_valerian

As those who might care probably already know, Fujifilm has stopped production of their 400asa PRESTO 120 black and while film. What you see (empty spots on the shelves) are what you get. There will be no more.
In other news, Fujifilm is re-releasing their latest 6×7 camera to the American market.

I’ve shot over 600 rolls since 2005 (2006?) and will sorely miss Fuji presto in “Brownie” format. Above are my remaining 65 rolls.

Tonight at Bic Camera (after seeing the aforementioned empty spot on the shelf) I picked up some weird yellow boxes labeled “Kodak T-Max” so we’ll see how that works out. Since Kodak is 300 yen a roll to Ilford’s 480 yen it is simple economics and not a sense of nationalism which will probably have me buyin’ American. 120 sized 100 asa ACROS will still be in production, but will be sold only in packs of 5 (which is fine with me). I wonder if I can push it to 400 . . . ?

The man at Bic Camera told my why Fuji cut 120 Presto but all that I could understand from his explanation was that it wasn’t due to a lessened demand and instead that someone told someone else they can no longer make it. Or something. Any clarifications would be welcome.

Anyways, here’s to the final 650 Fuji Presto shots through my Mamiya 7.

So I’m after that May 1975 issue of Camera Mainichi to find that Araki ad simply because it’s just rare enough to make it worth looking for, but still cheap enough to afford to find. It’s the little things in life, right?

Anyway- I ended up in Jimbocho tonight in and out of a bunch of little used bookshops and found a place with about 10 issues of said magazine from the years 1975 and 1976. It turns out that at this time Canon advertised their F-1 with a different Japanese Photographer each month.
I didn’t find Araki, but even better upon opening the December issue I found Hiromi Tsuchida and his twin brother looking as cool as possible (note: quite cool) a page after the Nikkor lens selection advertisement. I’m pretty sure it is him to the left.

This was at his opening party for his retrospective exhibition at the Tokyo Metro photo museum a few years ago:

I met an editor tonight to talk about a show I have coming up in April. This was our second meeting and having some real feedback face to face was extremely helpful in helping me see where this project can go. It’s not as much of an endeavor as some of my previous exhibitions but it ought to be interesting. As always the hard part isn’t taking pictures, it is dealing with them.

While it’s not the most important thing, the intent of a photographer can be brought into better focus through an educated third party. But “education” might not be all that important. Over dinner last December Onishi sensei suggested that I simply pull pictures at random from a stack of prints. Or trust the process to someone removed from photography- He said that Suda Issei had one series which was edited by his grandmother. Apparently she was presented a stack of pictures and selected the ones she liked best through her own unknown criteria.
Being shown one’s own pictures from a different point of view in no way undermines the photographer’s ownership of the work, but rather should allow them to get a better grasp on what it is they are doing.