This is the guy who discovered Machu Picchu. He got lost leaving Costa Mesa and ended up in the jungle just south of the Mexican border. Pretty sure it all worked out in the end. He still has that shirt, but the watch, the Leica, the jacket, the backpack, the hat, and the folding Fuji 6×6, 6×7 are long gone. Sold to pay for gambling debts in Gabon. This was before sand flies were a thing at the site. Long before guided tours and throngs of Instagrammers. He feels fortunate to have seen it when.
Well, I’ve been in Japan for less than a day, so I guess it’s’ time for my “Ten Things I Hate about Tokyo,”post or “My Final and All Encompassing Thoughts on Japan,” post, which so popular with the less intended. We landed early, managed to blow through customs and immigration, and a semi-quarantine thing, with ease. There was a brief encountered with an elderly woman who was incessantly nice, and I’m still not sure if she was talking to me, but we did have a five minute customs procedure romance that ended with a bow and the wrinkled eyes of someone smiling from beyond the mask.
Taxi to the city center. Check in with all its tiny forms and signatures and listings of this and that.
Looking down on a baseball stadium, and rugby stadium, both packed with fans far more energetic than the players. A semi-daze from jet-lag, but effortless in terms of long haul flights. No fights, no surly passengers, no anger and “over it” flight crews. The light shift from the high lonesome of New Mexico to the buttery smoothness of Japanese coastal waters.
I write a new “Photo Fiction,” while sitting in 19C. And watch Dev Patel’s new cinematic thriller Monkey Man. You non-violent types should give it a pass, but if you want to see the efforts of writer/director/star Patel and that juicy, color-soaked chaos of Indian cinema, well, this has your name on it. The flight is easy but feels long. I drift in and out of sleep, running the upcoming workshop logistics through my mind. (Japan is so complex.)
The camera on my shoulder feels foreign, still. Not something my body is used to yet. By seven it’s dark, but the city glistens as I imagined it would. Light and sound but no noise, no stepping over needles, and feeling for the zippers on the bag around my waist. Self-preservation alert on green. DEFCON5, five by five. On approach to a new experience. Fifteen degrees above normal. Beads roll down my spine. A steady wind blows a fine grit.
We walk in circles to digest the food. Lightweight, working slow shutters just to dust off the dregs of inactivity. Needing to find the new feel. Needing to find the new visual solution. The pen as much a pull as the camera now as I finally understand how one makes the other so much better, especially in a world consumed by an unrealistic bounty of images. Unsustainable, at times meaningless, but combine with a smattering of a few letters and suddenly things take on entirely new dimensions. I need far less of the rectangle now. What powers it all? I-M-A-G-I-N-A-T-I-O-N.
Comments 12
Went to Tokyo last year and worried that entry would take hours. Customs, immigration, money exchange, and finding the train into the city took all of 30 minutes. The organization there is amazing.
Welcome to the time zone.
Author
Thank you. Feeling good.
Youkoso! Welcome! How you have a good time!
Author
Thank you! Feels good to be here. Nice and roasty.
I’m sure you’ll have many “journal-worthy” moments…In the 60’s…$1.00 equaled (360.00) Yen.
Author
We are down to about 140 Yen to the dollar.
Compelling photography and interesting writing. Always a pleasure to witness your imagination. Enjoy Japan!
Author
Imagination….that is the topic of the day.
Two pieces of advice stand out: diagram maps…they are unlike ones you have encountered anywhere else. They combine 2-D and isometric, seemingly just for fun. I’d love it if someone had taken a picture of me trying to read one. And if there’s english anywhere on them, ignore it. It’s just for decoration. That’s the two,
Oh, and at some point, despite being a worldly traveler and super sensitive to the politeness with which they are trying to accomodate us gringos, at some point you’ll just get the giggles about an “Engrish” sign. We know you know they mean well and we know you mean well, but sometimes, it’s just too damned funny. Breaking out in hysterical laughter is acceptable. They won’t know what you are laughing at, and quite possibly think Americans are just odd, and we are.
And yes. The vending machines. OMG.
Author
Oh ya, that’s a popular site now.
Quite excited about your Japan trip and the documents you will make on the go. I know you will be mostly teaching, but I also know you never fail to document your experience, both in words and in pixels.
Ps- the slow shutter speed gives a ‘quiet’ movement to the scene. A static dynamicity