All posts filed under: Okinawa

Kiku-san and the carrot

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Kiku-san is 92 years old. She has a small garden next to her house where she tends her vegetables. She grows lettuces, radishes, garlic and carrots. There are a few important things to note from this simple series of images with regards to longevity. The first is that Kiku-san grows and eats a large range of vegetables. The second is that she is gardening and exercising even though it’s mid February. Third, she is smiling. So there you are, three keys to a long life. Eat your veggies, exercise, smile. Enjoy the rest of your lives 🙂

Cherry Blossom in Okinawa

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Spring is officially here in Okinawa. Cherry blossom is in full bloom, and it’s starting to warm up. The cherry trees in Okinawa produce dense pink blossoms, quite unlike the pale blooms up on mainland Japan. The most popular viewing spot in Okinawa is not a large public park, but on the twisty road up Yae mountain near Nago City. It’s a pretty drive, but get there very early, or you’ll get stuck in a long line of cars. Equipment: Pentax 645D, Pentax 67 to 645 adapter, Pentax 67 Macro 100mm  

Visions of Japan at Global Gallery – A few thoughts

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It’s been a couple of months since I held my Visions of Japan exhibition at Global Gallery. I’d promised I’d write a  post about the experience of putting on this exhibition, sorry it took so long. (If you haven’t read it all ready, take a look at my previous post Zen and the Art of Photography Exhibitions in which I talk about what I learned from my first few shows) 1) Space I had more space for this exhibition. It was great to be able to show a large range of images. I did however only hire half the gallery to save on rental costs. I was able to display around 20 framed A2 landscapes and 24  matted A3 portraits.  The larger area also gave me the space for several tables from where I could display and sell prints. 2) Costs The basic costs for gallery rental, postcards and posters came to a little over 100,000 yen or $1000. In addition to this were the costs of producing the pieces for display. 3) Sales This …

Up in the air

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Last Friday I arrived at sunny Naha airport with a ticket to Niigata. Unfortunately, the flight was cancelled due to heavy snow up on the mainland. They told me the next flight to Niigata was the following day, when things would probably be back to normal. The problem was I needed to be in Niigata that night, so that I could get to Nagano the following day. ANA allowed me to change my ticket and get on a flight to Haneda. I then got the monorail and local train to Tokyo Station, and finally jumped on the bullet train to Niigata. I arrived in Niigata 4 hours later and 11,000 yen poorer than I’d expected, but at least I’d made it. Let the adventures begin.

AutoStitch for iPhone

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A couple of weeks ago I put up the panoramic photo taken by Pete Leong of my exhibition. Pete took the photo with his iPhone using an app called AutoStitch. You simply take a series of overlapping photographs with your phone, then open the app, select the images and the app will stitch them all together into one seamless image. AutoStitch is only a couple of dollars so it seemed like a fun thing to try out. You probably will have slightly ragged edges to the image when it is stitched together, but the phone can automatically crop out the black space for you. If you have an iPhone and feel like broadening your photographic horizons then it’s well worth playing around with.

Studio Shoot – Manda – Transformation

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This was an interesting shoot with Manda, one of the Marines based on Okinawa. Lighting remained constant through the shoot. Makeup artist Kim Clay added a natural makeup look between shots 2 and 3, and then an evening makeup look between 3 and 4. Another key difference is that the first two shots were taken with the 645 55mm lens (approx 40 mm on a 35 full frame camera) and the last two shots were taken with the 67 105mm lens (approx 85mm on a 35mm full frame camera). The longer lens gives more pleasing proportions to the face, which is why lenses around 85mm are often described as portrait lenses.

Santa Dive 2010

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My good friend Hiroshi and I did our annual Santa dive today. Cape Maeda was calm, and the water clear but chilly. Not many other people diving today, but did manage to amuse a few other divers and snorkelers as we glided by.

Thank You!

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A big thank you to all the people who came by the exhibition or offered their encouragement from afar. It was a fun and hectic six days.  This was my  fifth exhibition, and the largest so far with 23 landscapes and 24 portraits on show. It was great to meet so many people and listen to their comments. The snow monkey images “Relaxation” and “Monkey Hug” along with “Fireworks at Itsukushima” were very popular, however, the clear favorite was the “Into the Mist” shot of the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge. I also learned a lot more about marketing, image selection, sales, and digital displays, but I’ll leave comments on them for another post. Right now I have to make sure that people who ordered prints get them before Christmas, and that the images from recent studio shoots are edited and sent to the models. Busy, busy busy.

Pro Skateboarder Tetsuharu Sai

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Yesterday I did a shoot with professional skateboarder Tetsuharu Sai. Photographer David Washington helped provide the battery power and assistance, while skateboarder Matt Hill got me the introduction. The setup was relatively simple. I used a Profoto 300W compact strobe with a magnum reflector, this was powered by David’s Tronix Explorer XT battery pack and triggered with a PocketWizard. We used a flash meter to first check the ambient light and then measure exposure with the flash.  I expected to struggle as I didn’t have a lens wider than the 645D’s 55mm but this turned out to not be a problem It looked like we might have to postpone the shoot due to bad weather, but the rain didn’t get past a few drops and the cloudy skies added a bit of drama to the background. Thanks again to Tetsuharu, David and Matt for making this shoot possible.