_valerian

Last night a co-worker invited me to a dinner party put on by a few people that her younger sister worked for/with a while ago. The being invited to a party part was surprising enough, and was all the more enjoyable because the said sister is not only a set painter at Tokyo Disneyland, but also a Photographer and member of the Phat Photo mini hip empire. I had known about her for a while, and last night was our first chance to meet.

The second surprise was that I actually got on an Ayase Bound train at Meijijingu Mae instead of one that goes all the way to Abiko. This train does not go far enough to get me home and I did not realize my mistake until we arrived at the platform. It’s no problem to wait another 10 minutes for my Deeper-into-Chiba bound train but the platform is raised and it gets cold at night. After about 10 seconds of looking across to the neighboring building and down into the (oh so warm looking) Book-Off that sits a little lower than where I was standing I figured that I could wait shivering for my next train or see if there might be a cheap photobook or two to be had.

The Ayase platform is deceptively long, and you have to double back from the entrance to the Book Off. If they would only set up some zip lines from the platform roof you could easily glide down to the shop (with a spectacular crash through the window) and wouldn’t that startle all the people standing there reading the comics they are not going to buy?

The photography section was limited to the usual cheesy gravure books of nude B-list actresses and underage string bikini models, but in between an issue of Asahi Camera from 1997 and a Nikon D-1 Tips and Tricks magazine, I found the current issue of Phat Photo for half the cover price:

I flipped open to the page where Mai Tanaka is featured as a “Second Generation” Phat Photo contributor:

This was not a surprise because the last time I was at Village Vanguard in Shimokitazawa I saw this page while flipping through their photo book section.

A few pages later I was slightly surprised to see Yasuhiko Uchihara’s photography featured:

Slightly, but not Terribly surprised because he is up-and-coming, and his book just came out last month or so. He utilizes the Bright Dryness of digital photography extremely well. You should buy a copy. The pink hue in the picture is not Bright Dryness, but rather a visual result a cheap digital camera makes as it slowly dies.

I flipped a few pages more and stared at the model with the camera bag that is featured in this issue:

The staring lasted probably a few moments longer than it should have before I realized that I just spent the past 3 hours sitting next to this woman while we ate and talked photography. And lo, there in the picture you can see the D-80 and Contax Aria which she shoots with. No word on if she actually uses that bag or not.

NOTE: While writing this I was surprised to see how often I typed SUPRISE, which is closer to how it sounds to my ears. Like the SUP from “Supper” blended in with “RISE” like the Emperor says in that wacky scene at the end of Star Wars Episode 3. Speaking of Supper, is this another Mid-Western thing like “Pop” and “Drug” ?