STREET PORTRAITIST

samcurtin asked: Wholly shit man, wow. You have some amazing shots!! Must be awesome living in Tokyo. What are you mostly shooting with?

Thanks, I think I had my cameras up on my about page but just deleted all the info for some reason…

Ok from big to small:

Tachihara Field Camera 4x5 - dont use it so much, but when I do its for portraits (planning to shoot landscape with it)

Pentax 6x7: Main camera, mainly use it for colour photography: portraits etc

Mamiya 7: Shoot some landscape type stuff, occasional portrait and more documentary type stuff. Not used so much.

Yaschiamat124g: Walk around cam just shoot random junk mainly bw

Broken FE2: Retired, havent used it in a while, need to fix the winder.

D700: Use for work/studio “serious” type stuff.

I think thats about it atm…

I put a restriction on myself and said that I am not allowed to buy a new camera this year :D So far so good!

Project A&A

A friend of mine just completed a cool project here is a description from the about page:

“21 Sep 2010
From: Alani Cruz
Subjet: Re: Hello!

Ok, so talking to you really inspired me! I have an idea.
Since we both have ricoh GR’s i want to collaborate with you.
My idea is we do a double exposure project together.
-First, i will shoot photos with my GR
-Then i will mail you the roll of film i shot with
-Then you shoot with that same roll of film.
What do you think?
Are you interested?
If you have any ideas too, please let me know!

: )

This is how the project between 2 strangers living in different parts of the world got started. Alani Cruz, an American photographer living in Tokyo, Japan and Amy Yang, a Taiwanese photographer living in Taipei, Taiwan have been exchanging emails and rolls of film since 2010 and have yet to meet each other.

Currently titled “Project AA”, the project aims to combine two unplanned images to allow the viewer to experience a completely new perspective that they might have seen viewing the photos individually. The viewer is also witnessing the interaction between two people who have never met and who are getting to know each other through their images.

Whether its Alani’s or Amy’s image, they both represent the expression of the two artist expressing themselves to each other and the viewer. Two different stories combined to make a third that is determined by the viewer resulting in a spontaneous expression of the truth”

Check out the pictures here:

http://amyyang.havefun.tw/projectaa/main.html

And for more info on books and exhibitions like their fb page here:
https://www.facebook.com/projectaanda

Feel free to share/reblog.

Thanks!

mountain-light asked: Do you use any 35mm camera (and what do you use it for)? Or do you just use phones as your small format/snapshot camera?

I have a FE2 film camera. Havent used it for a while, dont have a lens (used to have the 35 1.4 but sold it because its huge).

I have a d700 I use when I shoot models and for portraits that are lit with strobes.

In terms of snapshots. I bought a gf2 but never used it enough so I sold it.

I was doing well keeping my yashicamat 124 with me everyday as a walk around camera but havent touched it for a month or so now..

I just use my phone for snapshots… Take a snapshot, smile then forget about it very quickly…

Was thinking of getting a contax t3 or GR or something like that but decided against it since I would probably be too lazy to develop and do anything with the snapshots after I took them…

I think taking snapshots or even just taking lots of pictures isnt really my thing…

Test Shoot

From a test shoot I did a few weeks back.

Just Desserts

Do you remember the lady I took the above picture of in this post:

http://www.streetportraitist.com/post/42881782228/nineteen-years

I was on my mid-afternoon chocolate break when I saw her outside her shop. I said hi and she asked me, “What do you like best Chocolate Brownies or Cheesecake?”.

I clenched my teeth in an attempt to stop my smile from growing too big and nonchalantly replied “Chocolate Brownies”.

She told me to come back tomorrow evening after I finished work.

I went back in the evening and she had baked these for me ;)

She said that her reason for baking them was because she wanted to do something back for me since I gave her the photos. I asked her what had become of them and she said she wants to frame the pictures but hasnt found a frame she likes yet.

She turned to her husband and said, “If I die first, use the picture as my memorial picture.” and we all started laughing.

I wasnt sure if she was serious or not so I asked her and she said,
“I’m serious, I would use it. But only in the event that I was to pass away before my husband.”.

One of those awkward happy/sad moment…

Lock on - BAZOOKA

I was outside a camera shop loading film into my camera when this man came out of the shop.

We were about 5-6 meters away from each other.

He looked at me and kinda tilted his head sideways as if he wanted to say something to me.

I tilted my head up in a, “Whats up yo?” gesture.

He took one step closer, stopped and tilted his head again.

I raised my palms up signaling him to state his business and he came up to me and said hello.

I asked him whats up and he said, “That is a nice camera, really good, and its film as well. You should keep shooting film, dont shoot digital, its no good.”

I laughed and thanked him for the advice.

I asked him what he was holding in his hand and he showed me a Santa record and said that he collects records because they are really cheap now.

I asked how much and he said, “Only 100yen! Records are really cheap but turn tables are very expensive.” and recommended that I buy some turntables and collect records.

