All posts filed under: Photography

Grumpy Bear

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  Another of the idiosyncrasies of still using film (especially professional side film) is that once you put a roll in the camera you need to use the entire roll and process it in a short amount of time. Shoot half a roll of film one day and the other half a few weeks later and your images start to get strange colour shifts. Although I only get 10 shots on a 120 roll of film and 21 shots on a 220 roll of film I am still often left with a few frames left on the camera when I get back home. Rather than waste the film, I usually take a few photographs of the dogs as they are always available and work for dog treats. Bear, however, does not smile for the camera. In fact, Bear only seems to stare grumpily at me until she gets her snack. The perils of being a photographer’s dog.

Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

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Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium is the second largest aquarium in the world, and has the world’s largest aquarium window measuring 8.2 by 22.5 meters. I have been many times but usually without my camera as I was showing friends or relatives around the island. (The issue of being a good photographer versus a good travel companion will have to wait for a future post.) What this meant was that I didn’t have any really good images of the main tank which is a real oversight when the aquarium is one of Japan’s top tourist attractions. So a few weeks ago I went along and took some shots with my main Pentax 67II camera. I used Fuji Provia 100F film and pushed it two stops to ISO 400 as it is so dark inside. The film was processed but there was still too much motion blur in the shots from the slow shutter speeds. I ordered some faster film on-line and last week went back again and shot a second roll. This time I used Fuji Provia …

New York Times assignment

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  In early September I took photographs of the Okinawan home of Japanese theater producer Amon Miyamoto for The New York Times. It was the first time I had worked for them and both a fascinating but challenging experience. Normally when doing travel photography I am happily working at my own pace and I can wait until the conditions are perfect. On this assignment I had only a couple of hours to shoot five rolls of 220 film and get a decent selection of shots of the house’s interior, exterior and some portraits of Amon Miyamoto. The house was constructed from concrete and had a minimalist design. The photos are now online at the New York Times website you can see them here:   The New York Times – In Okinawa, Staging the View

Connect Magazine assignment

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Most of the articles I have written about Japan have been based on a particular city or region. However recently I did a feature titled “Ultimate Guide: Japan” for CONNECT the business travel magazine of Carlson Wagonlit Travel. It was interesting trying to condense a whole county into just a few pages, but it meant that many great places to visit had to be left unmentioned.  You can see the article here: Ultimate Guide: Japan I also wrote the city guides for Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Fukuoka that are later on in the magazine. One of the interesting things I learned while writing the piece was that since my last visit a year ago Osaka’s most famous restaurant Kuiadore has closed down however Kuidaore’s iconic clown figure that used to stand outside the restaurant will continue to live on albeit at a new location outside the C’est la vie SQUARE Nakaza Building.