Tokyo trip, Hashi, and Pentax

Toru on 2006年10月16日

I have been away for the weekend, since Thursday. Tokyo was the destination, with my career matter as the main mission. However, I knew I was going to have some free time, So I planned and did made visits to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography at Ebisu, and to the Pentax Forum at Shinjuku.

There are three galleries and a small cinema at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, which you got to pay separately to get in. I headed straight to the exhibition gallery at the top floor for the Yasuomi Hashimura Exhibition. I didn’t really know much about him or his work. Just that he works mainly on the commercial photos, at New York, and is more well know as “Hashi“. The photos were great, but for me, his talks were great too. It was just by chance that there was an event on that day. A gallery talk. Some talks on how he started photography, why he went to the US, how he feels about Japan, and on the current and the future of the photographers. We the moved around in the gallery, with him explaning and talking about the photos from the exhibition. I got the autographs too.

Hashi at Shabi

My visit to the Pentax forum was mainly to have a look and touch at their upcoming new digital SLR, K10D. It was gorgeous. I love the feeling of it in my hand. Good grips, and good balance of the weight, I thought.

I was back in Osaka on the same day, and went to the Touch and the Talk Live event at Osaka on the next day. An event where you can hear the interviews and talks on the development of K10D, and how to use it. There were dozens of K10D to fiddle around to, and model shooting and print out using the hot off the production K10D. So I will write about all the K10D stuff on the separate post. If you want to see some photos now, there is a report on dejikame watch.

I also have some other entries kept as draft, that needs to be finished, but I suppose I will put that on hold for a moment.

PhotoZou – a new photo sharing SNS from Japan

Toru on 2006年7月15日

I have been using PhotoZou for a while now. PhotoZou is a photo sharing web service by Unoh, a Tokyo-based web venture. Recently, they released the English version (now open beta) of this service.

PhotoZou - top page

At the bottom level, it is a photo sharing web service, like Flickr et al. You can upload the photos and share. You can tag your photos, and you can use it in your blog posts. You can specify the Creative Commons level, and there is a built-in Google Maps mush up, where you can map where you took the photos. However, its direction is slightly different. Where most photo sharing services are directed towards “sharing your photos with everyone on the Internet”, PhotoZou has taken more of SNS approach of “sharing your photos with your selected people on the Internet”.

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Testing フォト蔵

Toru on 2006年3月25日

大阪城
大阪城 posted from フォト蔵

フォト蔵のテストです。もう１５年くらい前かな。大阪城の白壁はものすごくどす黒かった。白壁じゃなくて灰壁でした。この日のように天気がよいと、白と黒と金がきれいになってよかったなぁと思います。

追記：写真サイズ中も試してみる。ちなみにさっきのは大。

大阪城
大阪城 posted from フォト蔵

World Press Photos of the Year 2006

Toru on 2006年2月14日

I read in the newspaper (I think it was Asahi Shimbun) a few days ago that the World Press Photos of the Year for 2006 was annouced. Great pictures. I particulary like the 2nd and the 3rd prize photos for nature ones at the bottom left. I wonder where about in Svalbard which that polar bear photo was taken, because, good or bad, we didn`t see them when I went there. Oh and the 1st prize Sports Action photo… I cannot describe it in writings. Just see it. We probably must though, shouldn`t forget that there are sadness and destructions behind many of these pictures.