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This morning I met Onishi sensei at Toyocho station (Tozai line) at 10:30am to help him out with some volunteer work at the Koto-ku Culture center. Every couple of weeks he goes and hosts a class. Today I got to be his assistant (and model!)

Mission: Digital Photography for Older People.
Result: Onishi sensei left with an upset stomach but I came away with several good photos on a couple of rolls of film.

It’s not just that most of the participants were learning rudimentary basics of composition and lighting techniques, but at the same time many were figuring out how to maneuver through the menu screens on their compact digital cameras. Knowing how computers work helps, and Onishi said that kids today have no trouble at all working a digital camera. More than a few times while being a totally hott model I heard Onishi tell an obachan “no no no, this is movie mode”.

I did not go there to model, but was thrust into the position thanks to the rain that kept everyone inside the culture center and not outside in the nearby park as planned. Originally Onishi was going to have them all photograph each other. I don’t think that I have ever had so many photographs of myself taken as I did today. At one point the flashes were popping and down the hall an adult man leaving the Special Needs class started waving at me and smiling until his mother took his hand and they both left.

Afterwards Onishi sensei and I took the bus to a great little shopping street near Nishi Kasai. I can’t remember the name of it, but it is great to shoot on. He and I walked on for a little longer to Minami Sunamachi station, and then to the Arakawa River. There we said our goodbyes and I walked along the Arakawa River for 2 and a half hours to Kita Senju station and caught the Chiyoda line home.

Minami Sunamachi to Kitasenju is about 20,o0o meters, or 12.4 miles.
But East Tokyo is anything but boring, and has it’s own style of rough beauty. Setagaya it ain’t.

*-*-*-BONUS!-*-*-*
I told Onishi that I saw the Araki 67 show and he asked how it was. I said “good” and then told him about this jerk who said he owned a gallery in New York and how he was a jerk to Mika and I while we were at the exhibition. Onishi said “I think I met that guy a few months ago” and all evidence (over bearing manner, loud voice, longish and unwashed brown hair and overall physica size description) makes a strong case that we indeed have both run into this dude. And I remember Onishi coming to his student’s exhibition back in February and saying how this rude American guy was a jerk to him in another photo gallery in Shinjuku earlier that day. He said that he was told that if he thinks he is ever gonna try and get into the American photo market he better learn to speak English better. This coming from a guy who answered Mika’s “Can you speak Japanese?” question with a stammering statment about knowing a lot of words but just not being able to put them into a sentence. AWESOME.