Gary has been making portraits of English teachers in Japan. Each image consists of about 300 individual photos taken with a Nikon D70 and [...]]]> I blogged about this back in April, but the exhibition has just opened at the correspondent’s club so here are some more photos and a short interview with the photographer Gary McLeod.

Gary has been making portraits of English teachers in Japan. Each image consists of about 300 individual photos taken with a Nikon D70 and 1872 UK-made lens.

As I think you can tell from the photos, Gary’s technique is pretty laborious, but it really relaxes the subjects and brings out their personalities.

What inspired you to do this project?

The inspiration came from a couple of places. One was HMS Challenger’s documentary portraits of native races taken between 1872 and 1876. The other was my own experience of working as a teacher in Japan and the role of foreigners here. I was also looking to draw parallels between the role of English teachers in Japan and the role of the artist.

You are teacher too. Did that affect your approach?

Before I started teaching, I wouldn’t say I was an overly conversational person, but my experience teaching helped that. It enabled me to conduct interviews with each subject confidently. As it turned out, I could relate a lot to many of their thoughts and views.

Fitting an antique lens to a modern camera sounds like a challenge?

It really wasn’t as much of a challenge as it sounds. I knew that I needed to get distance between the lens and an SLR in order to focus the lens, so bellows and a rail were always going to be necessary. I walked into a camera store in Nippombashi (Osaka) with the lens in one hand and the D70 in the other, and walked out again 30 minutes later with the assembled camera!

I understand that the title Privilege as been quite controversial. Do you think it is a privilege to teach in Japan?

I think it is easy to forget how much of a privilege it really is. I recently came back into contact with people I met at school and they seemed to equate me being in Japan to stardom and success. Given that my first job in Japan was relatively easy to get (though I wasn’t aware of this at the time), that makes it something of an opportunity which I took advantage of although it felt like I had earned it at the time.

The word “privilege” does have connotations of having something undeservedly but I think it depends on what you do with your time here. There are those that come here to earn money, travel and just have fun before they go back and start their careers in their own country. For others, there is no limit to it, and their time here becomes a personal voyage of creating something, making something.

You have written that digital photography is somehow inherently Japanese.

That was part of a paper I wrote on how digital photography could be interpreted as being inherently Japanese. I took the view that appropriation of foreign technology and ideas in Japan was something that had remained consistent throughout the last millennium, from matchlock rifles to video CCDs. Referring to Vilem Flusser’s writings on the electromagnetic photograph and Paul Virilio’s writings on the speed within technology, I looked at the problem of using a technology that had no base, that was essentially floating.

The western view of photography is one that tries to fix things and make things permanent (sculptures in marble being another example). I looked at how an understanding of Japanese aesthetics, such as the appreciation for short-lived cherry blossom, could be helpful to a western view that is still obsessed with possessing and fixing things.

Criticism of the paper was that I was placing a western view in a polar relationship with a Japanese one, and also how could something being borrowed by the Japanese make it Japanese. Some argued that therefore their TV was inherently Spanish because it was assembled there.

I still feel however that Japanese aesthetics has something to offer to appreciation of and respect for digital photography. Virilio’s and Flusser’s writings are a warning of the need to slow down and get perspective on digital media and I think that Japanese aesthetics could help that, despite the companies themselves constantly pushing it forward.

Information about exhibiting at the FCCJ.

The photos are from a shotengai shopping mall in Yokohama. I didn’t really understand the title at first, but here is how Yu-ki explains it:

“What I discovered in Matsubara Shopping mall is that the people there [...]]]> This month’s exhibition in the Foreign Correspondent’s Club Main Bar is by Yu-ki Matsuoka and is called “Good Ordinary People.”

The photos are from a shotengai shopping mall in Yokohama. I didn’t really understand the title at first, but here is how Yu-ki explains it:

“What I discovered in Matsubara Shopping mall is that the people there seemed happier than the other people I knew. At the time, I was a struggling photographer in the fashion industry where everyone was trying to look different and superior to others.

I felt out of place being in that kind of industry, but I felt connected to the people in the Matsubara shopping mall. They seemed far more sincere and happy than most people in the industry.”

Please check out the exhibition if you are in Tokyo and have time. The photos are beautiful and the I think many working photographers can empathize with Yu-ki.

Information about exhibiting at the FCCJ.

One important thing to mention is that the exhibition would [...]]]> Something special to announce today. The June exhibition at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan is no less than THREE sets of photos by world-renowned photographer Hosoe Eikoh. (It runs from 30 May to 27 June. Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert blogged on Saturday’s opening party over at Tokyoland.)

