_valerian

RECENT CHEERS THAT ARE NOT ORDERED IN A PARTICULAR FASHION:

Yang’s Cafe lunch buffet (Green beans)

Yia Yia’s pizza

Oso Burrito

Eating at one or two of those local hometown restaurants at least once a day for several days straight

Cheesy bean dip with tortilla chips in America

Tokyo’s winter light

developing film at home

Kita-senju

Kathleen Ferrier singing Kindertotenlieder

Chrono Trigger re-released for DS

a Mamiya 7 loaded with film in Yanaka

Swedish Fish

The local bento shop down the street

The fried tofu the local bento shop substitutes for rice in my lunches

The mad wordplay of Ludacris

My new favorite Japanese food: Okara

The current Hokkaido themed Moriyama Daido show at Rathole

Eggleston’s recent book from his retrospective at the Whitney.

Finding Eggleston’s recent book on a sale rack for 3000 yen instead of the usual 9000

The guy who dropped the Eggleston book on an edge rendering it slightly damaged and saved me 60 bucks

a 45 minute train ride home nose down into the Eggleston book

having one’s dreams in Eggleston color later that night

Meeting friends in Shimokitazawa for pizza

Tuna and Onion pizza

Realizing that the 28mm f2 Ultron is not going to be my next lens after all

All the snacks that coworkers brought back from wherever it is they went over winter break

the blue and white striped drapery that shrines put up for the new year

the new pair of chopsticks I bought in that tea shop on Yanaka Ginza

that tantanmen noodle shop outside Nippori station

Coca Cola coming in small glass bottles

Meeting with a magazine editor next week

A Levis Denim Jacket purchased at Sears that was marked down from $70 to 9.99

Katamari Damashi games

The soundtrack to Katamari Damashi games

Peanut butter on toast for breakfast

Non-sweetened green tea available from vending machines every 500 meters

The musical genius of Junior Brown

Being able to walk to work

Being able to lose the pudge gained from Holidays in America with little effort

Boeing B-36 peacemaker footage on Youtube

Tumblrs

Carhartt stocking caps

OMG JEERS!!!!!

80% of my time awake in Nebraska being either in a state of Eating, or Sitting (often at the same time).

Drafty Japanese apartments

Snow in tomorrow’s forecast

Drafty cold Japanese schools

single paned glass windows

Heaters that are attached to the wall near the ceiling

paying to partly heat the upstairs neighbor’s apartment

that stack of photo books on my floor that I’m done with

used bookstores not paying enough money for books

not living nearer a station

not living in actually in Tokyo

the Economy Class in a Northwest Airlines 747-400

getting a contact stuck up behind an eye

the loss of Polaroid Film

Flickr Testimonials

The amount of the Japanese language that one can forget in 2 weeks

THINGS THAT ARE SUFFICIENTLY ADEQUATE:

the Ricoh GRD

the cost of Chiba grown carrots and daikon

The distance I walk from my apartment to where I am employed

THINGS THAT ARE PRETTY WEIRD:

struggling to get a contact out from up under the space above your eye while an Englishwoman sings about the death of children in German from your laptop in the next room.

In a box in my parent’s basement I found this camera that I acquired a few years ago:

It was used to photograph readings from an oscilloscope using Polaroid film.

The unit swings open to reveal a large format lens and shutter fixed to a metal housing. Since I don’t have an oscilloscope worth photographing, I figured it was worth the effort to salvage the lens and shutter for a possible foray into large format photography. Everything came apart fairly easily with a flathead screw driver.

Everything that is, except the shutter assembly. Both the front and rear element of the lens screw off with no trouble at all, but I was hoping to get everything off at once.
The shutter seems to work well enough at the fast speeds, but the slower ones appear to be stuck. I wonder if the lens is worth taking back to Japan to possibly put on another shutter unit.

So it looks like I won’t be pricing an 8×10 camera anytime soon.
But one of the other cameras from that box will indeed be coming back to Tokyo, and simply needs new light seals to be ready to shoot with:

It is possible that at some time in your life you might find yourself asked by a co-worker to take her daughter and her daughter’s friend around Tokyo and why say no?
We started in Daikanyama and ended up in Yoyogi.

I know these clips are ancient in Blog Years, but if you have not seen them, it is worth your time. And if you have watched them, do it again and really listen to what they have to say.

Winogrand in particular- man, the guy is just so right.

Garry Winogrand

Jeff Mermelstein

Bruce Gilden