Live In Japan

Sorry to be off topic here, but you still have TODAYS PHOTOS to help you with your Japan fix.  I apologize for the divergence, but I had to share some things with all of you out there.

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A couple of days ago I upgraded my browser to Firefox 3.  Version 2 was not really giving me any troubles, but I figured that having the latest version could not hurt.

During the install process I explored some of the new features of Firefox 3, and one of the new add-on features is called PicLens .  I don’t usually install add-on features to my browser, but the fact that this one seemed photo-related, it caught my interest.

All I can say is that if you enjoy browsing photos or videos on sites such as Flickr or YouTube, you NEED PicLens.  It makes browsing photos and videos an incredibly intuitive and enjoyable experience.  I have no doubt that PicLens will very quickly become widely recognized and used by many.  It really is that good.

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As many of you who have been following this blog for a while know, I have been through a fair number of cameras in the past 8 years.  Everything from small pocket point and shoot models all the way up to state of the art pro SLRs.  I mainly shoot with SLRs, but at times I would much prefer to have a smaller camera that still takes great photos.  This is the main reason why I bought an Epson R-D1.  It’s a rather compact camera, and the lenses are for the most part very compact and of high quality. The only thing it lacks is auto focus and auto aperture control.  I don’t mind shooting manually, but at times I would prefer a camera with the size of a compact point and shoot camera, but the ease and versatility of a DSLR.

My purchase of a Nikon D40 was a step in that direction.  At the time I bought it, it was the smallest DSLR on the market.  The problem is that the lenses are no smaller than a standard SLRs lenses, so its not really very compact.

So what is a guy to do?

Enter the Olympus E420.

The E420 is an iteration of the E410.  It is an extremely compact DLSR, and since it forgoes the traditional bulging hand grip, the form factor of the camera is reduced considerably.  It seems Olympus is getting back to its 1970’s roots of extremely compact SLRs.  But what makes this camera a real joy is the new Zuiko 25mm f2.8 pancake lens.  When this lens is coupled to an E420 body, the result is the smallest, lightest DSLR/lens set in the world.  25mm sounds kind of wide, but the fact that the Olympus 4/3rds sensor has a 2x crop factor, this equates to a 50mm field of view.

Just to give you a rough idea of how compact this setup is, here is a photo that shows an E420 with 25mm lens (50mm equivalent) compared to a Canon 5D with a 50mm lens.

Here is a photo that shows an E420 with 25mm lens (50mm equivalent) compared to an Epson R-D1 with 35mm f2 lens.

I can already see that the image quality of the E420 is not on par with the 5D (and I don’t expect it to be at the given price point ).  The images are noisier than what I am used to out of a DSLR, but still quite a bit ahead of what your standard point and shoot digital camera can produce.  (Not counting the fixed focal length 28mm f4 Sigma DP1, which I don’t count as a "standard" point and shoot camera due to its larger imaging sensor )  Of particular note to me was the limited highlight recovery headroom on the E420’s RAW files.  I am just not able to extract as much detail from the blown highlight areas of the E420 files the same as I can from Canon RAW files.    At the moment Adobe Camera RAW does not support the E420 Olympus RAW format, so hopefully that when this support is added the ability to extract more detail from the RAW files will be improved.

So there you have it.  The E420 is not a perfect camera (I’ve yet to use a PERFECT camera.. .), and it’s main warts appear to be higher image noise that I am used to from a DSLR (due to the smaller image sensor and the Olympus file processing algorithms ) and limited amount of RAW headroom.  But, compared to any other compact auto focus digital camera I have used, it’s still way ahead of the game.

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A recent leak on the new, yet to be released, Nikon DSLR (D700) shows that it stands to be a really stellar camera.  Basically, it’s a Nikon D300 body with the same image sensor as the D3.  Canon better respond with something special with their much anticipated 5D replacement, otherwise they stand to lose a lot of users to Nikon.

For years Canon has been in the lead in the DLSR department, but the D300 and D3 have started to change this.  The D700 could provide enough momentum for Nikon for it to become the tipping point product where Nikon becomes top dog in the DLSR world.

I love competition like this, as it benefits all of us who buy cameras.

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From Live in Japan Source

Toyako, in Hokkaido, may not be on the international tourism radar, but that’s about to change when it hosts the G8 Summit on climate change in July. The reason Toyako (Lake Toya) was selected by the Japanese government is as clear as the lake itself. With its magnificent, unspoiled natural beauty, Toyako serves as a […]

From Live in Japan Source

By: Daniel J. Stone, JET Program ALT 2004-2007, Saitama-kenIn preparing for my journey to the Aichi Banpaku (World Expo), I asked a group of 8th graders in Saitama Prefecture various questions by using the grammar point, “than”. For example, “Is Nagoya bigger than Yokohama?” Overwhelmingly, they responded, “No, it […]

From Live in Japan Source

Today I woke up at the crack of , er, 10:30, and after having a late breakfast I was out the door and on my way to Kamakura.

Similar to one of my recent trips to Kamakura I did not have any special destination in mind, I just wanted to wander. If I were forced to state a gaol for the day it would be this, “Find something new”. A new place that I had not seen previously. That is getting harder and harder to do for me, but I am happy to say that I still managed to achieve my goal for today.

Originally I had planned on focusing my photographic efforts around a theme. Such as “lines”, “color”, or “shadow”. But two thngs prevented me from doing so:

1.) I could not think of a theme that felt right.

