departures

several of my friends are leaving the country, for good or temporarily. i wish them well in their endeavors. i'm sure we'll meet again.

rainy week

it's been a while since my last post. been busy moving jobs and apartments.

tokyo welcomed the fall with rains which will continue through this week. got a "new" old lens that i've been dying to take pictures with, but i'm down with fever on a perfectly fine weekend.

こどもの日

today is boy's day. i would have wanted to go out and take pictures of the flying carp (the photo above was taken 3 years ago), but the weather is not cooperating. while the weather report says sunny, it is actually cloudy. so much for blue skies. now have to think of something else to do...

さよなら歌舞伎座

東京オリンピック以来歌舞伎座46年の歌舞伎甘栗も本年四月をもちまして閉店と相成りました。長年にわたるお客様のご愛顧に厚く御礼申し上げます。

kabukiza will be closing at the end of the month to be reconstructed as a 29-story building, retaining the facade of the current building. this seems to be the current architectural trend here. (take for example the nomura building in otemachi.) i personally prefer they kept the old building as is. for me, the high-rise jutting out is an eyesore...

anyway, this is one of the few times i asked somebody if i could take their picture. this old man runs a small chestnut stall just outside kabukiza. he's been running the stall since the tokyo olympics for 46 years. it is in a way sad that he will be closing shop, but he can still keep his smile. i'm sure he has lots of memories of this place. i wonder what he will be doing after this.

i forgot to ask his name, but i hope i will be able to ask him one last time on friday.

Noctilux 50mm f0.95

no, this is not taken with that lens, nor do i have one. i have been looking at pictures taken with that lens, and i think it's just too... perfect. i like the bokeh created by my canon more, but it's just too big to carry on a regular basis. plus i always need a toothpick to take the lens off from the body.

how does the old noctilux fare, or even the nokton? off to search for pictures...

now this woman looks like another mad hettie, but when i actually saw her face, she looked like a regular old lady (with an odd fashion sense, at least for me).

ps

i also got an old canon 50mm f1.4. got it cheap and didn't really expect anything special about it. i found it to be actually sharp, but that's about it. will post some when i get the time.

手紙舎・ヒバリ

a nice cozy place on the outskirts of central tokyo.

new year

happy new year! i was planning to post something before the end of the year, but missed the chance. my scanner just gave up on me, and these are from the last strips i scanned as a contact print. i got a chance to go on a photo walk with a bunch of talented photographers in tokyo just before christmas. hope to be able to go out with them again.

#update: scanner fixed. did a patch-up job, but hey, it works. i can scan my film again! need to study first though... =(

sunshine

i have been photography "challenged" these past few weeks (months?). finally got a bit of fresh air and sunshine after doing some errand. something unusual for me to shoot during the daytime.

ben

been awful busy the past couple of months. i've only been either in the office or at home, so taking more photos at home now. am supposed to be studying for some certification exam, but gave up, thus the post.

my mouse, ben, had his first bath, and spent the whole afternoon under the sun to dry. now he's pristine white again.

the colors look a bit off. not sure if it's because of the blogger compressing the image. you'll get better results if you click on the image(s).

the balloon man

it's been a while since my last post. been busy again with other stuff (more of was just lazy).

nothing much to say except it's already 2am here and i should be sleeping. maybe i'll write more next time. maybe.

btw, also created a new flickr account for mobile pictures. was kinda surprised at the pictures it (the phone) is able to produce. plus i get location information.

where is grumpy old man?

sighted in ayase a month ago. watching muay thai has adverse effects. actual muay thai pictures to follow. i hope...

you can check jono's pics in the meantime.

monday blues

it's monday again tomorrow. i was told off to come on time, so i have to leave the house earlier than "normal"... =(
taking the train is such a pain now since we moved to the "new" office. i have to change trains thrice and endure these crazily packed trains. (before, i was able to sit, and sleep all the way till my stop.)
i was planning to make a series of my daily commute. i still have to get shots of people running to change to the other train line, not to mention people being pushed in just to be able to close the train doors. crazy...

developments

been busy lately with other things... been wanting to post this for 2 weeks, now i think the excitement has died.

anyway, i finally gave in. this is from my first self-developed roll. (note to self : may 9) tim and jono must be sniggering they have a new convert. now just waiting for ken's turn...

i still think it is too cumbersome to do it. it is still much easier to just drop it off some lab, though it does cost less, and you don't have to wait for several days to get your film back.

i have developed 6 other rolls since. i'll post some when i get the time to scan them. a lot of them were underexposed though, not because i made a mistake in developing, but more on my laziness to rely on auto exposure from the camera, rather than exposing manually.

0 . 9 5 (れい てん きゅう ご)

note: got this lens off an auction a bit more than a month ago. was shocked to see a lot of fungus on the lens. (i know i shouldn't trust the dodgy description on auction sites but still fell for it.) had it immediately brought to some 'camera lab' to have it cleaned and modified to M mount. they originally estimated 2 months, but was surprised to get a call 1 month early (reminder to self : apr 29) they couldn't take away all the fungus traces, but i think they did a very good job cleaning it.

this was shot a day after i got it. i shot some with film on the 1st day but i still don't have it back. the lens performs better than i expected. i think it is sharp enough. (the picture here is a bit out of focus though. focus is more on the nose rather than the eye, but this is the one which captures the old man's expression most with the shots i took of him.)

blog: i wanted to try this lens at night where it works best, so decided to walk to higashi-ginza after work. i chanced upon this old man along the main street of ginza. there were 2 of them actually. the other one was a middle-aged woman, who i initially thought was the main performer, but she called this old man sensei (teacher)... this old man (muraoka-san, name printed on the cd he was selling) was very nice. i think he talked more than he played. =) (i also think his cd is not worth the 2,000 yen he is selling it for. you should just listen to him live whenever you chance upon him) (btw, i walked all the way to shiodome to catch my train home. around twice the distance of my original plan, for those not familiar with tokyo.)

additional note: somehow i like the sound of how they say the aperture value in japanese: れい てん きゅう ご (rei ten kyuu go)

new year

april 1 marks the start of the japanese fiscal year. as with all things new, i welcome a new member to the family.