_valerian

What with all that printing this morning, and bulk loading 400 feet of Fuji Neopan 400 film this evening, this has been a day of photography. Or at least with the film, working on the materiel aspects of my photographic methods. I left my house for lunch and then hopped the train for some “Fun in Matsudo” which sounds like an oxymoron but thanks to there being a nice little camera shop that rivals those in Shinjuku right by the station, it turned out to be a nice afternoon. The camera shop owner did not say much until after I bought a little 49mm silver lens hood (got to love the junk boxes in camera shops) for my gaudy OM-1, and pulled out my Nikon with it’s 40mm lens with that wicked lens hood. After I left the shop I just stopped and kept looking at his window display and he came out to chat some more.

Next was 3 plates at a kaiten sushi shop after which I headed over to the Matsudo Book Off. Book Off is a used book and everything else media related store (House hold and those sorts of things (hardware) is sold at I kid you not “Hard Off”), and I often stop in to look through their photo book section and for any used copies of the magazine Kimono Princess. Like the Lincoln thrift stores I used to frequent, Book Off is by it’s own nature a store of hits and misses, with mostly misses (espically in the girl’s shojo manga aisle BADA BING) but sometimes you can find treasures- like Araki’s Yoko book with 4 other volumes of Araki’s perfect collection for 250 yen each. That was a good day.
But today the Gods of Book Off must have been upset or something, because there was nothing I was too interested in. They are a fickle sort of beings, and reward frequent visits with better luck. Maybe they were upset because of all the people there just standing and reading. That upsets me too because the second someone opens a book to read their eyes and souls glaze over to the rest of the actual world and they just stand there, with their backpack sticking out and blocking the aisles, people so drawn into their comics (YESS! number Two) that they heed no attention to polite “Sumimasens” and even with a nudge can do no more than give a half hearted 3cm lean forward. Thanks man, whoops my bag kind of spun you a bit when I tried to squeeze past you and that is how physics works.
But yeah, Book Off is great. I have the point card but a corner is missing because once I tried to tighten a lens mount screw on a friend’s FM2 and guess what the Nikon won that one.

As for 90 rolls of film- - they will go nicely with the other 40 rolls in the fridge. Looks like I might be set up till the start of Summer Vacation.