2.) I made a pit-stop at the Family-Mart combini adjacent to Kamakura station for a beer and that quickly put me into a creative mood, so a theme for the day suddenly felt superfluous.

Click HERE for todays Photographs

OK, with no further delay, let’s get into todays images:

This first image is part of a Mikoshi that I came across as I was walking near the coastline. The dragon carving on the left side is one of the four corner columns supporting the roof of the Mikoshi. I could have taken a shot of the entire thing, but there were a lot of power lines and other distracting background elements involved. Even shooting at an extremely wide aperture (f1.2) I was not able to Adequately separate the mikoshi from the background, thus I decided to get up close and capture some texture and color.

I shot this photo with an Olympus Zuiko 50mm f1.2 at f4 if I remember correctly.

Minimal post processing was done, mainly just pulling down some highlights and increasing the shadow levels.

I really like the contrast of the purple with the wood tones.

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The next photo for today is a shot of a sign in the parking lot of Komyoji in Kamakura. This photo was laso shot with the Zuiko 50mm, but this one was shot at its widest aperture setting on f1.2.

This allowed for an extreme separation of the sign from the cluttered background of the parking lot.

Not the most interesting photo, but it does illustrate that funny kinds signs you see here in Japan.

Even without being able to read it you can pretty much guess what is means.

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Up next is another artistically challenged shot. This is a photo of a neighborhood trash/recycling collection point. Notice the schedule posted above which explains which types of items are to be placed there on any given day. The blue net is used to keep crows at bay when there are actual bags of trash present. The brooms and dust pan are used by the person tagged with maintaining the place in an orderly fashion. Neighbors take turns maintaining the trash collection point, with each house be given a block of time that they are responsible for. (Usually a week at a time)

This is the way that it is done in regular neighborhoods in Japan where the people live in single family homes. When I lived in such a place I took my turn taking care of the gomi more times than I can count.

Now that I am living in a Mansion with a building manger I no longer have to take my turn on gomi patrol. I can’t say that I miss it, but I am glad that I got a chance to do it. (Kind of how I think about High School…)

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Next is a snap of a train conductor at Kamakura station. Nothing at all out of the ordinary about this shot. Although, I would like to make an observation; every time I see a scene like this the persons watch is always visible, and it is always on the arm closest to the window of the train. As the train is about to depart the conductor always consults his watch and will only give the signal to start once the exact moment has been reached.

The attention to detail about keeping the trains running EXACTLY is one of the things that I really love about Japan.

Everyone knows how to do their job, and they make an effort to do it well.

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OK, time to a get a little more artistic. This next shot is a blossom getting ready top burst open. What I really liked about this photo was the contrast of colors with the dark green bud on the bright yellow background. The yellow background is from a flower that has already bloomed.

The bud was actually really tiny, so I used a 100mm macro lens to fill as much of the frame as I could.

Even so, I was not able to get in close enough so I did some cropping in the post processing in order to pull in even closer.

I like the simplicity of this shot.

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OK, next is what I have to say is my favorite photo of the bunch. It’s a shot of a rain drop on a Ginko leaf.

A very simple subject, but what makes this one particularly pleasing to my eye is the symmetry of the leaf stems.

The two parallel lines of the stems are in direct contrast to the flowing curves contained in the rest of the image. I also like the green and black simplicity and dark non-distracting background.

Even without the rain drop this would have been a nice image, but with the rain drop it adds a little extra dimension.

I did struggle with deciding wether or not to crop this image. I wanted to position the raindrop a bit more to the right and lower than it currently sits, but that made the shot feel too cramped. So I just left it as I had originally shot it.

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Next is a shot that I did not plan, it just kind of fell in front of me and I snagged it. I was walking down a small street towards the ocean, and walking in front of me were two old women.

They eventually turned off on a side path and I was about to pass them bye when I noticed the ajisai in full bloom.

So I quickly set my Zuiko 21mm f3.5 lens to f8 and hyperfocal distance.

As I passed the side street I turned, quickly framed the shot and tripped the shutter. As the shot was taken a title immediately leapt to mind: “Old Friends”.

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The last shot for today is also the most heavily post-processed of the group. The reason I had to do this was because it was a very high contrast scene, beyond the ability of my camera to properly capture.

In the original RAW file the sky was totally white, and the shadows under the tree branches were completely black. But, because I had captured the image in RAW there was quite a bit of recoverable data in the image that was able to be coaxed out during the post-processing stage.

The image does have a painterly effect, and looks more like a colorized black and white picture than a true color capture. The effect while not at all natural, is still pleasing to my eye.

In retrospect, I think I should have pulled down the saturation of the reds a bit. But overall I am pleased with the image so I’ll let it stand.

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On another note, I wanted to let you all know of an interesting website that I recently stumbled across.

It is called Four Corners of Japan and is the running photo/travel blog of a couple of guys who decided that walking the length and breadth of Japan would be a good idea. One guy is going from South to North, the other is going from East to West. (One guy has already dropped out, but the other is still at it)

They started their journey not too long ago so catching up on what has transpired so far should not be too difficult.

I look forward to keeping tabs on the adventure.

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From Live in Japan Source

Last Sunday I met up with the "Tokyo Cameras " photography club.  We get together on each 3rd Sunday of the month to shoot pictures, and pump enormous amounts of yen into local izakayas.

–Click HERE for todays photographs–

OK.  I have decided to let the cat out of the bag.

