The neighbourhood

Shot using my newly acquired Rolleiflex f/2.8d and inspired by Thomas

Salaried man

This has to be one of the best shot's I've taken in a long while. I'd developed it a few months ago and had left it jammed in my Annie Leibovitz book to flatten out (you gotta maximize the value from those expensive books). I'd finally managed to get a few new rolls developed over the weekend and discovered several sleeves in the book I'd forgotten about.This shot popped right off the neg. It seems to have a timeless quality to it I'd like to explore more of.

High noon

Not much to say here really. Maybe different to my usual efforts which is why this might have finally made the cut.

Mirror realities

I started to shoot this series and felt it lacked depth but it has been siting on my computer for a while and I thought it should see the light of day. Inspired by Jon, it's trying to find a different way to look at the same space I use to visit many times a week. Anyway, now that it's out I can leave it alone and get on with trying to find a new subject (which is seeming to take a very long time).

Fukutoshin Line

I've shot this on the Hasselblad before but not using the Horizon Perfekt. Shot on Tri-x400 and developed in special sauce, this shot is straight off the neg with no adjustments.

Railed

ok, So I am taking some serious inspiration from Jon and posting a few of these because, more than anything, I'm liking the tones and the grain.

Breakfast

Our little team doesn't seem to do enough of these. They do look a little sleepy I must say but this was shot before they had coffee :-)

Station raw

Station photo fail unedited.

Legs

There is a series here but I've yet to develop a bunch of film from last year. Seems I managed to put my back out and it's taking a bit of time to recover. Can't yet be sitting for hours in the bathroom in the cold developing film.

Shrine

The look of love

Reflected

Multitasking

A skill you acquire here over the years. Takes practice but completely possible.

Frozen

Sometimes in the craziness of a Friday night at Shinjuku station you need to just stop or slow down. The man is caught in the moment where he just needs to stop and take stock of where he is, where he is going...just to think for a minute. If he was closing his eyes to the madness, that would be the shot to get.

No idea

Sometimes you look at a picture and just have no idea as to what's going on. What is the girl on the left holding? What is the girl in the middle looking at and why does the girl on the right look clueless? And what are they all wearing!? Well, I guess I can't talk either. Shot the whole thing using a Hasselblad with film. What a waste! Still, not bad for manual focus and eye metered exposure.

A dream?

This picture was shot quite a while ago in Shibuya with Jon. This girl happen to be standing in just the right place and I happen to have my Rolleiflex and a Rollinar at the ready. I can't begin to describe the soft yet sharp quality of the Rollei f/2.8 lens. If you have the chance to use one I highly recommend it.

Death by developer

Don't ask what went wrong. I'm not sure. I've had this in the archive for a while (along with countless other images - Adrian and Jon can attest to this) and I like it a lot. Not so much the blown out huge white bit but the vending machine part. The way the light from the machine is blown out and the developer has stained the neg and run down to where the light is making it spill out. I must be in happy accident mode because everything I'm working on has loads of grain, light leaks and other imperfections that just seem to make the image. This is probably why you see so little of the pin sharp digital stuff I shoot (not very interesting).

Public housing

So around Tokyo you can find these public housing projects. Some of these are new and some are quite old. I've tried to say out of these out of respect to the people who live here but the up the road from me proved too tempting. Seems that most of the people are out growing their spaces.

The old house is no more

An old man around the corner from me used to live in this house. I took this shot right next to his house and this one right outside. Actually while I was taking that shot the old guy came out and at first wondered what the hell I was doing outside his front gate but he soon figured it out, gave me a big smile and road off down the street. A few months back I was walking passed, hoping there were more plants to shoot and discovered his bike missing and some of the plants he once had outside gone. I have no idea if he died or just moved but I knew that the house would vanish quickly. This photo and a few others I took will be all that remain of what once used to be here. It's now an empty lot, waiting for some large corporation to buy it, split it in three and sell each one for a million dollars. Just one of the idiosyncrasies of Tokyo life.

The focused traveler

Another shot from the many many yet to be published shots.

50mm

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