One clever feature on Flickr is the ability to track the popularity of your images. There is a program that will determine your most interesting images based on comments and views. It then creates a special set for your Photostream. My top 36 “most interesting” images as of March 15th are those above. It appears that women in bikinis and men’s bottoms are popular favorites. Nice to see that my labrador Bear sneaked in there at number 36.
I found this little creature in the bathroom this morning. He was quite cold so easy to catch and happy to sunbathe while I took some photos. (In fact, once I had finished taking photos with my point & shoot I went back in the house got out my Pentax 67, changed lenses, attached a 1:1 macro adapter, inserted film, found light meter, and he was still relaxing on the shell when I came back.) I have field guides for Japanese birds, and even a list of Okinawan dragonflies, I don’t however have a list of herps (This is where my friend Matt would step in when I lived in Peru ). Does anyone out there now what species this is?
Yesterday I watched an interview with Tom Hanks on The Colbert Report. Hanks discussed his latest project, the HBO miniseries titled The Pacific. Following on from the critically acclaimed Band of Brothers that was based on events in Europe during WWII, The Pacific will look at the Pacific Theater of Operations. Events in the series include the invasions of Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. I am very interested to see how the invasion of Okinawa is portrayed. The Battle of Okinawa, also known as the Typhoon of Steel was one of the most horrific events in history. Thousands of American and Japanese troops were killed, and along with them approximately 140,000 civilians. Some died during the air assault, others from malaria, starvation and forced mass suicides. Trapped between two warring powers, the Okinawans were killed by both sides. Okinawans that survived the war, have told me that by remembering the events it will hopefully prevent a similar tragedy from ever happening again. Having heard some of their stories, it is hard to visit places like the cliffs of …
See a larger, readable, scan of the page here.
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.
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. …
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”
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:
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 …
Dolphin Delight Ryo Nakasone and Azusa Watanabe are dolphin trainers at Okinawa’s Expo Park. Ryo Nakasone grew up in Motobu not far from the aquarium where he now works. While at high school in Naha he was a champion boxer and was scouted by Nihon University where he fought in the light-fly weight class while a student. After graduation, he returned to his hometown and began working at Expo Park. Now 29, he has been a dolphin trainer for five years. Azusa Watanabe majored in fisheries studies at Nagasaki University. She moved to Okinawa four months ago, and at age 23, is the aquarium’s newest dolphin trainer. What types of dolphin live at Expo Park? “There are 82 species of dolphin in the world, and we have five species living here at Expo. They are the Pacific white-sided dolphin, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin, rough-toothed Dolphin, bottlenose dolphin and false killer whale.” I heard a rumor that killer whales are actually a type of dolphin? “It is true; they are part of the same biological family Delphinidae. …
TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography 