After getting to know the manager of the Leica shop in Ginza this year I was able to end up with an invitation to the Nobuyoshi Araki exhibition opening reception.
The only other time that I have been in the same room with Araki was at the Lee Friedlander panel discussion at Rathole Gallery a few years back. No still photograph of this man does justice to the experience of watching him move and talk and point and joke and whatever else it is a human could possibly do in the same two seconds. He moves about a crowded and narrow room (like the gallery tonight) and in an almost supernatural fashion, people part and spread as he turns and moves from one point to the next. When he turns directly to you when giving a loudly jovial monologue on photographic theory (or dirty pun, often simultaneously) all you might be able to think is how thankful you are he is wearing sunglasses to make bearable the intensity of his gaze.
All the while flashes are going off left and right- – one of which accidentally lit the picture above.
Then suddenly he left- and everyone collectively sighs from slight exhaustion.
Despite not being sure if he would be at the venue I brought along my treasured copy of “Yoko, my Love” and a silver paint marker hoping that he’d use one to sign the other. He and everyone around him seemed to be quite surprised to see this particular book and making full use of the page he left this:
Silver was a good choice.
At in the lobby of a theater in Shinjuku (waiting to get in to see Inception for the second time) last weekend I spotted a black Leica MP hanging off of the shoulder of a man at a table with his wife. I approached him and got two shots of his camera for Tokyo Camera Style. He mentioned then that he has shot an M4-2 for years before getting this MP and that its condition matched this well worn Summicron lens. I was incorrect in thinking that the aperture ring had been replaced, it is made of a different material and thus is resistant to wear the way the barrel has been affected.
After I photograph a camera I usually hand the owner a small card with the address for Tokyo Camera Style on it. Through this he was able to send me two views of his camera.
Not at all in the technical sense. Or really even in the aesthetic sense. Definitely not in the Internet Forum sense (or lack of).
Photographing in many cases embeds that particular location into one’s memory. When (mostly accidentally) revisiting these locations shown in the monochrome images, I always have that first memory- both of the moment and experience of taking the picture and the actual print at home in my apartment. I’m not one of those conceptual photographers by any means, but this might be an interesting experiment to continue on with.
Each digital re-photograph is another memory laid over the first.
As photographs though I do prefer the monochrome ones.
Two years of Tokyo Camera Style.
Many thanks to all 1,600+ followers on Tumblr, and to everyone else (about 1,000 a day) who visits this site from time to time.
It’s exciting to see how Tokyo Camera Style has gotten the response that it has. I think it is totally cool that there are other Camera Style sites out there (Singapore & Manila that I know of for sure). Within 24 hours a this photo of Yamauchi san’s Nikon FM3a got over 100 re-blogs and likes.
This is a great project to keep on going with as I enjoy the continual interaction with people out on the street and creation of new friendships. The concept is simple, but the ability to give back to photography lovers by creating a site about something that other people find as interesting as I do is a blast.
This is what Tokyo Camera Style is for me; It is both an investigation and a celebration into a culture (in Japan and online) that finds enjoyment in the clever tools which people use to interact with the world around them. I can’t see any difference between someone adapting a camera to their own private tastes or doing a similar thing with their car, bicycle, or living room. There is no real economic reason for people to get into analog photography in 2010, but more and more young people are. There is no real reason for anyone to be riding a vintage Triumph Bonneville nowadays than there would be for shooting a Leica M4, but a few people still do despite the fact that they could purchase a prefectly sensible Toyota Prius or Nikon D-300.
There are a lot of us out there who refuse to limit our photographic experience to the sterility of Digital Imaging. There is nothing wrong with the appreciation of the joy of analog photography and it’s beautifully crafted tools.
However you choose to go about what you do, love how you do it. And use what you love.