Thoughts
Shooting with Dave
Dave, a good friend of mine in Tokyo, and the creator of the ShootTokyo blog, often comes up with good ideas for where to go around Tokyo to run off some rolls of film. His recent acquisition of a Hasselblad means he was keen to get some practice in with his “beast”. The suggestion was to take the ShootTokyoMobile over to Odaiba and see what we could find. …
Autumn in Karuizawa
Karuizawa is a very famous mountain resort in Nagano prefecture - about 2 hours away from Tokyo (on a good day) and famous for once being the preferred mountain retreat for the foreign population of Tokyo. It is consistently cooler than Tokyo, with beautiful mountains and forests around. We decided it would be a good place to take our dog for her to experience forests - having only been in Hong Kong and Singapore before. …
Golden Hour
They say the best times to take photos are the “Golden Hours” - at dawn and dusk. Now, I am not a morning person, so the dawn can be a struggle - even if winter makes the dawn conveniently later than the rest of the year. The dusk is therefore better for me. I took my Nikon D700 and 2 x manual focus lenses (Nikkor 50mm F1.2 AiS and Nikkor 85mm F1.4 AiS) to the nearby Yutenji temple at dusk on a lovely Tokyo winter evening a few weeks ago. …
A Roll of Ilford Delta 100
I am really getting to terms with my vintage Hasselblad 500CM camera - it really delivers on quality and slows me down in the process of taking photos. I find I have many more “keepers” with my “Blad” than any other camera. Photos become deliberate, with a careful composition and constant consultation with light meters and composing using backwards finders. …
Daienji Shrine
Near my apartment is a very small, but very interesting little shrine. Dedicated to the memory of a fire that swept the old capital city of Edo, it has become a shrine with many children’s memorials. It also contains a small shrine to the girl who was burned to death for starting the fire - they took arson serisouly in those days it seems. …