He kept going on about how much he loved Santana and would gesture as if he was playing a guitar and start saying “Guitar Cry - YAWWWWW” and stuff like that.

We walked over to the shop and there were a bunch of records outside in boxes. We went through them and he showed me how cheap they were. Most of them were in the 100-300yen range except for this Prince record Alphabet Street that was 800yen.

He returned to camera talk saying, “The shutter on film cameras are great. Especially if its one made of silk. They have a beautiful sound (and started making the sound of a camera shutter). But your camera its so big its like a bazooka”.

He did a hand gesture as if he was holding a camera and said “Find a target, like a hot girl, Lock on - BAZOOKA!!! POW”.

I laughed, but then unfortunately he took it too far and started dry humping the air saying “Lock on - BAZOOKA!!!!”.

Something tells me he wasnt talking about taking photos of girls…

An example of what dry humping air means for those who dont know:

I cant remember how many times he said, “Lock on” and dry humped the air but it was one time too many….

I tried to change the subject and asked him about the camera in a case that he was holding. He pulled it out and it was an old Nikon film camera that had a button release that he got for 100yen.

I laughed and called him a bargain hunter and he told me, “My jacket costs 100yen and my shirt costs 500yen. The red sneakers I am wearing I got from a friend and I also got these glasses from a friend”.

He took the glasses off and showed me the inside of the frame. It was pretty scratched up but I could clearly see the words, “3D Glasses”.

I asked him why he was wearing 3D glasses and he said that they are pretty good, just a bit dark…

We walked to the traffic lights and he gave me some bread. Im not sure if he got it from a shop, made it at home or whether or not he had eaten some of it already…

I hesitantly took it, said thanks and put it away in my bag with no real intentions of eating it.

I assumed once we got to the traffic lights we would part ways but he ended up talking and talking and before I knew it 15 minutes had gone past. As we stood there, with mainly him talking lots of people walked past looking at us funny.

During that 15 minutes the only thing I remember him saying was that he was a chiropractor.

He switched to English and said that people would come to him saying “Pain, pain hurt so much!!” but after he treated them they would say “Oh, pain gone!!”.

He also gestured with his hands that people with erectile dysfunction would come to him and they would leave with a BAZOOKA!!!!

Anonymous asked: Hi. I've seen your wonderful work with @KingLeonidaz_ on twitter and I was trying to make my own bot. I'm using searches on twitter as feeds, then Yahoo Pipes to procces and create the answers and twitterfeed to publish them. However, it is not always working and it lasts some hours to publish. Could you tell me how you did it? I would love to know it. Thank you very much :D

Hehe glad you liked the bot. I have a friend who made a bot using the same method as you did. I have no experience with yahoo pipes but im assuming it is a bit of a “long way around approach”.

If you have basic programming skills (or follow a few tutorials) you can easily make a bot using twitters api. https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api It is the same thing but basically you directly access twitter instead of using twitterfeed or w/e which is actually using twitters api too. You make an api call to search for a phrase or keyword using twitters api, then you take the info you get and publish a tweet using the twitter api. That way you wont have any problems with it working only sometimes. The only issue you will run into is rating. Due to twitters massive traffic they only let you make x amount of api calls for a given time frame y. Hope that makes sense.

jojonas asked: latest shot looking is nice! looking forward to the few sakura trees we have hanging here. though winter is holding its grip long this year.. btw, this shot medium format or are you sporting polaroid gear now? the smooth colours got me wondering :)

Haha its actually a cellphone pic. Was on my lunch break and happened to walk past. Will see about taking a large format camera out this weekend and seeing if i can find anything interesting to shoot!

On Da Block Part 5

This lady is part of a 3 man squad that hustles fruit and veg on the da block. They work the hours of 3-7pm weekdays only, so I have only ever seen them after I finished work when the sun is gone. Finally bumped into them during the daytime and kicked it for a bit with them and took one of their photos.

I have been asked by a few people where I got the name “On da Block” from. It is inspired from a song from one of my favorite artists. I found it funny that his block and my block are polar opposites so I thought it would make an entertaining name.

Enjoy:

Snow

Just developed a roll of film I found lying around. Had some snow shots on it from a few weeks ago…

jojonas asked: about the happy ending: good on you! and what a good story, from beginning to end :´)
the old lady is hella cute too! haha~ anyways, a big pat on the back for going all the way. you're an inspiration :)

Yeah she really is, would love to shoot her in colour. Will see what i can do about making it happen!

A Happy Ending

Background story is located here -> http://www.streetportraitist.com/post/41317396313/ondablock4

It’s Saturday evening. My gf askes me whether or not we are going to go and give the print to the old lady or not.

I think about it for a while and tell her don’t worry about it. I was initially scared to go on my own but I have been thinking recently that
not only should I be trying to refind fearlessness in photography, but in all aspects of life.

Things that make me think “I would be scared to do that” are things that I am just going to start jumping into head first without thinking too much about.

