August the 15th is the anniversary of the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II.
Every year on this day 1000’s of people go to the controversial Yasukuni shrine in Kudanshita to pay their respects to the war dead (including the 14 class A war criminals whose souls are intered there).
I have been there every year for the past few years to take photographs (see HERE and HERE) and watch the pantomime that ensues between the hundreds of Uyoku Dantai and the Police that inevitably occurs sometime in the late afternoon.

This year, however, was a little different from other years.

All of the usual elements were present and it was on one level as disturbing a view of the Japanese people as it always is, but this year I had 2 strange experiences that fundamentally changed my views, if not of the controversy surrounding Yasukuni, then at least of some of the people there.

The first was a conversation I had with this wonderful 70 year old lady.

She approached me as I was standing on a bridge over the road that runs directly past the entrance to Yasukuni shrine.
Below us was a particularly vocal right-wing nutcase with a megaphone shouting his hateful message of racial intolerence and bigotry.
“I’m sorry for my fellow Japanese” she said, I was a little taken aback, this is not the opener one expects from a Japanese old person at the best of times let alone then and there.
I thought I had misunderstood her, my Japanese is not what it should be after 3 years in the country, and asked her to repeat what she said.
There was no mistake.
We proceeded to chat for about 10 minutes with her explaining that she didn’t understand people like our vocal friend beneath us and that she thought most of the people there hadn’t really studied history very well if they thought Japan was anything but the aggressor in WWII.She also said she was disappointed in the Japanese people for not thinking for themselves and being so easily lead by the media and politicians.
She kept telling me she was odd for a Japanese old lady, holding the views she did, and I was forced to agree.
She didn’t speak English at all and I’m sure much of the subtlety of what she said was lost due to my lack of understanding but the salient points were very clear.
She stopped a passing foreigner and asked him to take our photograph and then demanded my address so she could send me the picture, she actually hugged me when she left to go on her way (that simple act speaking volumes as it unusual to see even close friends hugging in Japan, let alone an old lady hugging a foreigner she has only just met).

I was genuinely moved by her warmness and candor and wandered off to take more photos feeling a little shaken from my preconceptions.

But, if I had imagined that was it for surprises I was about to be even more shocked.

I headed for the road that leads from Yasukuni down towards Kudanshita metro station and stopped to admire the many groups spouting opinions of varying degrees of ridiculousness.
Not least of them was a group I remembered from previous years collecting signatures and shouting about how the 3rd generation Korean and Chinese residents of Japan shouldn’t be given the vote as “Japan is only for the Japanese”.
Though of course they use that catch all term for anyone who isn’t Japanese, Gaikokujin (at least they remembered the ‘koku’:-), which always gets my back up a little as being a Gaikokujin myself their impassioned ranting always seems to be directed at me too.
I was approached by one of them, who told me in perfect English, that he remembered me from last year.

Actually I remembered him too, last year (when the above photo was taken) he had used some very unpleasant Japanese to berate me for taking his picture.

He asked if he could tell me something, expecting the worst, I said why not.

He then began to explain that many “Caucasians” , he meant Americans and Germans mostly, he elaborated, came to Yasukuni on this day to disrespect the shrine.
The shrine contained the souls of war dead, he told me, as if I was a 5 year old with no idea, and in Japanese culture they must be worshiped or they will rise up again and do “bad things”.
“well, not always bad things, but they will rise up” he said.
That was why everyone was here and what the “Caucasians” didn’t understand.

I told him that I was not here to disrespect anyone, just to take photographs and enjoy the spectacle.
I asked if I could explain something to him.
He was surprisingly amenable and we moved a little away from his group, though he brought the banner he was holding with him.
I continued that I thought what some of my fellow ‘white devils’ were maybe seen as disrespecting was the fact that there were 14 class A war criminals intered at the shrine too and although we too gave our respects to our war dead we didn’t to the war criminals.
Our conversation spiraled off into discussions about his groups use of the word Gaikokujin (if you mean Chinese and Koreans then say that otherwise all of us foreigners feel attacked by you) and the recent Nori-p case and the media assertion that her boyfriend had gotten his drugs from ” a foreigner in Shibuya” despite the fact that her brother was a convicted Yakuza drug dealer and she comes from a Yakuza family.
He told me that there were “no good people in China or Korea” and I retorted that there were bad people everywhere including Japan. He looked a little angry at that until I pointed out that the Japanese Communist party was made up of Japanese people and I was sure he thought they were “bad” people, he reluctantly agreed.
I said I thought it was Politicians in every country (including Japan) that were the bad people, the “people” of each country were just like him and me, human beings were human beings no matter where they were from.

It was all shocking polite and like an actual discussion.