I am not as good of a photographer as some may have been lead to believe . Let me explain…

In creating a photograph there are various elements that come into play. Here are some of them, in no particular order:

1. Interesting or captivating subject material
2. Lighting
3. Timing
4. Creativity
5. Composition
6. Equipment
7. Persistence
8. Equipment
9. Skill
10. Luck

If one is lucky enough to have all (or most of ) these attributes align, then it is an almost sure-fire recipe for great images.

But even if you have a few of them missing from the mix (skill for example ) you may be able to make up for it by the shear number of photos taken, improving your chances of getting a good shot.

Of all these, I’d like to now shortly discuss Skill.

This could be the skill in using the camera and making the appropriate choice in settings, but almost equally as important in this day of digital file capture is ones ability to extract from the RAW data the feeling (or feelings ) that was being experienced when the image was captured.

Digital cameras have nowhere near the dynamic range of film, particularly black and white film. And it is this limitation on dynamic range that often greatly handicaps the photographic process. One extreme solution to this issue is High Dynamic Range (HDR ) photography. This is a technique where multiple exposures of the same scene, each made using a different exposure value are combined to provide an image with dynamic range far beyond the native capability of the image sensor.

This makes for some absolutely captivating images, but is often taken too far and the resulting images (through heavy handed tone-mapping) end up looking more like a Salvador Dali painting that a photograph.

Interesting? Yes.

Artistic? You Bet.

Realistic? Hardly.

This leads us to the first image for today: This is a photo of the Tora-san statue in front of Shibamata station. This is exactly as my camera captured it.

Note the rather blown out sky, lacking almost all detail. It really provides for a bland backdrop to the main subject.

The "fix" to this is to recover some of that lost highlight detail. I did this using the adjustment sliders in the Adobe Photoshop CS3 RAW processing software.

I pulled down the exposure a bit, then boosted the shadow detail to bring out more of his face. I then increased the black levels, while also increasing overall brightness.

The result of this work was the following "After" image: Same exact framing, just used some selective exposure adjustment to make the image appear closer to what my eye actually saw, and not what the camera with its limitations was able to capture.

Quite a change.

And the extra detail now present in the sky makes the main subject feel more separated from the background, resulting in an image that doesn’t feel so "flat".

So this was a case of overcoming the limitations of the equipment (inadequate dynamic range) through some selective post-processing.

I was only able to accomplish this because I had originally captured the file in RAW format. If I had been shooting in JPEG, the highlight detail would have been unrecoverable. I hope this clearly illustrates the value of shooting in RAW, and those of you that have been shooting JPEG will give RAW a try for yourself.

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The next image for today: This is a photo I took at a train station up near Shibamata.  As I was waiting for my train I noticed this young boy lost in thought, and all alone on a train.

I did not have much time to capture the image, so i just included enough space around him to allow me to work the composition part of the picture later on.

Dynamic range was not an issue for this shot since this is not a challenging lighting condition, so no adjustments were needed in that area.

I was using the 24-105mm f4 IS L lens at the time, and was zoomed in to the full 105mm. This ended up not being enough reach, and I felt that the resulting image had a few distractions that were taking away from the main subject.

So, when I got this image into my computer I applied probably the most basic of all editing techniques:

Cropping.

As you can see, I trimmed out the edge of the door on the left hand side of the frame. I also cut out the green logo on the top-left edge.

This left much more simple composition that allows the viewers eye to really zero in on the subject.

This also allowed me to "Zoom-in" a little more than the actual lens I had been using was capable of. This allows us to more clearly see the expression on the young boys face, which is he real subject of this image.

I also did a quick curves adjustment to brighten the image up a tad, and bring out the white, black, and red colors of the train.

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Next: Taishakuten - Shibamata: The first thing I did with this image was selectively focus on the roof of the Temple building, and include a fair amount of sky. I did this for two reasons: 1) The place was really crowded and I did not want any people in the shot, and 2) There were some interesting clouds that I knew I would be able to do something with later on.

To add a feeling of depth I included a foreground element; the pink (fake) flowers.

Similar to the first image, this one needed some selective exposure compensation. Additionally, I had to clean up a dust/dirt spot on the top right corner.

The resulting "After" image: I do have to admit that I went a little crazy with this one. As I was adjusting the exposure I went a little further than I probably should have if my intent were to portray the scene as it actually existed.

But I really liked the ominous feeling that the new, darker image was giving off.

And since this is art, and not photojournalism I wen t with it and boosted the saturation to make the bright pink flowers clash with the dark ominous background.

I like how the two oppose each other.

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This next "Before" image did not need a whole lot of work to bring out what I wanted: The real strong point of this image focus of this image is its composition.

Too many times people get caught in the rut of trying to get the whole object into the frame and don’t like when parts of the subject get cut off.

This commonly ends with an image with no strong subject, and the viewers eye is left to bounce around the image, looking for a home.

As you can see in the next "After" image, the composition remains the same (no cropping was done) and the only real adjustment was to ever so slightly increase he saturation of the image.

This time the camera nearly nailed it and captured the image as it had appeared.

When shooting JPEG the camera always automatically adjust things such as saturation, contrast, and sharpness.

My own post-processing of the image is no different. But the important difference is that I only apply as much of each of these setting to bring out what I want o portray. I don’t leave it up to the camera to decide.

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And here we are at the last image of the day: I shot this using an Olympus 50mm f1.2, at f1.2. I wanted to really separate the small lantern from the torii gate in the background.

