Tokyo’s weather may not have been cooperating, but fortuitous timing meant that I could catch up with several fellow ex-pats now living in the metropolis. On the first night I was invited to The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Ginza and met photographers Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert and Alfie Goodrich along with Justin McCurry the Tokyo correspondent for The Guardian, Julian Ryall the Tokyo correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and Chris Dunn an International Trade Consultant. Great guys living really interesting lives. On the second night I met up with programmers Hector Garcia, Pietro Zuco and Ignacio Izquierdo and chatted about Flick’r and the ongoing computing revolution. Fascinating stuff and just in case you didn’t know… On my final morning Tokyo treated me to a special mix of sleet and wind, so I headed to Aoyama to meet ASIMO. ASIMO didn’t say much, but was probably aware that in the near future his offspring will rule the world and we shall all tremble in their wake….

It was either cloudy, rainy or snowing the entire 3 days I was in Tokyo. This meant that the exterior architectural shots I wanted will have to wait for another visit. I did however visit the Tokyo International Forum to get some interior shots. The building was designed by architect Rafael Viñoly and completed in 1996. The glass and steel latticework (which looks a little like an upturned boat) fits the surrounding area far better than the similarly modern Kyoto train station.  

The Pentax 645 digital is a thing of legend, that is for years there have been rumors of it’s possible existence but time and again it has failed to materialize. Back in 2005 it was going to be an 18.6 megapixel camera, a year later it had changed shape. By 2007, there were plans that the camera would now have a 32 megapixel sensor but it looked uncertain whether it would make production. By 2008 the general consensus of fellow Pentaxians seemed to be that the camera would never see the light of day. Then yesterday a post appeared on the website Amateur Photographer. PMA: PENTAX REVIVES MEDIUM FORMAT DIGITAL CAMERA PLAN (UPDATE) If you will allow me to steal from Mark Twain… It appears that  the rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated.

After Hachinohe I went a little further north to the city of Aomori. Aomori is home to the Nebuta Festival in August, where huge colorful floats parade through the city. In mid-winter Aomori, like Hachinohe, is cold and gray with most of its residents either indoors or bundled up against the freezing conditions trying to commute to and from work on treacherous roads and sidewalks.  One local attraction that interested me was the Showa Daibutsu a giant bronze statue of Buddha around 45 minutes by bus from the city center. Constructed in 1984 it is 21.35 meters high and weighs 220 tons.It was the largest Buddha in Japan until the construction of the Ushiku Daibutsu in Ibaraki Prefecture.  It sits in a clearing among the trees and unlike the giant buddha at Nara is exposed to everything Mother Nature has to throw at it.    Other giant Buddhas I have seen in Japan include the one at Nara, and the one at Kamakura.   Haven’t been to the Ushiku Daibutsu, but if you have please post …

The parade wound it’s way through town. I tried to find a place with a background more interesting than a McDonald’s or a Mos Burger. Switching to a wide lens allowed me to capture more of the action. In the late afternoon and evening, the Oniwa Enburi took place in the garden of Koujoukaku, a historic building in the city where the dances were once performed for rich merchants. A young boy performed Ebisu-mai which celebrates the struggle and ultimate success of a fisherman. The final dances of the evening were performed in torchlight (and a few floodlights) these three men are performing Naga Enburi one of the oldest styles dating back 800 years.

After the initial ceremony at the shrine, the participants of the festival gathered in the small park nearby, before starting the parade through the city. As I learned at Notting Hill Carnival a few years ago, these few minutes pre-parade are the perfect time to get some good portrait shots. Great costumes and smiles make the job of a photographer much easier. Not everyone smiles for the camera, but perhaps a grin would seem out of place with the pair of samurai swords.

Nearly two weeks have gone by since my last post, and I am now back in Okinawa. I have started the slow task of scanning the transparencies and will post them to the blog over the next few days.  The festival began at 8 a.m. at Choujasan Shinra shrine. Groups of men wearing horse head inspired hats danced with various farming tools. A young girl did a dance that I think had something to do with planting rice, and then as the snow began to fall again one of the groups of participants gathered for a group photo.  On a technical note, photographing on snow without the aid of a digital screen to check exposure can lead to terribly unexposed photographs if you use auto settings. I didn’t have my handheld meter with me so I used the camera’s meter to first gauge the light off a mid tone building then manually set the exposure on the camera.

On the road again… I’m standing in the lobby of the Aomori Toyoko Inn  using the complimentary internet service while my clothes churn away in the “coin-laundry.”  On Monday I flew from Okinawa to Tokyo then took the shinkansen bullet train to Hachinohe.   Hachinohe is a city of limited charm and is, all in all, a rather desolate snow-blasted place. Maybe because of this the locals enjoy a good celebration and consequently have a big festival in both summer and winter.  On Tuesday I spent the day photographing the Hachinohe Enburi from the initial shrine ceremony at 8am through to an evening performance of the traditional dance. The festival and dances are to ask the gods for a good harvest in the coming months, and to remind each other that they must work hard at tilling fields, planting crops and fishing to get enough food to see them through the winter.   In this  modern age it would be appropriate to now post some photos of the event. I am, however, an analog man in a digital world, which means that the photographs …