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At the camera fair in Shinjuku last weekend I ended up purchasing my 5th or 6th Konica Big Mini, a special Rhodium edition which means who knows what. It is a bit shinier than the others but that is about all.

It was 10,000 yen which makes it 9,999 yen more than the cheapest Big Mini which I have purchased, an earlier A4 model sold by a man whose retail facilities consisted of a blanket laid out near Yoyogi park. Despite the confidence in the shop owner’s / guy with a blanket’s voice as he proclaimed that the camera worked fine, I didn’t have terribly high hopes due to a large crack down the surface of the data back. But 100 yen was a good deal for the soft case and Konica-branded lanyard. Popping in a new battery the camera began to heat up and smell like electricity. As for the others, I ended up giving a Big Mini BM-201 to a sister, and the black one at the bottom of this mini pile is probably still useable except that the cable controlling flash operation is frayed and thus inoperable, while the grey one sandwiched in between does horrible unsalvageable things when the flash is employed.

There is a story as to how I acquired the Contax T2 but it is not nearly as amusing as it is long. The most hilarious and condensed version in one sentence would be:

A friend visiting Japan found that his T2 died the day after he arrived and I took it to the Konica service center in Harajuku to get it fixed however during that time he ended up saying I could have it and the day after picking it up I shot a friend’s wedding only to find out that it hadn’t been fixed properly which explained the fact that all the shots were focused at infinity, prints of which I showed to the man behind the counter who apologized many more times than necessary and not only naturally fixed it for free but had it delivered to my apartment a week later.

That turned out to be even less interesting to type than I thought. I am quite thankful for the camera though, and ended up sending him some prints as thanks. (take note: I will swap prints for gear)

The T2 has a sharp contrasty lens which works wonders in black and white. Specifically having to dial in the aperture is somewhat odd but the manual-ness of this is interesting in its own quirky way. The only way you will have the flash go off accidentally is if you forget that you earlier set it to do so. By contrast the Big Mini is fully automated, and to turn off the flash you’ll need to apply some direct force to a comically small button on the rear of the camera and make sure that the LCD icon for the flash zig-zag has that Ghostbusters circle with a line show up over it. It’s a much lighter camera which makes it also a bit more fragile (hence purchasing 6 over 5 years) but in addition to its basic-ness, its true charm lies in the radiance of the lens. For one reason or another, to me it is the perfect portrait camera. Perhaps it is that the lens isn’t too sharp, or that it is just sharp enough. I used this camera to take photos of the visitors who came to my Konica show in 2007, and interestingly enough the people who came to my show in 2009 at Totem Pole were visitors, too.

One thing which I enjoy about the Big Mini are the orange LCD digits representing the date the camera was set for in the lower right corner of each picture. I say “set for” because the one I bought last week was set to a day in May of 1987, and this camera didn’t come out until the early 1990s. Whatever day you tell future viewers your photos were taken on, those visual dates become intrinsically branded just like you do to a cow, into the gelatin itself. And gelatin is made from cows and this fact gives my analogy that much more weight. Just like too many hamburgers will. Man somebody stop me.

When out and about for the past four or five years there has usually been a small point and shoot loaded with color film in my camera bag. This balances out a Leica and the digital GRD it shares space with. Regardless of which camera I use, I still take all my color film to a local mom and pop 1-hour photo shop in my town. Considering that it is located a 30min walk from my apartment essentially it is a 2-hour photo when you factor in the commute time. Or maybe it is a 2-hour and 500 calories photo shop, since I usually wait out the processing time at KFC.

Presumably a more responsible and socially adjusted 31 year old male would most likely have a child to care for, or at least a wife to dote on instead of a handful of cameras and access to so much Kodak Ektar.

Two years of Tokyo Camera Style.

Many thanks to all 1,600+ followers on Tumblr, and to everyone else (about 1,000 a day) who visits this site from time to time.

It’s exciting to see how Tokyo Camera Style has gotten the response that it has. I think it is totally cool that there are other Camera Style sites out there (Singapore & Manila that I know of for sure). Within 24 hours a this photo of Yamauchi san’s Nikon FM3a got over 100 re-blogs and likes.

This is a great project to keep on going with as I enjoy the continual interaction with people out on the street and creation of new friendships. The concept is simple, but the ability to give back to photography lovers by creating a site about something that other people find as interesting as I do is a blast.

This is what Tokyo Camera Style is for me; It is both an investigation and a celebration into a culture (in Japan and online) that finds enjoyment in the clever tools which people use to interact with the world around them. I can’t see any difference between someone adapting a camera to their own private tastes or doing a similar thing with their car, bicycle, or living room. There is no real economic reason for people to get into analog photography in 2010, but more and more young people are. There is no real reason for anyone to be riding a vintage Triumph Bonneville nowadays than there would be for shooting a Leica M4, but a few people still do despite the fact that they could purchase a prefectly sensible Toyota Prius or Nikon D-300.

There are a lot of us out there who refuse to limit our photographic experience to the sterility of Digital Imaging. There is nothing wrong with the appreciation of the joy of analog photography and it’s beautifully crafted tools.

However you choose to go about what you do, love how you do it. And use what you love.