One important thing to mention is that the exhibition would not have happened without FCCJ member Henry Scott-Stokes, who wrote a wonderful biography of Mishima Yukio and introduced Hosoe-san to the club.

I’ve already met some fantastic photographers through organizing the FCCJ exhibitions, but Hosoe-san is one of the leading figures of post-war Japanese photography. I feel privileged to be involved, and thoroughly inspired.

The Ordeal by Roses prints were produced by Hosoe’s son Kenji, who is an expert in platinum printing. Hosoe told me that Mishima never blinked during the photoshoot.

Here is a short text I wrote for the exhibition.  Please check out the photos  if you can.

Ordeal by Roses (Barakei)

“Between 1961 and 1962 Eikoh Hosoe took a series of portraits of Yukio Mishima at the novelist’s Tokyo home. In the most famous the novelist clutches a rose in his teeth. The dramatic tone of this series perfectly captures the author’s menacing theatricality. Yukio Mishima eventually committed suicide by seppuku in 1970.”

(images ©Eikoh Hosoe)

Embrace

“In Hosoe’s 1969 to 1970 series of black and white nudes, “Embrace”, the very light and dark of the photographic print becomes a metaphor for the joining of male and female bodies. With an unflinching attention to the raw physicality of human flesh, Hosoe presents a work of rare erotic force. The introduction to the work’s first appearance in book form was written by Yukio Mishima.”

A Women’s Half Life Seen in Kimono

“The photographer presents six photographs of a kimono-clad woman at different stages of her life. The photographs, from Hosoe’s 1963 book “Kimono”, have been newly printed on exquisite silk hanging scrolls.”

Incidentally . . .

Hosoe has another exhibition running this month at moriokashoten a small gallery in Nihombashi. The exhibition is called “la marionette de paris”. I only know what Hosoe-san told me on Saturday, but the photos are of a French woman who wrote him (and  many other world-famous photographers) letter after letter asking to be photographed.

On one trip to Paris, Hosoe looked her up, and took a series of photos which are exhibited for the first time this week. The postcard I have here shows her smiling as her dark-skinned boyfriend wraps his arms around her head and she cups her breasts in her hands.

(about exhibiting at the FCCJ)

To cut a long story short, the club doesn’t have a budget for prints, but we do have simple frames and the month long exhibitions are free of charge. So [...]]]> Tokyo Photojournalist welcomes applications for photo exhibitions at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan in Tokyo (FCCJ). I am the current chair of the exhibition committee.

To cut a long story short, the club doesn’t have a budget for prints, but we do have simple frames and the month long exhibitions are free of charge. So if you already have large prints or are prepared to make some, you are ready to go. We also host a small opening party and offer free membership for the duration of the exhibition. (The FCCJ is a private club, but the exhibitions can be viewed by non-members if they tell reception when they arrive).　There are two spaces, the Main Bar and the Sushi Bar, with room for about 20 to 30 prints depending on size.

If you wish to exhibit at the club please send a set of 5 to 10 sample jpegs with a 100-200 word explanation of the project to me via the about-page of this blog.

IMPORTANT: You do not have to be a professional photojournalist, but since the FCCJ is a journalist’s club the photos must be photojournalism or documentary photography!

samples of previous exhibitions

Gianni took photos at the “Mobile Mini Circus for Children”, an NGO that provides education and fun for children in Kabul. I think the photographer had some fun with these [...]]]> The May exhibition at the FCCJ is by Gianni Giosue, a news and documentary photographer based in Tokyo. (Thanks Gianni for letting me post them here!).

Gianni took photos at the “Mobile Mini Circus for Children”, an NGO that provides education and fun for children in Kabul. I think the photographer had some fun with these too judging by bright colours and dramatic compositions.

As well as documenting fun and games at the NGO, Gianni recorded the desperate situation facing children in Afghanistan. These photos are from a set of images in the FCCJ’s sushi bar and were taken in a Kabul hospital.

“Although land mines are one of the biggest threats to children in Afghanistan, they also have to deal with lethal roads, poverty stricken urban communities, and appalling living conditions,” Gianni says.

This last photo is one we weren’t able to show in the FCCJ sushi bar.

“With every news assignment there is a chance to produce graphic and informative images. Behind every documentary story there is a chance to become a better person,” says Gianni.

Are you an English teacher in Japan? Fancy becoming part of the Natural History Museum in London?

