_valerian

In Reverse from Now

FOODZ

My dinner was as Cheap and Delicious as it looks. Mike Popcorn is not as good as the 100-yen-a-bag stuff at 7-11 but it was 12 yen cheaper and a lot closer to where I was when I decided that I wanted popcorn, which was when I was standing in front of the popcorn at the grocery store. The curry is made warm enough in the mircrowave. The bread is toasted in my “It’s” toaster made by Sanyo.

HANGERZ

There is a 99yen shop between the station and my apartment. For some reason I come out of there with the weirdest stuff- - More hangers for shirts and a can opener? What? I don’t even have any canned foods.

FILMZ

Kashiwa’s Bic Camera was sorely lacking in 100ft bulk rolls of Fuji Presto 400 film but they did have some of their SS and 100 speed black and white film in that length. Plus some Kodak film that I have not shot since.. … crap I don’t even know when I last shot it. But the Kodak rolls here were 50% off (near the due-dates) and that means it works out to less than a dollar a roll, and is worth looking on some websites to see what mixture of HC-110 is best to use with them.

KAMERAZ

Ok so this was actually yesterday but my 67 was the second camera I have taken into it’s maker’s service center within a week. Leica’s shop might be Oozing Imported Luxury and hit you with eye-watering repair bills, but Pentax has got the feel of PRO Camera Man all over. This is done with all the PRO Cameras out on display to the Fashion Shooters with their honking huge tripods and sticker-covered aluminium boxes overflowing with Gear there to have their Pentax 67IIs looked over.
The cost to replace three small set screws that hold on a trim ring was 461yen. I do not want to wonder what Leica would have charged but I bet it would be a lot more since the screws would be made from Rare Earth Metals and screwed in by mystical German ancient elves.
Also when the man called me back to the counter he asked if I often shoot at 1/500 and 1/1000 of a second to which I said I was Not Sure. But he countered by letting me know this camera is firing about a full stop faster than advertised on the shutter speed dial. 1/1000 is actually 1/2000 which he added would cost nearly $250 to re-adjust. Saying No Thanks did not take too much time to justify because I am shooting for myself and not money. Black and White negatives are far more forgiving to my financial well being than another camera repair bill.

Capitals Mean Emphasis, hyphens add real-time interest.

Tonight I went to Onishi sensei’s student’s exhibition in Kayabacho. It is up from Feb. 24th to March 2nd at gallery Archipelago.

Part of it looks like this:

And another parts of it (roughly from 6 to 9pm) looked like this:

It was kind of a strange time. Lots of folks had either interesting hats or glasses.

I also shot 3 rolls of color film via a point and shoot, and lots and lots of 35mm frames with a Nikon. “This film advance is so smooth” I kept thinking, but it was not until I was halfway home on the train when I realized that there had not been any film in that camera since I took out a color roll this morning at the end of my school’s chorus festival.

You (and I) might think that I have not had the best week when it comes to cameras but just looking through these messy digital pictures makes me think otherwise. That and spending an evening with a roomful of dedicated and interesting photographers (yes there were guys there too) helped round this week out to an ok level.