I was walking throgh Shibamata with some other people from the "Tokyo Cameras" photo club so i did not have a lot of time to check and adjust the exposure, and the resulting image was a bit overexposed.

But because i had shot it in RAW (are you seeing a pattern yet?) I knew that i would be able to very easily correct the exposure
later on.

Here is the "After" image. All I did was pull down the exposure setting and increase both the black levels (slightly) and the brightness levels (again, slightly).

The resulting image is (at least in my opinion) much more pleasing to look at.

So there you have it.

Great photos (and I’m NOT saying that any of my images are great) are not made by magic.

It is usually a combination of the factors listed above, followed by some degree of post-processing to really bring the work to maturity.

–Click HERE for todays photographs–

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Copyright © 2008 Sushicam. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@sushicam.com so we can take legal action immediately.
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From Live in Japan Source

Click HERE for today’s photos

Hello all.

Based on the overwhelmingly positive response to my suggestion to talk more about the shots that I post here, I have decided to give it a go and see how it works out.

The first shot is titled: Fence, Kimono, Bike - Meguro

Last weekend I took the train up to one of my favorite used camera shops. It’s a place called Sanpo Camera and it’s about a 10 minute walk from Gakugei Daigaku station on the Touyoko line.

I walked the ten minutes to the camera store only to realize that it was closed due to the Golden Week holiday. (Like I shouldn’t have seen that coming a mile away… )

I was going there with the intention of picking up an Olympus 40mm f2 since I had seen one with a decent price on it the last time I was at Sanpo Camera. (On that trip I bought a Zuiko 55mm f1.2, and 135mm f2.8 ) But the place was closed to I turned around and headed back to the station.

I had my Canon 5D with a Minolta Rokkor 58mm f1.2 lens that I had recently done some surgery on in order to get it to mount on an EOS body. (I’ll elaborate a bit more about the Rokkor 58mm later, but let it suffice to say that it is one stellar piece of glass )

As I was walking back to the station, I noticed a woman in a kimono behind me. And knowing that the road was soon to take a fortunate bend I decided to stop in a strategic place to "tie my shoe " allowing her to get ahead of me.

The ruse worked and she passed me by.

Since I was shooting at f1.2, and the depth of field would be minuscule, I prefocused on the concrete pole in the center part of the frame. As she reached the pole I tripped the shutter. But just at the moment, it happened. Some random Obachan rolled around the corner on her bike. (These old women on bikes are holy terrors, and the bane of all sane sidewalk users in Japan. To safely walk the streets here one must have the reflexes of a mongoose on a direct IV drip of Jolt cola )

My fist thought was, "Damn It! A perfectly good shot ruined!" But in retrospect I think it is that old woman on the bike that really adds a spark of something to what would have otherwise been a very static shot.

It also really helps lead the viewers eye through the picture. You start at the fence on the left, and the fence and lines painted on the road pull your eye first towards the center of the frame to the main subject, the woman in kimono.

But the fun’s not over yet!

Due to the strong curving line of the fence and yellow centerline of the road, your eye continues it’s journey and you find yourself at the old lady on the bicycle.

So in retrospect, the happy accident of tripping the shutter just as something else entered the frame ended up giving the shot more dimension.

Sometimes I get lucky. That’s OK. Luck works.

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The second shot for today is titled: Boat and Carp - Himonya Park, Meguro

In the original unprocessed version of this shot the sky was blown out, basically all white, and the shaded areas of the tress were almost entirely black. (This photo was also shot with the Rokkor 58mm f1.2 @ f1.2 )

The dynamic range of the scene was too much to capture on a single exposure. But lucky for me I had a trick up my sleeve. I always shoot in RAW.

Shooting in RAW is like having a digital negative at your disposal.

You can adjust things such as white balance, and exposure after the fact. This is tremendously powerful in the post processing of images.

At fist glance one might think that this is a HDR (high dynamic range) shot. HDR is done by combining multiple exposures of the same image, combining the exposures into a single image with extended dynamic range, far beyond what is capable with a single exposure. But with moving subject (the carp streamer and row boat) getting 3-5 different shots, all at varying exposure values would be pretty much impossible.

But since I had shot this image in RAW, I was able to open it up in Photoshop (CS3) and pull down the highlights, while increasing the brightness of the shadows. But doing just this leaves you with a pretty flat looking image. To get it to pop a bit more, I increased the blacks, and increased the brightness. I know, it sounds counter intuitive to increase both the blacks and the brightness, but trust me, it really works to help increase the contrast with minimal loss in image detail.

But I do have to admit, even with a solid RAW file to start with, this particular images dynamic range was a bit to extreme to make a technically good photo. It ended up with a more pastel-like look, similar in some respects to a wood block print. Not quite exactly what my eye saw, but more close in fact to what I was seeing in my minds eye at the time I took this picture.

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Todays third photo, titled: Quiet time for a young couple - Hongakuji, Kamakura

This is another one of those shots that I had no intention of taking. The circumstances kind of just presented themselves to me as I was out shooting pictures.

Hongakuji is a favorite haunt of mine when I go to Kamakura. It’s close to the station, yet very lightly visited since it is in the opposite direction from Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, the main draw for visitors in the area around Kamakura station.

I too this photograph with a Zeiss 28mm f2.8 Distagon. It’s a punchy, sharp lens with nice contrast, so i thought the greens of the new leaves would turn out well.

The wide angle of view offered by a 28mm lens also lends a sense of place to the image as it allows for a lot of foreground and background into the frame. I imagine this is how I would see the world if my eyes were about 4 inches wider apart on my head.

