Lunch in the Clouds

My friends Stephen and Laura were in town from Taipei this weekend.  My wife Mayumi and I caught up with them for a long and casual lunch at the New York Grill on the 52th floor of Shinjuku’s Park Hyatt Hotel.    The bar in this restaurant became famous in the

The Panasonic Lumix Smart Camera CM1

A few weeks ago Panasonic released the Lumix Smart Camera CM1 in France and Germany and is expanding to the UK.  I was lucky enough to find my way to one.    This is being positioned as a Smart Camera or a Compact Camera with Smartphone Technology.   It is a full

Goshikinuma Lake

So I have reached final post in my ShootFukushima series.    This was a great trip and I really enjoyed learning about the area.  I’ll have a video coming in the next few days. I’m glad I have been posting all of these up over the past few weeks.  It gave

Kitakata Sake Brewery

The next stop was to Kitakata Sake Brewery.   I love Japanese Sake.  Its one of the really good things about Japan.  As we approached the brewery I saw this older man filling water bottles from the stream out from.  I asked him why it was doing that.   Apparently the

Tea and Crafts

After getting our fill of cats we headed over for some green tea and crafts.   We were speaking about the difference between Japan and other countries.  One of the things that really strikes me about Japan is how people focus on one thing looking for perfection.   At

Neko Jinja

After lunch we headed over to check out this little shop nearby that has a Neko Jinja (Cat Shrine) on the second floor… Today’s Configuration: Leica M9-P with a Summilux 21mm f/1.4 and a Ricoh GR The crew… The Neko Jinja is an entire replicate of a

The Kanji Master

After a great bowl of Ramen in Kitakata I stopped off to visit a Kanji Master. I haven’t ever been to a Kanji Master before so I didn’t know what to expect… Today’s Configuration: Leica M9-P with a Nocitlux

Kitakata Ramen

The next leg in my trip in Fukushima was to Kitakata.   It is very famous for their Ramen that you can get any time of the day or night.   There are over 120 shops in this small town serving ramen so of course we needed to stop and have some ramen for lunch!

The White Tigers Corps

The next leg in my Fukushima trip was to Iimori Hill in Aizuwakamatsu.   This hill overlooks the city and Tsuragajo Castle can been seen off in the distance.   During the Boshin War (the civil war between the Tokugawa Shogunate and those seeking to return political

Tsuragajo Castle

I got back last night from Fukushima.   I haven’t gotten a chance to drive my new S5 all that much so it was nice to have a nice 600km trip to get my car out on the open road and stretch it’s legs a little bit.  Fukushima is about 260km or so from my house

Ouchijuku with NHK

I am spending 3 days in Fukushima trying to capture of beauty of this part of Japan.   This region has suffered a lot since the Magnitude 9.0 earthquake of 2011 triggered a tsunami that killed 16,000+ people and triggered a nuclear disaster and I wanted to share a bit

3 Strangers in Shibuya

Today I went out for a photowalk with Michael one of the backers of my Kickstarter Project.  We shot at a bit at Zojoji Temple with my wife Mayumi.  I shot film so it will be a while until I can post those photos. After that Michael and I headed to Shibuya to try some

Getting around to shooting

I haven’t shot much film lately.  Not as much as I like anyways.   I was able to get out a few weeks ago to catch up with my friend Pieter for our camera trade.  I love getting new photography gear by trading and not having to spend additional money. The beauty

Exploring London

After a busy week in London I finally had a day for myself for exploring London and some photography.  I was initially thinking I was going to host a photowalk but I was pretty burnt out from the week so I decided to spend the day catching up with colleagues and

Needing Inspiration

I haven’t had enough time to get out and shoot trying to balance everything I have going on in my life with work, family and travel.  Perhaps I’m needing inspiration.   Perhaps I need to launch a 365 project or something to get my creative juices flowing

Then comes the rain

I went to the 3rd day of Tokyo Photo last weekend but skipping the 4th as Tokyo was getting pounded with a typhoon.  The typhoon didn’t turn out to be too bad mother nature is blessing us with a super typhoon that was just down graded to a tropical storm

Day 2: Tokyo Photo

Yesterday was day 2 of Tokyo Photo!   I spent most of the day at there chatting with other photographers, meeting people and selling a few ShootTokyo Books. Today’s Configuration:  Leica M9-P with Summilux 21mm f/1.4 and Noctilux 50mm f/0.95.  Tokyo Photo will

Heaps

I was very exited to be contacted by Heaps Magazine a few weeks ago for an interview for a cover story for their Made in Japan issue.   Heaps is a digital magazine run by Dai Nippon Printing (Japan’s largest printing company). They are one of the main sponsors

Found Frames

With all of my work, travel and personal projects I feel like I am going 1,000 miles an hour lately.  I was in Seoul last week for a few days.   Thankfully I’ll be in Tokyo for a few days but then I have trips coming up to London, San Francisco, and Seoul