Tokyo-based artist and photographer Gary Mcleod is photographing English teachers in Japan as part of a project for the museum. When I met him last week he told me he was aiming for over 100 people, so there may [...]]]>

Are you an English teacher in Japan? Fancy becoming part of the Natural History Museum in London?

Tokyo-based artist and photographer Gary Mcleod is photographing English teachers in Japan as part of a project for the museum. When I met him last week he told me he was aiming for over 100 people, so there may be space yet.

You can contact him through his website, which has an impressive slide-show of English teacher photographs.

When I first saw the photos I’d assumed he had created the patchwork effect in Photoshop using a single image. In fact, he used a “hybrid” camera of  Nikon D70 and a 19th century lens, spent 20 minutes shooting the required number of frames for each portrait, then digitally stitched them together later.

The camera is quite a piece of work. Gary told me he just walked into a second hand camera shop and asked “how do I fit these together?” The staff rustled about in a back room for a while then pulled out the necessary bits and bobs. Only in Japan!

I heard the title of his project, “Privilege” has ruffled some feathers. It seems that not all English teachers agree that its a “privilege” to come and work in Japan. As an ex-English teacher myself though, I have to say it was a privilege to come to Japan, get a good salary despite having little experience or qualifications, and then spend all day talking and learning about Japan. You might disagree.

Other contentious aspect to Gary’s work is his theory that digital photography is “inherently Japanese”, i.e. that only Japan’s unique culture could have appropriated and fully developed the digital camera. (It’s all explained here . . . kind of).

Anyway, if you survived the Nova-Supernova and are still in Japan, here’s your chance for immortality.

I met James an FCCJ exhibition a few months ago and he very generously agreed to show his photos at the club. He’s a renowned photojournalist with a unique style, not to mention a great guy to work with. Here’s some [...]]]> This month’s exhibition at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club in Tokyo is by James Whitlow Delano.

I met James an FCCJ exhibition a few months ago and he very generously agreed to show his photos at the club. He’s a renowned photojournalist with a unique style, not to mention a great guy to work with. Here’s some of his very recently published work.

He’s based in Tokyo but spends much of his time travelling around the world. He uses – and only uses – a Leica, 35mm lens and black and white film.

(If you are interested in how James got where he is today, there’s a great interview on Digital Journalist. James turned down Harvard for photography, worked with Annie Leibovitz and Paul Jasmin in the US, then upped sticks to Japan, bought a Leica M2 and worked as a English teacher while building his photojournalism portfolio.)

This photo is of the aftermath of Cylone Nargis series, the storm that devastated Myanmar last May. The photos are on display in the main bar. They were were taken in the immediate aftermath of the cyclone. As he told me while we were hanging the exhibition,: “I saw more death that day than I’d seen in my life before”.

From the exhibition notice:

“On 2 May 2008 Cyclone Nargis, a category four storm, slammed into Burma’s (Myanmar) Irrawaddy River Delta which had received little or no warning to prepare by the government controlled media. The wind, rain, and 3m high storm surge took the lives of 130,000 mostly women, children and the elderly. Nargis severely affected at least 1.4 million people, crippling the former capital of Yangon. The government prevented desperately needed international aid entering the country in the aftermath.

By midnight, the windows of the Rangoon hotel room rattled violently. By 2am, trees could be heard snapping in two and tumbling down, some of them a century or more old. At dawn, a wicked wind sent sheet metal panels, torn from rooftops flying like newspapers but trailing sparks down the street. The next six days, were spent south by small boat down into the core of the storm zone.”

There’s a separate exhibition in the sushi bar of photos from James’ photobook: “I Viaggi di Tiziano Terzani”

From the exhibition notice:

“Before his death in 2004, iconic Italian foreign correspondent and former resident of Japan, Tiziano Terzani reported on Asia and Russia for almost four decades, illuminating the peoples, the cultures and major events in this diverse region. This series features work from a book of 180 photographs from 19 countries covered by Terzani. It is a collaboration between the family and friends of Tiziano Terzani: his wife, Angela Terzani Staube, his son, Folco Terzani, Grazia Neri, Renzo Guidieri; and the photographer. The photographs describe our parallel journeys through a part of the world that drew both of us in and never released either of us from its grip.”

The book is only available through an Italian language site, but James says he’d be happy to provide an English translation/explanation how to complete the transaction.

James has a Photoshelter archive. You might want to check out these galleries too:

Empire: Impressions from China

Selling Spring: Sex Workers Story

Tokyo Homeless: Everywhere and Nowhere

(From the FCCJ notice)

The “Himba” African tribal group live in an arid area of North-western Namibia known as “Kaokoland”. Since his first encounter with the Himba people in 2004, photographer Go Yamagata has been fascinated by their traditional lifestyle as well as [...]]]> This month’s correspondent’s club exhibtion is by a Japanese photographer, Go Yamagata.

