_valerian

Before:

During:

After:

Went in to the Nikon Salon at 1pm to mat the pictures (flat atop the correct size of paper stuck down with tape) and left around 7. Also spent about 30 minutes taking time to walk from the 28th floor of the Shinjuku L Tower and underground to the Sekaido mega art supply shop on the other side of Shinjuku for 2 sheets of paper. Thought I had enough cut last weekend.

A Tuesday evening in the Nikon Salon is a pretty busy time- two shows are taken down while two more are being put up. Onishi sensei showed up and his help and encouragement (enthusiasm) helped quite a bit. He also gave me the very first copy of his new book that comes out tomorrow, but that will be a future blog post.

The show looks good, prints seem ok, we (Onishi, Nagamachi, Tanaka, and the guy who physically hangs the work) figured out the best layout for the photos using the frames and wall space available. Despite the time spent over the past few weeks planning, we ended up with less wall space than I figured, hence the two level arrangement on the south wall. Can’t thank them enough.

In case you can’t make it, 15 of the 30+ pictures in the exhibition can be seen here: Gaijin Like Me

The Japanese press release can be found here.

今年私の展示スペースは黒板だったー　ラッキ★

写真部は３人の生徒と私(文化祭の時）。　生徒の作品感動したな。
あんなにフレッシュな写真撮りたい。二人はお互いにポートレート撮って、本当にすばらしかったんだけど女性だから高校生の写真見せないです。　

With the prep for the exhibition and the picked up pace of my Real Job, there has been little time left to process the film I shot in August and September. That’s only partially true- there has been time but not the drive to tackle it all. Since yesterday I’ve done just about half of what is in the picture above. If you have the time, putting off film developing is a good idea though. You need to separate yourself from the moment you took the photo to be able to edit what to print.
Just because the events surrounding your own personal experience of taking a particular photograph were amazing to you does not mean that same elation or mystery or whatever you felt automatically makes a challenging picture. But if you can handle (balance) an experience with the descriptive qualities of a camera, then it is possible to suggest all kinds of things.
It’s usually best to give the camera the benefit of the doubt though. Let it help you out.