_valerian

With some pictures from each month and I talk about something that probably concerns them.

One of the cameras in that picture cost about 1/10 the price that the other goes for used. One of the cameras belongs to a student in the Yale photo grad program and if you have not figured it out yet that person is not me, but the Leica is mine.
I started 2006 out the same way I did for years 1979 to 2004 (excepting 0h-1 and 0h-5) and that was by simply “being in the Beef State”. On my last trip back I met Brad at the Coffee House (a coffee house!) to show him some recent pictures. Talking with UNL photo students like Brad or Justin or Ian is extremely and frightfully interesting. Me talking about photography with them is like me showing up with a nerf turbo to a knife fight. Not that they attack me in any way but in how they are super sharp and Get It. With my pictures I’ll be all saying things like HEY THIS FOAM FOOTBALL IS PINK AND BLACK AND TWISTY SHAPED and they would reply and point out something and it would be like if they said “Oh check this out, I can cut right through pepsi cans and then go back to thinly slicing tomatos and your expectations with my intellect”. But as they are shredding (articulating) concepts my mind keeps spinning and learning. Stupidly the best I can say is “yeah… I think so too” which is in no way false, because I agree. My mind flutters around for a Szarkowski quote to spit out but in the end it is still a good time. I leave from each meeting feeling smarter.
So I am excited to see who I can in the next 2 weeks. Sorry we can’t meet this time Brad. Justin if you got time email me.

The Nikon Salon is on the 28th floor of the Shinjuku L tower in Shinjuku(!) and a floor below or so is a large Toto showroom. They also seem to have gotten the contract to outfit the same building with their wares. Plus each restroom has some big mirrors. The second month (and hardest to spell) of the year was also the beginning of the Fourty Millimeter experiment (part A).

I like it. Having primarily shot with a wide 28mm lens for 5 years previous to purchasing this lens, the strange flattening (of space) that the extra twelve milimeters the Nokton gives to my pictures has made for some interesting learning experiences. It is Just Enough.
40mm framelines would be nice but I’d have to buy another camera and we all know how that is totally not my style. What do I look like, some kind of guy would do that? Yes if you look at the photo above. No, I have enough cameras. 0h-7 will be more about film and paper AND pictures. (and a portfolio website)

In late Feb. Taro got into photography and decided that for his first camera he wanted to shoot medium format. The result of his research and desire and a few trips to Map Camera was that he took home a Mamiya 7 and a 65mm lens. I have not been able to see any of his pictures because he moved to Nagoya. Soon after he offered the camera to me for about a grand because what he really wanted was a pentax 67II and I regret not buying it when I still had a way to contact him. TARO IF YOU READ THIS DUDE EMAIL ME.
Also, thanks to Taro I was introduced to Miles Davis. He got Photography and I got Music and that is a fair trade.

March in Japan is when the weather finally gets nice, and also kids are graduating all over the place. Each year I attend the Kindergarten graduation ceremony and shoot a lot of film. These are digital though.

One very interesting thing that I’ve noticed recently is that with Digital Photography, parents do not seem to hesitate to let their children take the camera and run off to snap photographs with child-like abandon. It will furthermore be interesting to see if this does something to photography in general in the next 20 years. It’s one thing to start photography as a 16 year old with fairly set ideas about what images better look like but if you are 5 and are just excited to see something you just saw pop up on the screen of your camera- and this excitment is what keeps you interested (digital is fun) then what is to come? One just hopes that they are not taught too soon how to take Great photographs.