Brrrrr
Share Here’s one way to cool down a little during the Tokyo summer . . . Back in 2008 I took part in a press tour to the Shiretoko peninsula way up on the northeast tip of Hokkaido. It was a fantastic trip, including a visit out to the ice-flows on an ice-breaker. Sadly, global [...]
Sento painter
Share Sento bathhouse painter Toshimitsu Hayakawa was one of the most remarkable people I’ve photographed. Sadly, he passed away in 2009, only a couple of years after I took these photographs. One of the two last sento bathhouse painters in Tokyo, he was in his seventies and still working. He was a modest and kind [...]
Wasabi wonder
Share Some photos from a little while ago that I’ve finally got round to posting (that happens a lot!) This is the owner of Marutou wasabi farm. If you are ever near the tip of the Izu peninsula, pay him a visit. He lives in one of the most beautiful Japanese villages I’ve ever seen. [...]
Talking Tokyo photojournalist
Share Earlier this year I was interviewed by an organisation called The Shpilman Institute for Photography. To be quite honest, I don’t know much about them, but the questions were fun and I seem to be among in good company amongst the other interviewees on the blog. I’m re-posting the interview here with permission. Just [...]
Shiny Happy People
Share Beautiful day, gorgeous light, happy people – what more do you need? A few portraits from our local spring festival last weekend. It’s not the first time I have shot the festival, though I took a different approach this time. D700 + 50mm lens. All were taken close to maximum aperture, usually within a [...]
Poland photos
Share Not Japan and not photojournalism per se, but I’ve been meaning to post these here for a while. The summer before last I visited Poland with my family and trusty GR1. We were visiting my Polish relatives, but it was my first time to Poland since school. I was quite shocked at how little [...]
Karl Bengs, German-Japanese Architecture
Share This story was on the way back from Niigata early spring this year. Karl Bengs is a German architect who first visited Japan in 1966. He buys old Japanese farmhouses, dismantles them then rebuilds them in his own distinctive style and with all mod cons (like proper insulation and heating). This photo was taken [...]
Mr Tanaka’s railway
Share My Rough Guide to Japan tells me that the Joetsu Shinkansen from Tokyo to Niigata was the most expensive train track in the world to build. It cost some 6 billion yen per kilometer and about one third of the journey is through tunnels. Built by LDP pork-barrel legend Tanaka Kakuei, the bullet train [...]
Taking stock
Share Not taking stock photos this time . . I thought I’d dust off and share my unspectacular but well loved film camera collection. Here’s the first of 11. A sad side-effect of the huge convenience of digital is that film cameras have become a bit too much of an effort these days, for me [...]
Help! Lost my phojo.
Share A new word: phojo. Seem to have lost my phojo (photo-mojo) these last few weeks. Perhaps it is the summer heat? Perhaps it is the drip drip drip of desperate news on this industry? But I am shooting less than usual and severely lacking inspiration. I’m even leaving my GR1 at home at the [...]
English teacher in Japan portraits
Share 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 [...]
Hosoe Eikoh exhibition
Share 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 [...]
Tokyo used camera shops
Share A while ago I posted on shops for new camera kit in Tokyo. Here’s the companion to that, a short list of my favorite used camera shops in Tokyo. But before I get started, a caveat: Please bear in mind that this is a very subjective list; these are just places I’ve been recommended [...]
Geisha “image rights”
Share This is something I came across a few months ago and have been meaning to post on since. The manga above is a bilingual PR magazine published by the “International Hospitality and Conference Service Association”. I’m not quite sure what the purpose of that organization is, but its office is the Ministry of Foreign [...]
Seeking Photographers
Share 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 [...]
Afghanistan photos at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club
Share 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 [...]
calling all English teachers in Japan
Share 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 [...]
The fight against “Paris Syndrome”
Share Here’s a fun photo story from the Reuter’s blog. A group of Japanese expats in Paris are helping tidy the city in an attempt to ammeliorate the symptoms of “Paris Syndrome”. According to Wikipedia, Paris Syndrome is: “a constellation of symptoms primarily affecting mood which affects visitors working and vacationing in Paris, France.” Basically, [...]
James Whitlow Delano exhibition at the FCCJ
Share 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. [...]
Entomophagy in Japan
Share My story on bug-eating was on the front page of the Japan Foreign Correspondent’s Club magazine this month. Hope it’s not on display in the restaurant. The photos were picked up by the UK’s Telegraph newspaper too and run as a slideshow. (Many thanks to the Telegraph’s generous food critic Japan correspondent Julian Ryall [...]
Worries
Share “Amateurs worry about equipment, professionals worry about money, masters worry about light.” Very wise words from Mattias’ blog. It made me think of the time a few years ago when I interviewed a Japanese singer and sat in on the photo shoot afterwards. Since I’d just bought my first pro Nikon digital camera, I [...]
Himba, The Red People of Namibia – Go Yamagata
Share 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 [...]
Lighthouses of the West Coast
Share Superb photos by my friend and partner in crime Mattias Westfalk of lighthouses on the West Coast of the US. Last Spring we spent 2 weeks travelling from San Francicso to Seattle and visiting every lighthouse we could for an inflight magazine. I was on a relatively rare these days text-only gig. (The story [...]