I decided I would go on Monday morning. Monday morning came and I put the print into a pack to stop it from getting damaged and headed outside into the wind.

I had spent the past few hours thinking of all the possible scenarios that could occur when I ring the doorbell and had a couple of different preplanned speeches depending on what happens.

One worry I had was that in the past I had shot a few elderly people and they said to me beforehand that they don’t have money (they assumed I wanted money to take their photo).
I was a bit worried that the person coming to the door might assume I am trying to sell them something and end up shutting the door on me before I get a chance to explain myself with my poor Japanese.

But anyway, like they say, just speculating wont get you anywhere.

I got to the door, took a deep breath and rang the door bell.
All of a sudden I heard the intercom voice, “Hello, who it is?”

I froze. It reminded me of the Mike Tyson quote that says, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”.

For all my planning I forgot the one most vital piece of information. Japanese people don’t actually answer their doors.
Normal houses even have an intercom system. Gahh, what do I do now?

I stayed frozen in silence and the person spoke on the intercom again, “Is anybody there???”.

At this point I had to answer. I replied, “Hi my name is Ade, I am a photographer that lives in the area. I took a photo of someone that lives in this house the other day and wanted to give them the print.”.

I then raised the print and showed it to the intercom. I don’t even know if it had video camera capabilities or not lol. There is a chance that they didnt even see it…

But after a few seconds he said, “Ok, give me a second”.

Nearly 1 minute passed and nobody came to the door. Well to be honest, it might have only been a few seconds, but it felt a lot longer.
I kept looking down the road hoping police on bicycles didn’t show up.

The door opened and a man greeted me saying he knows who I am and that he had heard everything from his mother (he was the son) and thanked me for helping her.

At that point the lady showed up and thanked me and asked me what my name was. I laughed and said, “My name is Ade!!!!!”.

The man who was her son gave me a bag of apples and thanked me again.

I mentioned that I was pretty scared to come knocking on the door and he laughed saying it is cool, that they have lived in China, Germany and have mixed quite a lot with people of all different races and cultures so they don’t really care about who is Japanese and who is not.

The lady even joked about how she has become so westernized that she goes to peoples houses and forgets to take her shoes off sometimes and that she has been told off a few times because of that.

I gave him the photo and he smiled saying he used to do darkroom printing and liked how the picture came out.
We spent about 10 minutes talking and he mentioned about how he tries to tell his mother to not be so active at her age but because she used to run marathons and stuff she feels she has to move around and exercise.

Hearing that put my mind to rest a bit.

Oh yeah, when I met her she was 93, but January was her birthday so she is now 94 :)

I took their photo with my phone and said goodbye.

Heartbreak at 6am in the morning

You will need to read this -> On Da Block Part 3 before you will be able to understand this post.

A new day, new start. I decided that I will try to stop procrastinating and start to handle my business a bit more promptly from now on. First step, give the man from on the block part 3 his photo that I printed in the darkroom.

He lives two floors below me, so I went down the stairs and checked the right wing first and he wasn’t there. I checked the left wing and there he was far away, with his back turned walking off into the distance.

The weather is getting better so he had no hat or coat on and looked a bit different.

I started to follow him. I pulled my cellphone out to mess around with the setting so that I can try and get a picture of him holding the print.

However, as I walked behind him I noticed that he can only use one hand which was used to hold his walking stick.

Plan B time. I turned the camera in to self portrait mode, held it as far away from myself as possible and tried to estimate if it was possible to get a picture of me and him together with me holding the print for him.

By extending my hand as far as possible there seemed to just about be enough space for both of us in the picture. So with a smile on my face and a foolproof plan I started walking faster so that I can catch up with him.

I approached him just as he was about to enter his house and said, “Good morning”.

I had the picture behind my back and pulled it out and showed it to him saying that I made a print of the photo from the other time for him.

He looked at me and said;

“Do not approach me again.”
“I do not want to talk to you and I do not want you to come near me.”

Shocked, I said, “Do you remember me? We spoke a few weeks ago.”

He replied,

“I remember you. I don’t like you. You are evil. Evil!! Get away from me, I don’t want that (referring to the picture).”

He was speaking in English, and at the point of calling me evil he said I am “ousan” or “housan” a word that was definitely not English.

At this point he was really agitated and started using his walking to stick to signal me to go away…

I stood there frozen in shock and devastation for a few moments.
The previous times I met him he spoke calmly, and kindly. This time though he was loud, agitated and hysteric. It was almost as if he was a completely different person…

I came back to the house feeling dejected and told my gf what happened and she said that there is a good chance that he is probably going senile and that I shouldnt feel bad since I didnt do anything wrong.

But damn.. I still feeling a bit of a sting to the heart lol. Not really a good way to start the day…

Almost reminds me of my encounter with this woman a while back:

http://www.streetportraitist.com/post/14286506460/fiftyseven

One of the tragedies of photographing the really elderly and also probably the cost of procrastination….

Any suggestions on what I should do?