Carlo's Car...

A buddy of mine, aka Carlo...but in the world of photoshop power gurus ....some know him as c-lo, asked me for a photographic favor. Since he was designing my web page of course I couldn't say no. Actually I was pretty stoked he asked me to shoot something for him. I'm always up for a challenge and took it kind of like a shooting assignment. If I recall, the conversation went sorta like this.
"Hey man, can you do me a favor?" he says.
I go, "Yah sure what up?"
"I need to take pictures of my car to send to my predecessor...can you hook it up?"
Exhaling through the nose I said, "Yah no prob, I'll be over in a few."
So the next thing we had to resolve was where to shoot the pictures. Since the weather was cloudy and on the grim side, I wanted to shoot him and his car in a good, positive, happy manner so that his predecessor would jump all over his Toyota Carina. When I got to his house, a few minutes later the last of the 3amigos showed up, Courtney. We all jumped in c-lo's ride and cruised for a bit. I asked him, "Hey, is there anything cool in your town so we can use as a nice background?"
Carlo looks at me in wonderment, "No."
I nodded my head in agreement because I knew what he was talking about. The inaka (countryside) towns of Japan are wonderful, but they're not the prettiest things around. This might be a bit ill of me but most of the inaka towns look the same......the biggest thing they have in common is the abundance of rice fields. So, I took the town's biggest asset and decided to work with it to see what I could produce....what did I came up with? Beautiful nature, lively green, food of choice....rice, mountains for days, and a pimpy ass Carina! Not my best work but was nice to have a specified assignment and people willing to go out and be photographed.
Anyways, this is how the story ends to date....c-lo's predecessor doesn't buy the car.....it looks like the lucky winner might be Courtney! Whooohoo!

BADASS INC. Live!

I'm a big fan of live shows. Every once in a while a friend invites me along and to check out a live venue and I never hesitate. Sometimes I just feel like I'm kook'd up in a small box when I don't get out of Tohoku every now and then. Don't get me wrong, I love Tohoku for the chill isolated laid back lifestyle, but new adventures to other remote spots are always interesting.

This time around, the lead singer of the band BadASS Inc. invited me to go check out their live acoustic show. Her stage name is 'Bon'...(no connections to Kappa)...I met her at one of my elementary schools as she was an assistant teacher. She was only there for a few months and every time I saw her she always spoke to me in English and since this is quite rare for Japanese elem. teachers.... I had to asked her why she spoke so much English. She leans over and whispers to me, "Don't tell other teachers, but I'm in a band." My eyebrows perked up, "What? Really? What do you sing? What kind of band?" She does a quick left and right check over her shoulders and said, "I like rock music, do you listen to Rock?" I had instant flashbacks my high school days where I had friends who had listened to Tool, Metallica, STP, Nirvana, Scorpions, Slayer, Iron Maiden, AC/DC etc etc.....
"Crazy really? Thats cool...I wanna check out a show," I said with a nostalgic grin on my face.

The spot was at a place called Marrs in Towada city. We got there just in time for the 1st act and instantly upon arrival I was polluting my lungs with tobacco smoke and I'm not even a smoker! Courtney was the only free soul that evening and joined me for a bit of live acoustic Towada. Unfortunately for the non-smokers, Japan is quite slow in adapting the "No smoking in public places" law, but I'm sure in a few years...ugh like 20, Towada will also fall in line. It was nice to see the cool and hip people of Aomori. Everyone seemed to be quite stylish and actually displayed a little care in their fashion attire. I guess I'm just used to seeing the Bugz Bunny jerseys and sweats in my Town!

The music was cool, but the place wasn't. Image a small room packed full of people and the A/C broken. Yah, hot and stuffy...which unfortunately, mixed with massive amounts of tobacco smoke gave Courtney a headache. I felt bad cause she looked miserable..but the show must go on....I was there to take pictures of BadASS Inc and the BadNEWS was that they were last. Fuck!

There was another photographer there who touted 2 canon bodies both accompanied with flash guns...he looked quite serious and definitely poppin' off a lot of shots all night long in between drink. It was cool to see another young photographer in the house even though his shooting style was drastically different from mine. He shot flash head on with every shot. I never would use a camera mounted flash and if I can ...I like to capture the mood of the scene with the available light. He had a nice L zoom lens and a telezoomer....I chose my 50 1.4 and up'd my ISO...no flash.

Anyways, when BadASS Inc. came on, they did covers from old school rock bands like, "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard, "Rock all night long" by KISS, and a few others of the same era and magnitude. I knew the words so I sang along with everyone else that was still left in the house and it was quite good fun. When the show ended, Bon was super stoked we came and wouldn't stop thanking us...and the whole time I kept thanking her for inviting us to a rockin'n good evening. We said goodbyes and left the premise only to find the pachinko parking lot gated and locked. OMG!! I couldn't get my car out! There was a white piece of paper on my windshield that said I couldn't park there. The angels were looking upon us that night because one of the entrances was still left open and we were able to go home. Next stop, McDonalds for midnight filet o fishes!

Tohoku Elementary School Battle!

Let the games begin! On June 19th, 2008, Tohoku Town had their annual elementary school track and field competition. The competitors were 4th, 5th, and 6th graders from all 7 elem. schools competing in 3 events....running, ball toss, and long jumping. Yah, that's it..... The athletes were separated by grades and also by gender. The leggers were able to choose from the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1000m. The sand pit smashers got 2 practice attempts and 2 real attempts to post their longest scores. The ball chuckers got 2 practice throws and 1 real toss to flex their muscles.

