Japan Graphic Review Magazine

In addition to my Grandfather's postcards, film negatives, slides and 8mm movies, I also found two large books each containing twelve magazines bind together titled Japan Graphic Review. The content in each magazine is somewhat interesting with black and white photos and Japanese text. But the covers I had to scan. Some pretty cool and vibrant images were used on these. You can view the whole batch here.

Over A Month - No Posts

Wow, I really let over a month go by with no posting? Let's just pretend I've been on a long vacation in Iceland with no internet access taking advantage of their fallen economy, when really I've been sitting at my desk all month with plenty of time to post. Capiche?

Well, above is a selection of random pictures I've taken throughout the past month. I've been doing a lot of scanning recently trying to continue transferring all of my Grandfather's negatives to digital. A lot of really interesting stuff. I'll be uploading everything soon!

Jan Von Holleben Photography

Some of my favorite shots by German photographer Jan Von Holleben. These must have been so fun to setup. It's amazing how much of a sense of movement was accomplished with such static subjects. And the expressions on the kids faces completely sell it. Happy times.

David Byrne - Playing the Building

I forgot to post this earlier, but I ended up checking out David Byrne's grand installation, Playing the Building, at The Battery Maritime Building.

"Creative Time presents Playing the building, a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. Devices are attached to the building structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument."

I went with my friend Jonah and we ended up seeing Byrne just hanging out in the corner of the room! The installation itself was pretty neat. It was a bit frustrating trying to play some sort of rhythmic arrangement since the actual sounds produced by striking the keys were delayed a second or two. And since there was a line to sit down and try the instrument, I felt rushed. Probably only played it for 45 seconds or so.

I suggest that you go see it though if you're in NYC. It's open until August 24th.

Metropolitan Museum

The Sogetsu School of Ikebana chose some of their New York based members to create some beautiful arrangements to be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum! Two of those members were my Grandmother (Kazuko Moriwaki) and my Aunt (Shoko Iwata).

When we first walked in, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my Aunt's arrangement (top) was the center piece in the room. It had a strong sweep to it that left me staring at it for a while. Below that was an arrangement done by my Grandmother, and two other members (Yuriko Hiramoto and Jacqueline Lorieo). This one was very interesting in that it had two arrangements almost physically interacting with each other to become one piece. Really beautiful and inspiring work from everyone who participated.

But it had also been a while since my last visit to this grand museum and I ended up having a lot of fun with my Leica camera. Below are some various shots I took throughout the enormous structure.

Ikebana Lesson 7

I forget what these flowers are called but they look and feel really strange. Almost artificial in a way I guess. But they are so fun to arrange with. This is probably the simplest arrangement I have done so far. Adding more in such a small container would've made it way too cluttered taking away from the focus on the "mystery" flowers. If anyone knows what they're called let me know in the comments section below. Thanks!

Ikebana Lesson 6

Whoops, I forgot to post one of the last arrangements I worked on. I made this one on March 14th. I chose the "Pod-shaped" container since it was so different from what I've used before. It was also more of a challenge since the hole was so small so there wasn't much space for the flowers to spread freely. I liked it in the end though. It was a very colorful arrangement.

I also attended a workshop the other week which included a demonstration by Gary Heise and a delicious pizza lunch. I took photos of the event. I'll upload them soon.

Postcards

Another visit to my Grandmother's house, another treasure found. This time a very impressive collection of postcards from all over the world, each one carefully labeled and inserted inside large photo albums. Most of them are typical images that you'd expect to be printed on something such as a postcard. But then there are others that really get my inspiration tingling. The colors in some of these are terrific. I'm definitely scanning some of them in higher resolution and printing them out as posters, particularly the top one.

Anyway, not too far from where these were I found a whole load of black and white film negatives and color slides that my Grandfather took. So I decided to buy a really nice scanner that can scan film and slides and will upload some of those on flickr soon.

Update: More postcards...

Tiltshifting Effect

Here's an interesting effect I recently learned (click photos to view larger and more detailed versions):

















It's called "tiltshifting", a very neat trick which somehow makes a normal photograph look like a 3D miniture, kind of like pieces to an elaborate train set. I'm new to it so some of these are better than others but it's really fun... so expect more!

Btw, a few of these pictures were taken by my father in Japan.

Ikebana Lesson 5

Here's what I did at my last Ikebana lesson, only this time using two sakura branches and some lilies. It's becoming quite hard to photograph these arrangements as they are getting larger and more difficult to maneuver around. But then again it's also fun to take them apart and rearrange. Most of the time you end up with an even better arrangement that way!

Ikebana Lessons

Last friday I had my 4th Ikebana (Japanese Flower Arranging) lesson and decided I'm going to start photographing all my arrangements. Here are a couple pictures:




My teacher just so happens to be my Grandmother. She's been teaching from her home for many years now and I, being a website/graphic designer, not only realized how much fun it would be, but also how these lessons could serve as weekly design exercises.

Yoshiyuki's Equipment

Here is a selection of photos I took of some of my Ojichama's (Grandfather) photography, film and audio equiptment:


Leica M3 with filters and lenses


Graflex Super Speed Graphic


Birdie Type II Slide Projector


Bell & Howell Design 122 LR 8mm Projector


Keystone A7 16mm camera

Yoshiyuki's Equipment Continued

Canon 514XL Super 8 Camera


Elmo Sound Editor 912-S


Paximat-S Electric Slide Projector


Projecto-Editor 8mm Craig by Kalart


Polaroid Land Camera Automatic 100

My Ojichama died in 1984, so I don't really have any memories of him. But it's clear he had a real passion for documenting the lives of family members and friends. I also have quite a bit of his 8mm movies, many of which I'm transferring to DVD. I'll try and make some of those available to view on here soon. Here is a picture taken of him for a Japan Airlines ad:



You can view additional pictures of his equipment here.

More Japan 2004

Kaitlyn

I came across this old photo of my younger sister and thought I'd do a little work on it. Sure do miss her.

Japan 2004

More to come...

NYC

A few taken in NYC. There's a cluster of buildings around 55th st and 5th ave that are probably not as vibrant during the day but at night have this beautiful amber light coming through all the windows. Fortunately, when I took the bottom picture, there was a Wachovia Bank behind me so the blue glow on my mother was perfect.

Pelham Shore Park

These are a few pictures I took a couple years back with a Sony DSC P150. I remember the air being so cold and crisp that day - perfect for clean and clear shots.

Sleepytime Manor Love.

Here are some pictures I took at the manor in Larchmont, NY. It's with my new Leica D-Lux 3 camera which produces some amazing 16:9 night shots. There was a bit of post work done in photoshop. You can view more here.