All posts filed under: Photography

Apple Mac by Kafka

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10 days ago my 1TB external hard drive stopped working. This hard drive was running Time Machine continually making backups of all my data. I took it back to the store. They said they would send it back to the manufacturer IO DATA. IO DATA phoned a couple of days ago and said they would fix it but I would lose the data. No problems I said it’s only the backup, everything is safe on my very reliable Mac Pro computer…. This morning turn on my computer and all I get is the Apple logo and a little thinking symbol. Call Apple support.  First question… Is all your data saved? AGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! After an hour of trying various things. The lady on the phone says that I should reinstall Snow Leopard, but I will lose all information on the hard drive.  But there is hope….. All my data is on my second “DATA” hard disk. Only applications are on the first “APPLICATIONS” hard disk. I figured I could reinstall on the first hard disk and all …

Helena Christensen, Oxfam and a Pentax 67II

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Pentax ceased production of the Pentax 67II camera this year. Maybe it was just too expensive to produce in small numbers, or maybe Pentax decided it was simpler to make the move to an all digital lineup of cameras. There are some photographers however that are still use, and love, the Pentax 67II. It turns out that Helena Christensen, supermodel turned photographer, is one of them. I spotted this image of Helena with her Pentax 67 on the home page of the Guardian newspaper. It links to a slideshow of her images documenting the effects climate change is having in Peru. You can see the slideshow here. Well worth checking out.      

Thanks

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Thanks very much to the folks who came out to the Kadena Market Day. Overall, it was a good experience, met a lot of nice people and had some interesting conversations. Many, if not most, freelance photographers have to act as their own accountant, business manager, travel agent, website designer, publicist and even therapist. Adding the role of “vendor” has its own challenges to overcome, its own skill set to learn. I guess the only way to approach it is, like anything in life, to simply do it to the best of your ability.

Kadena Market Day – November 21st

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I’ll be at Kadena Market Day in the Schilling Community Center from 10AM to 3PM tomorrow. Please drop by and say hello! On a completely different topic… Just checked to see if the Japanese release date for the new Sherlock Holmes movie is December 25th (the same as the US) or December 26 (the same as the UK). It turns out the Japanese release date is April 3rd. Bah, humbug!

Irezumi (2)

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Last Friday, the staff of One Shot Tattoo in Naha City were kind enough to let me take some photographs at their tattoo studio. Even better one of their clients gave me permission to photograph his full body irezumi.  I am not going to even pretend this is an everyday occurrence for me. I set up a black background in a small changing room then used a hammerhead flash with a softbox attachment for lighting. I used the Pentax 67II, Fuijfilm Provia 100F and a 100mm macro lens. When I had everything set up Kamiya-san came in, stripped of his clothes and I took two rolls of film. Not sure how long the shoot lasted, I was too busy checking and rechecking the settings on the camera and flash making sure that I was getting everything right. Supposedly I looked a little flustered which would be about right. The dragon on his stomach was remarkable, it moved and changed shape as he breathed, and at one point while looking through the viewfinder I thought I …

Polite Protests

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Yesterday afternoon I took photos at  a large protest rally held in Ginowan City. Around 20,000 people attended, with various speeches discussing the relocation of Futenma Air Station, the plight of the dugong, the noise from F-15 jets and the presence of U.S. bases in Okinawa. It seemed that many of the speakers wanted their concerns to be heard by President Obama who will visit Japan later this week. I got some shots of the large crowds and a few of individual protestors.  I met up with fellow Brits Simon and Dave  for a chat,  then a reporter for The Okinawa Times came over and asked our opinions on the protest. It’s difficult to give a spur of the moment answer to such as complex question, it’s even harder to do it in your second language with which you lack nuance. Basically my response was that it’s a complicated situation, but I hope there will be a positive outcome for all parties. In today’s Okinawa Times there’s a little piece about the views of 3 …

Fashion Photography

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A few weeks ago I spent the afternoon shooting with Eboh a fashion photographer based in Okinawa.  I don’t normally shoot fashion, or do much studio work so it was a fascinating experience. The setup was relatively simple. White seamless background, that was blasted with light from two strobes. The main strobe was a large beauty dish positioned in front of the model and about 2 meters high. A silver reflector was used to bounce a little fill light up. The three strobes went to a single Norman battery pack which was then triggered by a Pocket Wizard. I used my Pentax 67II with a 165mm LS (leaf shutter lens). The leaf shutter lens allowed me to use flash synched at 1/250 of a second rather than 1/30 of  a second. A flash cable connected the leaf shutter lens to a second Pocket Wizard which triggered the strobes. The model for the shoot was Nikki who did a fantastic job. Eboh took a variety of images with different outfits and poses. I would watch Eboh …