It was great to see all the kids in high spirits and trying their hardest to win the prestigious crown called "Champion". Since this was my 2nd year, I knew all the students there and that made it very special to me....it was to be my last as well. I wasn't able to stay until the finals because I had to go and teach 1st and 2nd graders at Chibiki elem, but I figured that catching just a bit of it was better than not being able to go at all.

Kids grow up so fast. When I first got to Tohoku, the students that were once my small, cute, noisy little 3rd graders are about a head taller, smarter, silly and smart assy 5th graders. Two years isn't a very long time, but so much happens in a child's two years that I never really noticed before at that same age. It reminded me to value the time because you never are able to get it back....hehe, unless you look at a few pictures. Cheers for reading.

Kindergarten Visit

If you didn't know previously.... I teach at 7 elementary schools in Tohoku Town, but this year I got lucky enough to fill a few days of "Office Days" with kindergarten school visits! OMG it's so fun! The kindergarten groups the 4 and 5 year olds together and I get to have them for 30 minutes. Basically my lessons are very similar to 1st grader lessons. This consists of the basic, "My name is ____", fruits, animals, and 1-10. We practice about 10 minutes and then we get to play a game using the new English words. I don't think I've ever seen any group of kids more excited to play in my entire life!! It was a mad house!

In this video, the kids all learned animals in English and the goal was to listen and become the animal that I would say. If I said "Tiger!" then would all become little tigers. It was a madhouse! If I say "STOP!" they would all have to freeze until i said a new animal name. Check out the video and watch the classroom turn into a complete zoo! It's sooo cute!

Hawaiian style wedding

What kind of picture does your mind paint when you hear the word...... Hawaii? Tropical paradise, blue ocean, hot weather, beautiful beaches, tourists everywhere... are only a few, but probably the most common images thanks to the ever-so influencial media. You could probably throw in a few hula dancers and a roasted pig for safe measure and you still probably wouldn't stray too far from the typical Hawaiian stereotype.

You know what? Hawaii is exactly like all the pictures and movies you've seen about it. It is a Tropical paradise. It had the bluest ocean that I've ever seen in my life. There were mobs of tourists all over Oahu island doing touristy things. The white sandy beaches were nothing short of stunning and jaw dropping beauty. Even though it was a bit cloudy, the weather was still suitable for t-shirts and shorts. I even felt a bit foolish because I brought a pair of shoes. Hawaii is unlike any place I've seen before and being there showed me the true beauty of mother nature. It is magical. Okay, I didn't get to see a roasted pig but that doesn't mean it's not there!

Anyways, enough about Hawaii....if you have been there you know exactly what I'm talking about. The reason I went to Hawaii was for a wedding. One of my best friend's wedding. A few days before leaving for Hawaii, Kyle, asked me if I could do a speech in honor of their marriage. How could I refuse? Of course I accepted and instantly began thinking of what to say and knew that this wasn't something I could just wing-it and go. The wedding venue was at the Sheraton Hotel on Waikiki, but unfortunately being one of the groomsmen....I wasn't able to walk about and take pictures. Hence, my collection of photos from Hawaii consists of not a SINGLE wedding photo. SHAME on me as a photographer! Honestly, I wasn't in the mood to shoot pictures. I just wanted to relax and enjoy the surroundings because being a part of the wedding was quite stressful even though I had such a tiny role. I couldn't imagine how stressful it must be on the families.

So, the wedding was brilliant. The bride and groom looked perfect and the day was enjoyed by all. I gave the best speech I could.... given the few short days I had to work with. After the reception, there was a short 2 hour break and then a cruise on a caterham sailboat. What better way to end the day with a 2hr cruise with all you can drink while watching the sunset into the ocean. It was way better than a Japanese work party and only 30 bucks too! The boat would bounce in the wave and get everyone wet. Just a blast to cruise and do something different.

This trip also gave me the opportunity to hang out with Kyle and Chie, but two other best friends as well...Chuck 'Puffy' Berk and Yumez. It was so good to see and hang out with them and felt like not a day has passed since I saw them last. We definitely gotta do another reunion in Hawaii a few years down the road. Love you all and congrats to Kyle and Chie!!

Strobalicious

In continuing with off camera flash...I took my work to the streets. Okay well not the streets really but to the rice patty fields. I saw a couple of photos that had a cool sunset or sky in the bg, black foreground, but with a lit subject that really tickled my interest. I wanted to mimic this and practice a bit so I gathered up my gear and drove out to the fields and set up my lights and tripod. Still, I only had 1 flash at the time connected via pc sync cord and yah........again it must have slipped off about a dozen times. Anyways after a few shots I started to get the hang of this. This is far from magic but with 1 flash and it being my first time out, I think it turned out okay. I created something I've never created before in photography and that got me stoked.

I feel like there is so much to learn. I always thought photography was simple. Find something cool, get your camera and take a picture, but I'm learning that you have to do a lot of work, studying, setup, etc........just to get 1 picture. On top of that, you have to learn the 'other' half of photography....post processing and that's never ending. Soooo, you put in all that time and you want to show it to the world right? To do this, it takes time because you have to post them on blogs or photo sites like flickr, picasa web. Get this, all this for no $$$ on the back end. Well not yet anyways. If you really wanna make $$ you have to then post your pictures on stock photos sites, submit to photo magazines and that too takes time! To wrap it up, the whole process takes a lot of time and dedication. I can see a lot of people just quiting ........not take pictures for a few months cause things get busy in their lives. The way I think about it is........photography is like a big piggy bank. You put in and put in and over time the bank gets heavier and someday, when its full... it'll break open and you'll get huge rewards. Well, who knows how big the piggy bank is though.....gotta wait and see!