(From the FCCJ notice)

The “Himba” African tribal group live in an arid area of North-western Namibia known as “Kaokoland”. Since his first encounter with the Himba people in 2004, photographer Go Yamagata has been fascinated by their traditional lifestyle as well as their beauty. He has made a number of visits to Himba villages, the results of which are on display in this exhibition.

Born in Gumma Japan in 1974, Go Yamagata’s fascination with Africa began at a very young age. As a child, he lived in the West African countries of Burkina Faso and Togo where he went to school with children from local tribal groups. He spent much of his time playing in the bush with his friends, and developed a very strong affection towards Africa’s natural environment.

As well as the photos being excellent in themselves, its great to have photos so very far away, in so many ways, from the glitz and dosh in Ginza!  Here are some of the images with captions by Go.

“This girl had just woken up when I arrived in their village one early morning. Children are not allowed to sleep in the huts. Instead, they sleep outdoors.”

“Himba villages are composed of extended family members and is headed by an elderly man.. This man is a chief of a samll village situated on the shores of the Kunene river.”

“Himba women grind a mineral called hematite into fine powder and mix them with butter in order to make a mixture that is used to paint their skin.”

“Himba women start their day by the ritual painting of their skin. As they hardly ever bathe, this is the equivalent of a morning shower.”

“Collecting firewood for cooking is a woman’s job. Where trees are abundant, they only have to walk a short distance to find dry, dead branches.”

(The exhibition runs until the end of the month. Although the FCCJ is a private club, its possible to take a look at the photos in the Main Bar and Sushi Bar if you ask at reception.)

I know Go will be checking this blog, so if you have any questions for him, feel free to post them here.

Hans has added some captions. If you have any questions for Hans about the photos, or about life in Japan in the 1950s and ’60s you might [...]]]> Hans Brinckmann has very kindly provided some more of his and Ysbrand Rogge’s fantastic Showa-era photos. They are from his on-going exhibition at the FCCJ.

Hans has added some captions. If you have any questions for Hans about the photos, or about life in Japan in the 1950s and ’60s you might want post them below as I know he will be checking this blog.

Cigarette shop, Togakuchi Village, Nagano Prefecture, 1960. (Hans Brinckmann)

Buying ‘ekiben’ on the train to Nishiura Onsen, 1960. (Ysbrand Rogge)

Lake Kawaguchi with Mt. Fuji and the twin turrents of the old Fuji View Hotel, 1963. (Hans Brinckmann)

Marunouchi street after rain, 1960. (Ysbrand Rogge)

Interior, with home shrine. Note photo of soldier killed in action,1958. (Ysbrand Rogge)

Some of these photos are included in Hans Brinckmann’s recent book, “Showa Japan: the post-war Golden Age and its Troubled Legacy” (Tuttle, 2008) available at Maruzen and major bookstores, as well as online.

Here are two photos from this month’s show, “Showa Japan seen through [...]]]> One of my jobs when I’m not researching, writing, photographing, or washing the dishes at home is running the exhibition committee of the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan. Each month we have a different photo exhibition. I’m going to blog them as they happen.

Here are two photos from this month’s show, “Showa Japan seen through Dutch Eyes” (until Feb 28th 2009)

The photos are reproduced here with the kind permission of  Hans Brinckmann. Please check out his site.

[From the correspondent's club notice]

This month’s photographs were taken between 1951 and 1974 by two Dutch residents of Japan, Hans Brinckmann and Ysbrand Rogge. Hans Brinckmann joined a Dutch bank and was assigned to their Kobe branch in 1950, aged 18, at a time when Japan was still recovering from the devastation of war. In 1957, a fellow countryman, Ysbrand Rogge, was sent to work at the same branch.

Brinckmann and Rogge became fascinated with Japanese life and culture, using their weekends to travel around the country capturing images of the lifestyles of ordinary Japanese at work and play. They documented scenery, traditional arts and crafts, festivals, religious ceremonies — and in 1960, the mass demonstrations against the US -Japan Security Treaty.

The great thing about this exhibition is the simplicity and charm of the photographs. Neither Brickman nor Rogge were professional photographers.  They were just observing and rather skillfully recording their impressions. I’m not sure that could ever happen in today’s media savvy Flickr saturated world.

(P.S. the FCCJ is a private club, but the exhibitions are open to visitors who check-in at the front desk)