All posts filed under: Japan

Pentax Optio W90 and the Countdown to the Pentax 645D

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A couple of new cameras will soon be released from Pentax. The first is the latest in their line of rugged waterproof cameras, the w90. I’m a big fan of the W-series. They’re perfect for vacations when you may forget to empty your pockets before you dive in the ocean. The bigger news is the countdown to the unveiling of Pentax’s flaship model, the long awaited Pentax 645D. I believe the sensor will be 1.7 times the size of a full frame 35mm sensor, but no news yet of how many megapixels, new lenses, the price, or the date of release.

Natsumi Photo Shoot

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Just got back from a fun photo shoot at Shikina Gardens in Naha. I was assisting fellow photographer Annya Eyestone as she photographed Japanese model Natsumi. I didn’t take my big camera, but did get a couple of shots with my little digital point and shoot. I converted a few to black and white as it hides various noise and color issues. Here’s my favorite.

Sushi Zen: Apologies, Embarrassment and Disappointment

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A couple of months ago I posted a blog entry advertising that an Okinawan photo club I belong to was having a mini exhibit at a local restaurant called Sushi Zen (see original post here). The pictures were up all January and when the month finished the owner was more than happy to have the exhibit continue on into February. Yesterday, I saw a comment on Facebook saying that Sushi Zen didn’t allow Japanese customers. I thought that something must have got lost in translation, but unfortunately, the comments made on Facebook were true. A regular customer of the restaurant told me that the Japanese owner had worked in America and on his return to Okinawa he set up a restaurant making American style sushi that would be popular with  Americans on the island. Japanese customers however demanded Japanese style sushi,  and made negative comments about the American customers when talking in Japanese. It appears that to create a comfortable atmosphere for his American clients, the owner decided to make the restaurant a private club. …

100 Yen CDs

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Japanese video stores such as Tsutaya and GEO rent DVDs, Blu-ray discs, comics, video games and CDs. Sometimes they sell off the older DVD’s and CD’s as ex-rentals and recently GEO had a big sale with whole shelves of CD’s on sale for just 100 yen each. It’s been fantastic wandering around the aisles of various stores and as an entire album is less than a single song on iTunes I’ve been quite happy to try things I wouldn’t have otherwise bought. Surprisingly a large number of the CDs were by Scatman John, which even at 100 yen, I managed to resist. So if you happen to see me in my car singing hits from the nineties you now know why. “Movin’ to the country, Gonna eat a lot of peaches. Movin’ to the country, Gonna eat me a lot of peaches”

Million Dollar Music Videos

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I came across a list of the most expensive music videos ever made on Wikipedia. 31 videos on the list cost at least a million dollars to make.  I was surprised  that along with global superstars including Michael Jackson, Madonna and Britney, four of the million dollar videos were made for Japanese singer pop star Ayumi Hamasaki. Here’s one of Ayumi’s videos, Fairyland. I expect that taking Ayumi, dancers and film crew to a tropical island probably took up a good part of the budget. The video also serves as a useful public information announcement on the dangers of candles.

The never ending cold and Photoshop.

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I have had a cold for nearly 6 weeks. The sore throat and runny nose ended after a few days but I have a lingering cough that doesn’t want to disappear. So I tried to rest, eat healthy food and give my body time to recover. When that had no effect I went to the doctor and was given some antibiotics and various other tablets. When they had no effect the doctor gave me some different antibiotics and another selection of tablets. I think I just need a good dose of sunshine, as the weather has been miserable for weeks. Meanwhile, I’ve been sitting at my computer and learning about Photoshop. You can do a lot of amazing things in Photoshop and it is surprisingly easy to manipulate reality. As a photographer this raises all sorts of ethical questions about what you should or shouldn’t do to an image. For news photographers the rules are clear, nothing should be changed. For travel photography I think it would be best to do the same. However, it …

Flip Canvas Horizontal

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Flip Canvas Horizontal is a useful adjustment in Photoshop that gives you a mirror image of your photograph. A few words of warning, which photographers and particularly photo editors should remember. Flipping an photograph that contains writing will create problems. This is obvious if you can read the text, less so if you can’t.  If a photo editor or graphic designer can’t read kanji it becomes far too easy for images to get flipped during layout. This has happened to me several times. Even more troubling are the cases where an image of a Japanese person in a kimono is flipped. In one simple step in Photoshop you have created the living dead. This is because “For both men and women, always wrap the right side of the kimono over the body, then overlap it with the left side. Right on top of the left is only used to dress a corpse for burial.” Japanese kimono.com Soon you will begin to notice the flip canvas horizontal adjustment in unexpected places. This screen shot from the movie …

Ugly Overhead Wires – Shifting Baselines

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In response to a few comments to the previous post… Do people get used to having electrical wires stretching through the sky, I’m sure. Does this lessen the frustration you might otherwise have, probably. Does it mean that it is no longer a problem, not at all. The phenomenon of shifting baselines as applied in fisheries and ecology is that the perception of what a “healthy” ecosystem is worsens as we get used to successive levels of damage. In Okinawa this idea could be applied to the coral reefs, the forests, beaches or the presence of wiring and concrete poles. Here’s a short public service announcement that explains a little more:

Ugly Overhead Wires

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Last weekend was cloudy and rainy. Rather than taking photos of cherry blossom I was stuck inside sitting at the computer. Then, following a gust of wind, my internet connection went dead. I phoned NTT (on my mobile) and after confirming that one of the green lights on the modem was no longer lit, then sent around an engineer. Turns out that the telephone line had been bent out of shape by the branches of a swaying tree. I didn’t ask, but I wonder how many people lose their phone, internet or electricity when typhoons bring much stronger winds. Isn’t it time that Okinawa thought about burying some of these cables? This isn’t a new idea, a few years ago I had a monthly column in the Asahi Weekly newspaper. Here’s the column from March 2004. Power to the People I can see the ocean from my living room window. This may sound idyllic, but running directly in front of my house is a mass of wires. Concrete pillars support various sets of electrical and …