Suddenly an unrelated Japanese guy walking past, hearing my conversation partner with his banner and I having a conversation in English came over and started shouting at me “This is Japan, speak f*&king Japanese”.
Before I had a chance to react, my banner wielding friend turned on him and told him in some of the most colourful Japanese I have heard outside of a Yakuza movie to “f*&k off, I want to speak to him in English you stupid bastard”
The other guy was quite taken aback as was I at being defended in this way.
The gentlemen started apologising profusely and backing away, but not before I too had summoned my best Yakuza Japanese and called him some impolite names and asked him why he was only apologizing to the banner guy and not to me.
“stupid bastard” banner guy said to me and smiled as the other guy skulked away.

That simple act had left me bewildered.
Had this well spoken but clearly bigoted crazy I was talking to just defended me to a fellow Japanese??
This wasn’t how that was supposed to go.

It may not seem like much, but to me it was a huge moment.

The guy was still a closed minded xenophobe, a fairly hateful little man, but he had shown me that he was also an intelligent, thoughtful and almost reasonable human being. By showing me that he respected me enough to defend our conversation to another Japanese person and laugh at the guy after I had berated him he did more to improve my view of the Japanese people than anyone has done for as long as I can remember.

Our conversation continued for a little longer before my conversation partner moved off to rejoin his group, “Are you staying for the show?, its starts about 4pm” were his parting words.

‘The show’ he was referring too is the demonstration that takes place towards the end of the day every year when the 100’s of riot police who have been quietly sitting in their police vans, the Uyoku Dantai and interestingly in the last few years some opposition left wing groups (yes such a thing actually exists in Japan) have a staged, pantomime like ‘fight’.

(Many videos can be found with a simple youtube search)

This year however I wasn’t staying, I was hot and tired and I had actually already got more than I’d bargained for and wanted to leave with those more positive experiences in my mind.

If you read too much and attend events like Yasukuni on the 15th it is easy to become very cynical and depressed about living in Japan as a foreigner, I find myself looking at everyone with the assumption they are a right wing xenophobe and my whole world becomes a little like a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
My two meetings this year had forced me to open my mind a little again and I was very thankful for that.

The releasing of the doves at the beginning of the day seemed like more than a drop in an infinite ocean.

There was a faint flicker of hope.

*Originally posted on Uchujins blog*

See here for a great Photo of Jims of a very interesting man who was at Yasukuni this year.

HESO Magazine

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Please enjoy…

Skylines by Manny Santiago

Skylines is a photographic work in progress focussing on the communities in which we reside and the lines, sometimes invisible sometimes not, that connect us. This project began in 2007 documenting how we build, maintain, layout and see ourselves within the macro and micro of the largescale communities in which we move to and fro, work and live, love and kill. Suggesting not only what we see before us but also the larger nature of the cities and societies we make as well as the reverberations which spread outward from the center. I remain fascinated by exploring new places with and without my camera, while continually documenting how we build upon the worlds of our fathers and mothers. I would eventually like to catalog as many places as possible.


Nipponikong by Brian Scott Peterson

My first trip to Tokyo in 2004 shared something in common with my first trip to Hong Kong the same year. They were both love at first sight (and smell, touch, taste and sound), everything from the ancient temples to the still very alive food. From a western perspective, particularly an American one, the cities are as unfamiliar and outlandish as they come. There is nothing that can be done to prepare oneself for the bombardment of peculiarities found in the open markets or down the less traveled alleys of both. With the enigmas I continue to find around every corner comes a deepening curiosity in the social and urban latticework that make up both of these unique cities. And the deeper I dig into each of the cultures and cityscapes, the more surprises I come to find, and the less I realize I actually know them. Yet, in this perpetual disorientation have I begun to recognize a reciprocity and a harmony that rings throughout Tokyo and Hong Kong, like a taut thread connected to the belly button of the orient. It is as if they are twins, fraternal albeit, separated by a sea at birth.

For this recent project, I have attempted to visually elucidate my journey, the hole I have dug, through the two cities, and record the continuities and congruencies that run throughout by stacking them on top of each other on film. Opting to use multiple exposures attempts to highlight the surprises one never ceases to find.

Which was extended for a week at the request of the bar owner, the lovely Oishii san.

After all the blood, sweat and tears it took to realise it, we were very happy that so many people came down to support us and enjoy our work.

We are all off doing our own projects now but will be back with another ‘Tokyo Beats Production’ soon.

Watch this space for details.

Thanks again to everyone.

Uchujin on behalf of ‘The Tokyo Beats’

photo by uchujin

My associates, people like Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, we all knew each other. We felt like a secret society that believed in each other. We never criticized each other’s work; although we took extremely different kinds of pictures, we would just look at each other’s work. I guess we all learnt and borrowed from each other—only with the best intentions of course.