I intentionally focused on a point beyond the lantern in the foreground. I was trying to add a feeling of depth to the image, and blurring the lantern emphasizes the separation between it and the background (which is the actual subject of this shot ). What really makes this photo stand out (from the roughly 6,357,431 other pictures I have taken at Temples and Shrines in Japan ) is the young couple seated on the lower left hand part of the frame.

Their closely interlocked pose tells the whole story in an of itself. With just a glance we can all plainly see what is going on here. They are conjoined twins… NOT. (Sorry, I could not resist )

But seriously, they are most obviously a couple, and they have stopped to give their feet a rest and consult the map to plan out where they will be going next. Once again, it’s this small human element that really made the picture something special for me.

It would have been nice to be able to get a bit closer to them, but then it would have been too obvious that I was taking their picture, and that would have ruined the whole thing because when someone is aware that they are being photographed they commonly covey a nervousness, and that shows. It comes across as stiff and unnatural in the resulting images.

So I was content to take this shot, letting them think that I was focused on the lantern, when in fact it was their special little moment that I so craftily intruded upon.

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Todays fourth photo: Prayer - Hongakuji, Kamakura

I took this shot with an Olympus 135mm f2.8 lens. I had to find the correct vantage point and a set os step leading up to the large bell at Hongakuji served the purpose nicely. It also allowed me to raise my point of view. And the simple step of changing ones point of view from what we normally see at eye level is a good tip to keep in mind when out shooting photos.

Granted that this shot is not very exciting. it’s pretty static actually.

But the elevated point of view gives the place the feel of being larger tha it really is.

I also wanted to get some out of focus ginko leave in the frame to add some extra depth and to add a splash of color. I intentionally placed the leaves in front of the bell so as to give the viewer a feeling that he/she were looking through the foliage themselves. (trying to add a sense of "being there" to this image ) I could have placed the the leave so they would be in a less obtrusive place, but I wanted to leave the viewer with a feeling of wanting more. Or even better, I wanted to have the viewer fill in the hidden parts of the image with details from their own imagination. And in doing these they make this image as their own. (once again, trying to add a sense of "i’ve been there before" to this image )

I’m not sure how effective I was at accomplishing this, but its a photo that I like, so I posted it here.

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The last image for today: Fuji-san from a mountain top in Hakone

What can I say?

Sometime you get lucky enough to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right gear.

I shot this with a 50mm lens (65mm equivalent field of view, shot with a Canon 1D Mark II which has a 1.3X crop factor )

This shot almost never happened.

It was almost 4 years ago. (November 23rd 2004 to be exact) I was all packed for a trip to Kyoto that I was taking the next day when I realized just how beautiful of a day it was.

My camera gear was already packed, and I had the entire day to kill. So I slung my camera bag on my shoulder and headed out the door, not really sure where the day would take me. I must have had an idea of Hakone in mind since I seemed to naturally flow in that direction at each fork in the road (or ticket gate at the train station to be more precise )

Subconsciously I must have been thinking that the clear weather would lend itself well to some Mt Fuji pictures.

I was not disappointed.

Upon arriving in Hakone I made my way along the North shore of lake Ashi, until I got to the ropeway that ferries people up to a mountain top overlooking the lake. That day was really windy, so what started off as your typical clear day , ended up being an astonishingly clear day.

Mt Fuji is always a rewarding subject, but even for it’s size, it can be rather elusive at times (kind of like my uncle Roy would act whenever the Jehovah Whitenesses would come knocking ). It’s big enough to create it’s own weather, and can become quickly enshrouded in clouds on what first appears to be the clearest of days.

But on this particular day the photography gods were with me. The winds were so strong that nothing was able to stick to Fuji-san and it was the clearest I have ever seen it, before, or since.

I could have been there with the right equipment, and been standing in the right place, but without the right weather, and right time of day, this shot would have been much harder to achieve.

But of all these, the one thing that really made this last shot possible was that I let the day take me. I didn’t force it. I just went where it was trying to tell me to go.

I was there because I let it happen , not because I made it happen.

Sometimes you just have to let go of the big plans and ideas, and just go with the moment. For you never know where it might take you.

We are all on a constant journey. And like a twig on the shoulders of a mighty stream, we can spend a lot of time fighting it, or we can just go with the flow and enjoy the ride.

Click HERE for today’s photos

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Copyright © 2008 Sushicam. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@sushicam.com so we can take legal action immediately.
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From Live in Japan Source

In a couple of days it will be 14 years since papa passed away and in honor of him, I would like to share this most extraordinary story of one man’s unusual transformation from completely despising me to accepting me as one of the family.

“Papa” is the name I used when addressing the finest, nicest man I have ever met in Japan. He was my father-in law and we were the closest of friends. However, it did not start out that way.

When I first met my wife, I was about to graduate college and she was a junior at another school. Since we lived about a 15 minute walk from each other we would sometimes visit each other for coffee or tea and to listen to music or just talk. Her mother was most welcoming to me when I visited her house and did not seem to mind that her only daughter/child was dating a foreigner. In fact she kind of took a fancy to me and my intuition told me that she was quite ok with me. Her father was usually working when I visited and I would always leave the house before he returned around five in the evening as her mother and she did not know how her father would react to their only child dating a foreigner. In fact they figured he would not take it well and they were right.

