recommended I try Couch Surfing on my next trip. Couch Surfing is based around a website www.couchsurfing.org and is “a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit.” People host or surf on couches around the world. To the pessimists out there this must seem like a nightmare – invite complete strangers into your home and hope they don’t kill you in your sleep. Optimists see it as a fantastic way to meet people from different cultures and have a much richer (and yet cheaper) experience of travel. I found a couch surfer (Sarah) who was happy to let myself and two more couch surfers crash on her floor during the festival. Everything worked out great and it …
I am pleased to announce that starting in the September issue of Okinawa Living Magazine there will be a monthly photo tips page titled The Traveling Photographer. I’ll be giving some advice on how to take better photographs and illustrating the various points with a few of my pictures. The September issue just hit the stands today so for those of you on Okinawa please check it out. I will eventually put the text and images up on my website for those of you who aren’t living on the island. See a larger, readable, scan of the page here.
Flew back into Okinawa last night. Trip went as planned except that I spent 3 nights near Nachi Katsuura to get the shots I wanted of the waterfall so didn’t make it to Mt Hiei or Wakayama City. In Osaka I got film processed at Yodobashi Camera. 5 rolls of Provia 400F 120 16 rolls of Provia 100F 220 I still have 7 exposed rolls of 220 that I will drop off at Kitamura Camera later today. Big pile of transparencies means I will spend the next week with a loupe, light box and scanner. Hopefully will have some images ready for the web in the next few days.
Fly from Okinawa up to Kansai Airport later today for a two week photo trip. Schedule is not set in stone but if any of you are in the same area and want to meet up just drop me a line. 13 & 14 – Tokushima City (Awa Odori Festival) 15, 16, 17 – Kyoto (Daimonji Festival) 18, 19 – Osaka 20, 21, 22 – Mt Hiei / Wakayama City / Katsuura 23 – Mt Koya
My feature “The Best of Nagasaki” is in the August edition of Okinawa Living magazine. You can read the entire text from the article and check out more photographs of Nagasaki here: The Best of Nagasaki.
In the July issue of Okinawa Living, I have a 6 page feature on photographing Okinawa’s outdoors. Scans from the magazine below, and I’ll put up the text next month for people who’d like to read the feature but aren’t on Okinawa.
The job of a photographer is getting more and more complicated. In the past photographers have had to be their own promoter, accountant, travel agent, porter and therapist. More recently many photographers have added the role of writer and blogger, but perhaps the biggest change is going to be the increasing importance of both video and sound. Take a look inside the camera bag of travel photographer Tewfic El-Sawy: * Canon EOS 5D Mark II * Canon G10 (ideal for unobtrusive street photography) * Canon 17-40mm f4.0 * Canon 28-70mm f 2.8 * Canon 24mm f1.4 * Marantz PMD 620 Audio Recorder * Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch Mini Laptop (w/LR2 and SoundSlides) * A 250gb G-Tech Mini G-Drive External Hard Drive * Blackberry & an iTouch Along with all the camera gear there is a Marantz PMD 620 Audio Recorder. When I met Guardian photographer David Levene a few months ago I noticed that along with two Canon EOS 5D Mark IIs and a wide selection of lenses he also carried an Edirol Audio Recorder. …
After mentioning Byron Jones in the previous post I thought I should put up the entire interview for those who didn’t see it in the magazine. Sanshin Virtuoso Byron Jones was born in Quantico, Virginia. In 1985 his father, a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, was transferred to Camp Foster on Okinawa. Byron attended high school on base, but developed a deep interest in the local Ryukyu culture. At 19, he started playing the sanshin, a traditional Okinawan three-string instrument, which would become his passion. As his proficiency increased, he gained a reputation in the local and national media as “more Japanese than the Japanese.” Byron now teaches the sanshin at various places including the University of the Ryukyus. What is your musical background? I played the clarinet when I was in the 4th Grade, and in high school, one of my friends taught me to play guitar. I saw a sanshin for the first time while visiting my friend’s house and immediately wanted to learn how to play. It wasn’t possible to rent …
Listening to the local radio station the other day I heard a song by The Pussycat Dolls. The tune would have been forgettable except for the fact that it sounds like an Okinawan sanshin is playing in the background. Does anyone happen to know if it really is a sanshin? The song is called Whatcha Think About That The Okinawan sanshin is a three stringed instrument, similar to a banjo. It is a close relative of the shamisen that is played on mainland Japan. Here’s a shot of professional sanshin player Byron Jones that I took for Okinawa Living.
TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography 