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On Monday Nakama sensei told me she was going through her closet and upon seeing my camera on our desk she told me that she had found her dad’s leica over the weekend. She quickly added that it was old, silver, probably did not work and she was about to throw it out but thought I might like to see it.

The next 24 hours were spent like any other day with the exception of the mental images of IIIfs and M3s that were prancing through my head. This fantasy was tempered by the overwhelming possibility that it was not indeed a Leica and possibly a chrome range finder from the mid 50s.

I was right!

No tears were shed- and I have spent the morning playing with this camera, a Ricoh 500. I think this camera looks a lot like the new Zeiss Ikon. The film is advanced by, for lack of a more appropriate word, a “Nifty” little lever on the bottom of the camera. The shutter fires pretty well on all speeds and the lens is only halfway clogged with fungus. Also the focusing ability of this guy is forever set at about 6 feet as the lens has found a comfortable position over the last 40 years of non-use.

This all adds up to a Lomo(TM)-like camera in that I will get consistantly “toy camera” type photographs from it. Now I can be a Real Photographic Artist! This isn’t photography, it’s RICOH 500-o-graphy! Remember kids, photographs are only art when you use some gimmick to make them look more “arty” than straight photography. Not that I have anything against “lomography” It’s just like, after the first 5 rolls don’t they all start to look the same? I know they look cool but what is there beyond that?

From LEft to RIGht–>

Winogrand 1964
Public Relations
The Animals
Arrivals and Departures
The Man in the crowd

Zokushin by Hiromi Tsuchida
(I can’t get enough of this book!! I might be able to meet him next year and hopefully I can get it signed..)

the Art of Nausicaa

Araki by Araki
(If you only have one Araki book, it really ought to be Sentimental Journey, BUT this one is a good overview/introduction to his genius)

a Jr. High school art textbook

collected articles from Dave Read’s history of photography class, circa 1984

The Americans by Robert Frank

Shigeo Gocho

a few more books whose titles I forgot.

and at the end, The Nature of Photographs by Stephen Shore.

If there was a fire or something I would grab this book and probably Winogrand 1964 before I sprinted outside. This is the book for begining to understand photographs as Photographs. If there was one book I could hand out to anyone I see with a camera in their hands this would be it. Alas, it is out of print and has become quite expensive on the used market.

Below that collection of late 20th century modernism I have proof of my greasy backsliding into time I thought I moved out from, that of OTAKU. . . Among the manga on the bottom sheld there is some work from Shiro Masamune, Tokyo University Story, EDEN, Blame.. um.. my entire collection of Blade of the Immortal is on loan to various other 20-something teachers in my office.

All day Saturday, Kamakura (a historical and now tourist-embedded town of temples and gift shops) was rocked hard by the presence of me, some other teachers and 223 Senmatsu Jr. High eighth graders.

The weather was better than you could try and ask for- clear, slightly cool and crisp. A year ago I was wasting a day of my life by waking up at 4am to get to my part time job at best buy the day after thanksgiving ringing up crap people did not need with money they did not have for like 12 hours. One year later (this year) I was spending the day walking around a seaside town with my posse of six 13 year olds, camera in hand.

Ahhh sweet, sweet vindication.

TAKE THAT, part-time retail hell.

The students made their own plans for the day- the first temple we went to was actually not in Kamakura, but in Ofuna- and from there another 15 minute bus ride follwed by a 10 minute walk up a hill. It had a waterfall nearby, which is usually why people make the trek up to the temple, but I ended up taking a picture of this:

I had a pretty good idea of what it was, and once I looked at it from behind the true form popped out into plain view (yes that was a pun):

This is indeed what you think it might be– a stone fertility symbol. Later a teacher told me it is to aid in makin’ babies (well, praying to it or something, as I doubt it is actually used in the process). I stood there looking at it, and nervously touched it once.

Saturday was one of those days where I got to play tourist. “Tourist Mode” works as cover for photographing, as I am just another guy with a camera around his neck. There was a lot going on all day- tonight I will try and develop five of the fifteen rolls I shot. I like to do 5 rolls (in one tank) per night while listening to NPR’s morning edition in the evening. Inbetween the actual shooting of film, and the actual looking at the negatives in their sleeves, I keep trying to imagine what the prints will look like. Usually I can be pleasantly suprised AND terribly dissappointed with the same roll of film.

The students were dismissed from Kamakura around 3 or 4pm but Mr. Inoue and Mr. Kurotobi and I hung around to pick up some souviners. Since we were all beat we paid an extra 7oo yen to ride in a “green car” all the way back to the Tokyo station. A Green Car is neither really Green, and only a car in the railway sense. But it did have soft reclining seats that we all clicked back to their maximum horizontal position. This was a much better option than standing in a packed regular train car for over an hour.

やったー

This here is the largest glass of water that I have been served in a resturant. Normally the water glasses that accompany a meal in Japan are quite small and chock full of ice. This means that after the first 5 refills, the waitress either leaves a pitcher on my table (rare) or gives me a large beer glass full of water (even rarer).

I was told the other night by a friend that it is said in Europe that only Americans and Frogs drink water when they eat.

“食べながら水を飲む人はアメリカ人とカエルだけ。”

じゃ～　ゲロゲロ・・・