-William Eggleston, photographer

Looking at her Flickr stream, she seemed to be using a Nikon D-80, which is a DSLR with a cropped sensor, so my answer leans a bit towards users of those cameras. For a long time, I used a Nikon D-100, which has a similar sensor.

Basically, the most important factor in a good portrait is not the lens or the camera that you use, but the level of connection and intimacy you can create between your subject and the viewer.

She asked for a recommendation for a prime lens, but in the end, it wasn’t my first suggestion. Shooting with primes is great, but it can be a lot of work. If you’re shooting a few hundred frames in a session, this can lead to a lot of pictures that look quite a lot alike. Getting something good in a short amount of time often requires a lot of different compositions.

In general, I despise most discussions about gear. No matter how much you try to speak in very general terms, someone will undoubtedly chime in to argue that the new Smegron 3-1500mm f:13.5 zoom that they heard will be announced at Photokina two years from now is the obvious best choice for portraits. These things are a matter of taste, which is really impossible to quantify. For example, one of my favorite portraits ever is one of the painter Francis Bacon, shot by John Deakin. I like it because it’s raw and unflattering, shot in close with a wide lens. In effect, he did it wrong and it works astoundingly well because of it.

Anyway, here’s what I wrote to her, perhaps some of you may find it useful as well:

Hi -

It depends a bit on the camera you use. If you are using a camera with a cropped sensor, like most of the digital SLRs on the market, you may find some of the more traditional portrait lenses to be a bit tight in composition. Still, if you like a close-cropped face in the portrait, something like an 85mm lens is still a good choice with a lot of flexibility. The 85 is a classic portrait lens for 35mm film photography. Being a slightly telephoto lens, it adds a bit of compression to the features of the subject, which is very often flattering. Wider lenses, especially those below 35mm, can be a bit unflattering, at the extreme making the subject appear moon-faced.

The kind of telephoto compression to which I refer is the effect you may have seen with a long telephoto lens, say a view down a crowded street from far away where the people appear almost stacked upon each other. When you read about lens equivalents with cropped sensors, they may say something to the effect of “a 50mm lens becomes an 80mm lens” but this is deceptive. A lens with a 50mm focal length will not have the telephoto compression of an 80mm lens, so you can’t expect the little bit of flattering that you’d get with an 80 or 85 millimeter lens.

That said, a 50mm lens is capable of taking excellent portraits, on any DSLR, regardless of sensor. You just need to get up and move your feet to do your composing. The same with an 85mm lens. It’s a lot of work to shoot a dynamic portrait session with a prime lens, but the benefits can be worth the effort. With any prime, you’re going to get good optics and a wider maximum aperture than on most zoom lenses. The wider the aperture, the more control you have over “bokeh” or out-of-focus blur, which can be good for isolating your subject from a distracting background. Wider apertures also let more light into the camera, allowing you to not only shoot in lower light, they help autofocus do it’s thing better and faster.

So for a good prime, I’d recommend getting the fastest 50mm prime you can justify getting. A 50mm f:1.8 can be had for between $80 and $120. That’s a simply fantastic price for a lens that fast. A bit faster f:1.4 will run you about $300. Canon makes a f:1.2, but it costs about $1,500. I have one of these and while it’s a real beauty, it’s a beast as well. It weighs a heck of a lot more than the others, which is a real consideration when shooting all day. I shot a model in my little studio the other day using that lens and others and after a couple of hours, my shoulders were simply aching. Still, the simply creamy blur it makes in out of focus areas makes it worth the pain—sometimes.

But you know what? If I had one lens to use for a portrait session where there’s be a lot of different poses and styles, where I need a lot of flexibility in composition, I honestly wouldn’t be shooting with a prime. For one thing, I often work in small spaces—my studio in Tokyo is about the size of a 1-car garage. Other times, shooting dancers, I’ll be on stage with them, with not a lot of space to move around.

In these cases, I use a zoom. On Canon, I like the 24-70 f:2.8 L zoom and on Nikon, I like the 28-70 f:2.8.

Both lenses are real workhorses. F:2.8 is about the fastest you can get in a zoom and they are pretty expensive and heavy, but I find them to be a good trade-off between price, weight and performance.

First, I’d take a good look at the lenses you own now. Even the “kit lenses” that come as an option for most DSLRs are often great, flexible lenses for portraits. After all, the makers know that a good percentage of new users will be soon taking their cameras to weddings or pointing them at newborn babies, so I suspect they optimize for those situations. In that case, you might best improve your portraits by getting a good flash with a diffuser or working on your composition. Get on your feet and engage your subject—your portraits will improve.

Shooting in your camera’s RAW mode makes a big difference as well. With that, you can go back and make subtle corrections to lighting and white balance, which is crucial for getting good skin tones.