We managed to keep it a secret from Papa for several weeks until one day he happened to arrive home unexpectedly early and saw us walking together up the street while he was driving down it. The next day, I was informed by my girlfriend that her father had forbidden them to ever allow me in the house again and that she was to stop seeing me.

My girlfriend, being a twenty year old college student and quite the rebel at the time, refused to allow this to happen and continued seeing me against the wishes of her father. Her mother, on the other hand, was still ok with it and would run interference for us when the need arose like when we were out dating, on a trip, or when I would call. However, I just knew her father had to know we were still seeing each other.

This went on for a few months until he just gave in and stopped refusing his daughter from seeing me. However, he still did not want me anywhere near or in his house. When I asked my girlfriend why, she would say that her father did not want to see her get “hurt” by a foreigner who will only leave Japan and that he had heard too many stories where the woman always gets hurt in the long run when dating or marrying a foreigner. Besides, being seven years her senior, he felt I was too old for her. Needless to say we eventually fell in love and made plans on getting married even if her father would never agree to it.

Before we even became serious with each other, I informed my girlfriend that I would be leaving Japan in December (some nine months after we met), when my student visa expired to return to the US with my degree and start a career in business. I asked her to come to the US after she graduated the following April and we would get married. She agreed and although her father would be totally against it, she would do it anyway as she said they couldn’t stop her.

I returned home to my parents’ house outside of New York City in December 1981 and proceeded looking for a job right after the holidays. Things did not work out in the USA for me as I had hoped and planned. A full blown recession was underway, interest rates were hovering at around 18% and, although I was told I had great qualifications, no one was hiring at the moment and I was really bummed out. I finally found a job at the Bank of Tokyo on Wall Street that paid a measly $14,000/yr. After taxes I cleared about $200/week! Hell, that wasn’t even enough to rent a small apartment and have something left over. Besides, I made more money in Japan as a part-time teacher!

My fiancée arrived in May. She told me that her parents took her to the airport and bid their only child a tearful farewell. Even today I cannot believe that her father allowed her to go or, as often happens, disown her or something like that.

Wanting to kick start our life she wanted to help out and within a month or so found employment with a Japanese restaurant in the city and, try as we may, we still couldn’t scrape up enough money to afford our own decent place, buy some furniture, pay our rent and still have something left over to save. Besides, we both disliked living in New York and longed for Japan again. We decided that this wasn’t going to work out and, after much discussion and debate we settled on not getting married and on returning to Japan where we planned to eventually open up our own English school. Besides, we both knew we could make far more money in Japan than we were making in New York at the moment.

She departed in December and I followed some four months later after I applied to a language school, secured sponsorship through a friend and finally got my Cultural Visa for “Japanese Language Study”. (What’s funny here is that I had to sign a statement at the embassy promising that I would NOT be going there to teach English!) Besides, I didn’t need the school anyway as I was already quite fluent in Japanese having lived there for 9 years, but it was the fastest and easiest way for me get back to Japan and live legally.

After only 16 months in the US and my dreams shattered, I returned to Japan where I quickly found an apartment in my old neighborhood near my fiancée and an English teaching job paying much more than I was making in New York. To follow through with my visa though, I attended the language school for about two years. Being back in Japan again I felt much more comfortable and “at home”.

We put off our plans on marrying and continued seeing each other with she living at her home. Despite her father’s continued disapproval I was still not allowed to visit her house. What a loser he must’ve thought I was as I couldn’t even make it in the US. However, one thing led to another, things fell into place and we had our own English School in a less than two years. The kicker was that I had to be married in order for me to officially register the business in my name and we both knew her father would never approve of us marrying or even agree to it for that matter.

My wife came up with the idea that she would secure her koseike shohon (Family Register) and we would get married in a civil ceremony. When I questioned her about the fact that I would be entered on her family register and what would her father think of it, she said not to worry as no one would know unless they asked to see the register. Since she didn’t have any siblings she said it would be no problem and, if her father found out and still disapproved afterwards, so what, it was already done. What guts she had to go against her family like that. This was a rare woman indeed!

We got married, opened up our school and her family was never the wiser. She never told them and they never found out! She would stay with me and help run the school on weekdays as she told her parents, and would return to stay with them on weekends. For almost three years we were married and they never discovered it. Things were going well, the school was growing, we were making money and then I really screwed up!

One day I awoke to four detectives standing over my bed with a search warrant and I was busted for an illegal substance (0.0125 grams of hashish). We were both arrested even though my wife was completely innocent and never used the stuff. She spent a week in jail and I spent two weeks. No phone calls were allowed by either of us and her parents became extremely worried and checked with the local police when she didn’t come home and no one answered the phone. They then knew what had happened. Still, they did not know we were officially married. My wife was eventually exonerated and no charges were pressed. As for myself, I was charged, received a suspended sentence, and allowed to stay in the country and continue my business. My name was never in the papers though, and none of the students or their parents ever came to know what happened.

When my wife was released and she returned home, her father questioned her about whether she really loved me or not and whether she wanted to stay with a man like me after what I put her through. She told him that she did. To her shock, and mine also when she told me, she said that her father said to her, “If you really love this man after all this then marry him and let’s have a ceremony.” It was only then that I was allowed to visit her house some 6 years after first meeting her and being banned!

