Almost everyone in Asia has seen the small statues of the welcoming cat, very common in shops in Hong Kong. I wanted to go and visit the shrine where these originated. It is in suburban Tokyo in a place called Gotokuji. I took along my Nikon F6 and “The Beast” - my Pentax 67II medium format camera. I packed Kodak Portra colour negative film in 160 and 400 ISO. For the F6 I had Kodak Ektar 100. I also wanted to test a photo lab in the US called “Richard Photo Lab” that I had heard was excellent and would remove me from the drudgery of scanning huge numbers of films. Having just spent 4 entire weekends scanning films from Shikoku I wanted a better way.
Judge for yourself, but all of the photos on this page were processed and scanned by Richard Labs and I am very happy. They are expensive, not least because I have to send the films to California, but that pales in comparison with the results I get. The files come back will ALL the details from the film (and with negatives that’s a LOT) in the file and all I have to do is a little tweaking in Lightroom to get exactly what I want. In fact I took now more than 1 hour to get over 90 frames sorted this morning.
The next step is to find a drum scanning service in Tokyo for the times I want really super high resolution scans. That is for another time…..
A “flat” version of the cat - Portra 160 on Pentax 67II.
The local stalker? Nikon F6 with Kodak Ektar.
Protecting the wall - you never know. Nikon F6 with Kodak Ektar.
The Emperor was here. This is the crysanthemum emblem of the emperor. Nikon F6, Kodak Ektar.
Government housing. Functional. Pentax 67II with Portra 160.
Ipai Nekko- lots of cats. Pentax 67II, Kodak Portra 160.
A beautiful wooden pagoda in the shrine. Pentax 67II, Kodak Portra.
This time through the trees. Pentax 67II, Kodak Portra 160.
Sheep and cat good luck. Pentax 67II, Kodak Portra 160.
Stop here. The road into the shrine. Pentax 67II, Portra 160.
Political Bike. Nikon F6, Kodak Ektar.
Tram stop. Pentax 67II, Kodak Portra 400.
The tram itself. Pentax 67II, Kodak Portra 400.
Public phones are a rare breed. Pentax 67II, Kodak Portra 400.
Flower basket. Pentax 67II, Kodak Portra 400.