Still, if you want a good prime, I’d try out a good 50mm. They’re just too much of a good value to pass up.

Good luck!

Jim

The beard is a must if you decide to pursue landscape photography. For that it should be big, bushy and unkempt.

Grizzled and stubbly is good for many other types of photographers, but be prepared to fill it out on a few weeks’ notice if you do the type of photography which will take you to places where being clean-shaven carries as much credibility as wearing a frilly pink dress.

Just kidding, of course—JR’s comment above made me smile.

As a photographer, be sure you have an absolute handle on the technical aspects of photography. You’ll need to be proficient, to the point where you can produce a well-exposed, well-composed and well-focused shot whenever you are called upon to produce one. Learn to prepare yourself and your gear. For me, it’s stepping off the train, I have a personal ritual of checking that the ISO on my camera is suitable. (checking that it’s not still on ISO 800 from the night before when I’ll be shooting in the daylight.) After that, I check that autofocus is set and that exposure compensation isn’t dialed two stops in the wrong direction and that my battery isn’t about to die. (That’s also when I pull a piece of gaffer tape from the sharpie pen I’ve wound it around and tape my 5D’s power switch on, because it’s in an easy position to get bumped to off, most likely at the worst possible time.)

Kind of a pre-flight check, but the thing is, I do this not even when I’m “shooting,” but all the time. I always have some sort of camera with me, so I give it a once over, generally as I leave the house and look at the light or step off the train. Doorways, I guess, are my trigger.

When I was teaching myself light, I used to carry an incident meter and meter everything, in much the same way. The thing is, you’ve got to have your camera ready at all times. You don’t want to lose a shot that you’re expected to take, because of something stupid like a full roll of film or a memory card you forgot to format.

Next, master the “straight shot” – a picture devoid of artistic tricks and arty overtones. Unless you have a quite unusual editor or a lot of personal clout, it’s better to not shoot your work pictures on a fisheye Holga using cross-processed expired film.

After that, when you’re comfortable taking a competent shot on ten seconds notice, start to think about how you can take a better shot. How can you add something that you see and no one else sees, something profound and inspired. Having studied music, this is something I think of as “virtuosity.”

While the world has hundreds of perfectly competent musical performers, to get to First Chair, you need virtuosity, a term that has it’s roots in the concept of being touched by God. This is the thing that tells you that the violin piece you’re hearing for the first time must be done by Jascha Heifetz, or that the photo you’re seeing for the first time could only have been done by Diane Arbus.

When you have that, it doesn’t matter what you shoot, because everything you choose to shoot will matter. This comes through being relentlessly demanding of yourself and editing your stuff with a cold, unbiased eye.

Of course, orchestras are filled with musicians who will never be first chair, musicians who are fine technicians and probably have comfortable, enjoyable lives, doing what they love to do and there are just as many photographers doing the same. Nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn’t recommend striving for that when you’re eighteen. Dream big.

Most of the world’s significant images were made by people with cameras not as advanced as whatever you probably carry and captured in less than a sixtieth of a second, often by people your age.

Go read about John Filo and his Kent State photo:

http://edition.cnn.com/COMMUNITY/transcripts/2000/5/4/filo/

Here’s a guy about your age, who reflexively shot something he found mildly interesting and not only won a Pulitzer, but helped bring the end of the Viet Nam war, without going more than a couple of hours from his home in a small Pennsylvania town.

(Plus, he did it with a Nikkormat, half a roll of Tri-X and probably a 50mm Nikkor lens, a setup that would probably cost you $50 today in decent shape used. I don’t like gear discussions, but I find something joyful about that.)

OK – I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent and ranted too much, but good luck to you. Wherever you wind up, you’ll want a solid body of work to open doors and show people that you can do what they need you to do. After that, keep looking for those three or five photos that will define your career and make you live forever.

by Jim O’Connell | 15 Mar 2009 11:03 | Tokyo, Japan

The Tokyo Beats 2nd Group Show is at the stylish Osteria La Vela Cafe in Shibuya from 4/1-4/30. Featuring more than 30 largescale prints and centering on the “War Against Reality” the Tokyo Beats will be hosting an opening reception at la Vela on Saturday, April 4th from 5pm until midnight. For more info check out our promo page here. Hope to see you there.

**Edit by Uchujin**

We’ll also be there every Friday night throughout the exhibition as well as random other days, so feel free to come and say ‘Hi’.

The Tokyo Beats are now on Twitter.

If you move your eyes slightly to the left you will see a twitter widget in the side bar showing recent tweets from us all.

Follow away ;-)

Presented by Namazu in Shimokitazawa (North gate, behind station).

Sunday, February 22nd (one day only), from 12:00 to close.

Note: I will be there until 3pm and after 10pm.