About a week later I nervously returned with my wife to her house and didn’t know what to expect. I half expected to receive a scolding and some kind of warning from her father, but it never happened. I apologized to her father in the traditional Japanese manner by getting on my knees and apologizing to him with my head touching the tatami for the pain I caused his daughter and him and his wife. He said that I shouldn’t worry about it and that it was already done. I still couldn’t believe this was happening. He asked that I stay the night, insisted that I take a bath with his daughter and allowed us to sleep together in the same room! Needless to say I was in shock that day and night. The beer flowed freely and we really got along quite well although I was still a little suspicious. I mean, how can a man change so quickly, and why?

The following day I asked him for his daughters hand in marriage. He agreed and said that we were not to worry as he would be paying for everything! All we had to do was plan it. Not one word was ever mentioned then or afterwards about my run-in with the law and the beer and food flowed freely again and a good time was had by all.

What a weekend! An apology for getting his only child arrested and then asking for his daughter hand! What a son-in-law I would make!

From that day forward, even though he spoke no English, Papa and I became the best of friends. He seemed to be genuinely impresssed with my Japanese ability and my knowledge of Japans customs, culture and food and was surprised that I lived in Japan for so long and even returned when things didn’t work out in the US. I explained to him that I felt Japan was my home and that I felt more comfortable there than in the US. 

After that day I visited often and we would drink together while watching baseball or sumo. Sometimes we would go out and sing karaoke and we always had a great time. I actually looked forward to the weekends when we would visit and stay.

The marriage occurred about six months later and it was really a wonderful affair held at a hotel in Yokohama with about 100 guests. There was the traditional Japanese ceremony with both of us in kimono along with the western one with a white wedding dress for my wife and a sharp tux for me. The best part was when my wife danced with her father and I with her mother. It was truly a day to remember and it was the first time I ever saw Papa cry. He was really happy.

Things continued well for us and the business, and then the Japanese economy started to swell. Land prices went through the roof and we soon came to the realization that we would never be able to afford our own place as a five room “mansion” (condo) that cost about $80,000 just three years previously, was now going for almost three times as much. It got so ridiculous that, after some discussion, we made plans to sell the school and return to the US. At least there we would be able to afford our own place and, since the economy was doing well, we should at least be able to find decent employment this time.

It was not easy breaking the news to Papa that I would again be taking his only child away from him, but he understood that it was what we both wanted and agreed to it. Inside his heart though I knew it must have hurt him in some way as not only was his daughter leaving him, but his best friend also.

Papa wanted to help with a place in Japan, but we would not hear of it. It was just too expensive. This we wanted to do on our own. We left within a year and we departed the country to a tearful goodbye from her parents with a promise from me that we would visit at least once a year.

We settled in Tennessee and through a friend who was living there that we both knew in Japan, both of us quickly found great employment with the same Japanese company and, within 2 years built our own house.  We were doing quite well and we visited Japan once a year, as promised. I visited more often as I had to take business trips to Japan an additional once or twice a year and I always made it a point to visit with the in-laws for at least a few days. Papa and I always had a blast as usual and my wife told me that her father really looked forward to seeing me and enjoyed my company.

We wanted her parents to visit us in the US and they had planned on it when tragedy struck. Papa had come down with lung cancer a year or so before we were married and a lung was removed. He continued living a normal life until it was discovered that he had incurable brain cancer.  An operation removed some of the cancer, but it left him partially paralyzed on his right side and he was informed that it was terminal and that there was nothing more to be done for him.

Papa took it well and continued to live life as normally as he could. Even though he was forced to retire because of his condition, his company took great care of him by continuing to pay him. Like his daughter, he was a fighter and continued to have a great outlook on life while still enjoying his smokes and alcohol while never giving up or feeling sorry for himself. As he used to say, “If I’m going to die, I may as well enjoy myself!” Still, like always, we had a great time together during our visits and I so much looked forward to them.

During one of our visits, when we were alone, he mentioned that he was not going to be here forever and that when the time came would I look after his wife. I promised him that should that occur he needn’t worry as I would make it my goal to ensure that his wife, as well as his daughter, was well taken care of. And I intended to keep that promise. It was the least I could do for this fine man who made such a transformation and treated me so well.

After about 2 years, Papa took a turn for the worse and was admitted to the hospital. My wife took a leave of absence to be with her father and he slowly deteriorated. I got a call from her one night that things were not good and that Papa was asking for me. I made plans to go in two weeks, but two days before I left, I got a phone call from my wife saying that Papa had passed away. I was so sad. She said that right up till the end Papa was asking for me and was looking forward to my arrival. I really felt bad in that I should’ve left immediately and that I couldn’t be with him. However, it really warmed and touched me at how much he wanted to see me.

In the end I felt as if I had lost my own father as he truly treated me like a son and I really felt the love both he and his wife have for me and the way they welcomed me into their family. Me, a gaijin; a foreigner who married his only child and took her away – twice! Me, the person he refused to allow into his home until I caused his daughter to spend time in jail. It’s strange how things in life work out. Just when you think one door is slammed in your face and things seem impossible, life throws you another twist and opens another door. For reasons that cannot be explained, people can and do change.

After 21 years of visiting the same home, I truly feel as if Papa’s house is my own and I know he would not want to have it any other way as I am so comfortable there. And when I visit, the first thing I always do, even before unpacking my bags, is to go to the tokonoma, the small alcove where the family shrine is kept with Papa’s picture, get on my knees, light a candle and some incense, ring the bell to let him know I am there, light up one of his favorite cigarettes, clap my hands and tell him that I am “home” and to thank him for welcoming me as one of the family and that he needn’t worry as I will continue looking out for his family and will keep my promise by returning to Japan permanently to make sure his wife is well taken care of and will not be alone in her later years.

If Papa knew after the official ceremony that we were previously married for three years, he never let on and neither did his wife to this day. They had to know or someone in their family had to know. That kind of thing you cannot keep secret for long, especially in a small town up north. But Papa never let on and neither has Mama to this day. What fantastic in-laws they have turned out to be and I feel honored to have been blessed with their love and acceptance of me over the years.

Papa, you are a great man and words cannot do justice for the way you changed and came to befriend me and accept me into your family, warts and all. I will never forget it and I just hope I have not disappointed you. Kanpai! 

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From Live in Japan Source

Have you heard of twitter? It’s a microblogging site that limits you to a mere 140 characters per post and which the Japanese have taken to whole-heartedly. Here is an outstanding video explaining what it is.

Tokyo and Osaka are the number one and nine heaviest users of the site in the world.

I’m writing this however because there is a distinct lack of English-speaking Japan bloggers using the service as far as I can tell and I think it would be of great use to our community. Imagine if Sushijeff wants to go on a group photowalk around Shinjuku and could mobilise a crowd of photobloggers within an hour.

Imagine if Pachipro wants to go to a restaurant with local sushicam readers and after posting on his twitter page, 20 showed up. It’s a great way to reach a lot of people instantly.

So Twitterers of Japan Unite! Lend me your ears and sign up for twitter.

Simon recently temporarily left his wife and baby in Japan to find work back in England. He blogs over at Quaisi.net and twitters at http://twitter.com/quaisi

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From Live in Japan Source

**Click Here for todays photos**

It’s Golden Week here in Japan.

For those of you that don’t know, Golden Week is a time of the year when Japanese people pay twice the normal going rate for hotels, airfare, etc…, and if they are driving to their destination, spend most of the trip stuck in traffic.

Golden Week is a collection of four national holidays within a seven day period sandwiched by two weekends, giving most people ten or eleven consecutive days off. It ranks right up there with New Years and Obon as one of Japans busiest travel seasons.

For those of you that want the gory details, you can go here to learn all about which holidays are celebrated.

As a public service I have decided to update the holidays a bit to make them better match the reality that is Golden Week in modern Japan;

* April 29
Car Day (Kuruma no hi):

April 29 is the day when a lot of people dust off the car that has seen hardly any use in the past year and decide to pack it chock full of family members (including pets ), onigiri, and potable video game units with the plan to spend a good 14-17 hours centimetering along (Japan is a metric country after all ) horrendously crowded toll roads in search of relaxation and enjoyment. Various activities (planned as well as unplanned ) are the norm, the most popular of which being "Who can hold their bladder the longest ". (Women usually win this one because the have to . For men it;’s just too easy to pull over and take a leak over the guard rail)

* May 3
Who are these people day? (Dare hito no hi):
After spending another year basically living at the office, the father of the family finally has a chance to get reacquainted with his children. Really young children usually spend the day crying, startled by the stranger that has suddenly popped into their lives. Older kids hold back their enthusiasm, even if they are excited to get to spend some time with "Dad", because they know that by this time next week he will once again become one of the countless Tokyo-Bedouin, leading a mostly nomadic life of shuttling between the home and office, leaving the house before the kids wake up, and arriving back home long after they go to sleep.

* May 4
Mada tanoshii no hi (Are we having fun yet Day):
After realizing that the family unit has spent an obscene amount of money for the opportunity to spend 73.6% of their total annual allocated holiday time sitting in traffic, the idea that it may have been a better idea to stay at home to wait for the NHK collector to show up starts to surface and the Father of the family unit starts to ask himself some simple but pointed questions;

1. Who ARE these people?
2. Would my wife kill me out of sheer jealous rage if I were to pull over and take a leak over the guard rail?
3. I wonder how many onigiri I would have to stuff into my oldest daughters mouth the get her to shut up?
4. Am I nut’s or does my regular morning commute not seem so bad anymore?

* May 5
Ritual suicide Day (Seppuku no hi):
This is the day that, upon returning home from the annual Golden Week trip, the Father realizes that the only thing he has to look forward to in life is doing it all again next year. Faced with this realization he rummages around the house looking for something with which to commit Seppuku.

**Click Here for todays photos**

I’ve got a question for all of you out there that are interested in Photography.

Would you be interested if I were to talk about the specific photos that I post in these updates? In other words, I’d talk about what I was trying to accomplish with each image, or the circumstances in which the image was created.

For example, in this shot I had set up shortly after sunset, and having planned to get this shot, I had brought my tripod along.

The late evening/early night light provides a brilliant blue sky, but to tell the truth, this shot could have been much better if I had taken it a bit earlier in the evening.

7:30 turned out to be past the time when the sky would have shown up best, but I was having way too much fun shooting Maiko and Geiko and lost track of time. When I finally did realize what time ti was I hot footed it to this location, and salvaged the shot as best I could. Not the perfect shot by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel it does capture the mood of Kyoto at this time of the day.

If you listen closely, you can almost hear the cherry tree branches swaying in the breeze, accompanied by the muted clank of dishes, and soft conversations floating out from the tea houses lined along the slowly moving river.

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From Live in Japan Source

Someone was the first to think of it. It was probably a fisherman, standing on the banks of the river, spear, line, or trap in hand, frustrated by his catch and eying with envy the cormorants as they dove into the water and came up with a fish every time. And then he had an […]

From Live in Japan Source