Sushicam

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Rain, it was the season of Wind, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had 42.2 kilometers before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities (Tokyo Governor Ishihara) insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The Tokyo Marathon, or as I have decided to call it, my “Blind Date”.

I have named it such because it was my first marathon, and I was not quite sure what to expect.  350,000 people had signed up to run the race, but there were only 35,000 available slots, so I was lucky to get in.

And like a lot of first experiences in life, a friend had talked me into doing it.  This friend will remain nameless, so lets just say that his name rhymes with “Peter”.   It was last year, and “Pete” had run the Tokyo Marathon for the first time.  We were talking about it over beers, and I guess he could see the envy in my eyes so he suggested I run it the next year.  Feeling good (ten feet tall and bullet proof, due to the beer) I responded with a hearty “Yes!”   I should have known better though, as it was the very same situation, a few beers and good food, that got me into climbing Mt Fuji for the second time.

But I am not on to back out on a commitment, so I made sure to put in a good amount of training to get ready for the race.

A couple of days before the race I started eating a lot more pasta, and getting plenty of sleep.  I was also keeping my eye on the weather forecast, and I did not like what I was seeing.  As it got closer and closer to race day, the weather outlook got more and more bleak.  And by the time I woke up at 4:30 on Race Day I found that not only was the wind blowing and the rain falling, but it was also getting colder.

There was a second there when I considered just crawling back into bed and ditching the race.  But only for a second.   I had trained for 11 or so weeks, and wanted to put all that training to the test so I ate a light breakfast and headed up to Shinjuku.

Upon arriving in Shinjuku I was happy to see that the wind had died down a bit.  But I was not so happy to see that the rain had not stopped.  I would be even less happy when I found out that I would have to stand in the rain for a bout 45 minutes while waiting for the race to start.  That was a pretty miserable experience.  But I was able to give a spare pair of gloves to an older Japanese woman who was lining up for the race next to me.  She had forgotten hers at home, and I had taken a spare pair just for a case like this so I was happy to be of help.

The only thing that kept me  from turning hypothermic while waiting for the race to start was the clear plastic trash bag that I was wearing as it kept my for the the most part dry.  I had brought a button up raincoat that I bought at a 100 yen store the day before, but the trash bag was a better solution for the race.  ”Pete” had the foresight to bring an extra trash bag for me and right before the race he cut the head and arm holes in it and I slipped it on.   The only break to the monotony of waiting for the race to start was when Bobby, a rather famous foreign TV talent in Japan stepped into the group of runners a few paces away from me.  He had cameramen and photographers all a round him, so that gave me something to watch while the rain continued to fall. I would have liked to get a photo of all the goings-on, but due to the rain I had decided to not run with my camera as I would have probably shorted it out had I used it in the rain.

So there I was, the minutes counting down to the start, staying reasonably dry (but not warm), with the exception of my feet since my shoes were slowly soaking up the rainfall.

Then, after a minor eternity the race was on!  And off I went, WALKING for the first 5 or 6 minutes as the marathon mob slowly filtered through the starting gates.   Think of the entire resident population of the Super Dome trying to squeeze through a couple of  narrow streets and you will get an idea of how congested the start of the race was.

After going about half a kilometer down the road things started to open up a bit since the road was getting much wider.  It was still packed in pretty tight, and because of this I could not really see the road in front of me.  That was when I ended up running through a long deep puddle, completely soaking what were up to that point only semi-damp feet.  Not a good start.  More than 40 kilometers to go, and I would be doing it with soaking wet shoes.

As the kilometers started to click by, the rain continued to fall, the wind started to pick up, and the temperature continued to drop.  While running through Ginza, around the 20 kilometers mark I noticed a thermometer on a building at it said 3 degrees C.  Shortly after that I felt a brief spattering of hail, but only for a couple of minutes.

Because it was so cold, I had to make periodic periodic stops every 5 or so kilometers to stretch my legs.  The cold was keeping my muscles tight, and there was not much I could do about it.

What really kept me going was the crowds that were lined up on both sides of the road for nearly the entire 42 kilometer course.  I heard “Ganabatte!”, “Faito!!”, and “Go!!!” more times that I could even begin to count.  The only places were there were no spectators to rally the runner on were the couple of bridges near the end of the race since.

The  really nice thing about the crowd was the support they provide to the runners.  And I’m not just talking moral support.   People in no way officially connected to the race would have prepared snack and energy foods ahead of time.  They would then hold them out on plates so runner could grab then as they passed.

Slices of lemon, orange, and mikan.  Chocolates, sweet hard candy, bananas, and my personal favorite: small homemade chocolate cookie wafers loaded with salt, each individually wrapped in plastic.

As a result of the spectators thoughtfulness to make all of these treats, I ended the race with a full stomach, almost too full in fact.   The extra helpings of snacks along the way might have actually slowed me down in the long run, but were it not for the cheering crowds I am sure that it would have been a much more difficult experience.  I appreciate each every spectator that took the time to come out and stand out in the rain to cheer all the runner on.

The absolute worst part of the race for me was kilometers 30 though 35.  After that I could sense the end and I actually started to speed up.  This tells me that i didn’t push myself hard enough for the first half of the race, and I was saving too much energy.  During the first half of the race I did think that maybe I was making that mistake, but I was also worried about burning myself out too early.    I guess I will be able to better judge things the next time I run.

You can check out the splits in my overall time of 4:20: 25 by following this link and entering my bib number: 27427.

After finishing I got my medal, and headed to the area where I could pick up my change of clothes, although the had seemed to have misplaced my bag so it took them about 15 minutes to actually find it.  Not that I minded though, because while I waited they had a nice soft chair for me to sit in, all wrapped up in warm blankets.

After they located my bag I headed to the changing area and stripped off my soaking clothes and shoes, toweled myself off, and changed into a set of dry clothes.  I was happy to notice that my feet had held up incredibly well, and had given me absolutely no problems, even though they were wet for the entire race.   I saw some other people who were not so lucky.  One guys socks were dripping red, and in places his shoes had worn completely through his socks,and deep into his skin.

My leg muscles were obviously sore, but today, just three days after the race and I am feeling back to normal.  I’m actually itching to go on another run if you can imagine that!

So in summary The Tokyo Marathon, aka “My Blind Date”  turned out to be quite an ugly one, but they day was not a total loss as she ended up having a great personality.  :)

“Finely orchestrated chaos”, or as I like to call it, “Tsukiji Fish Market”.

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On Saturday I woke up at O’ dark-thirty, packed my Nikon D700 and four primes in a bag and caught a train up to Tsukji to spend a morning shooting pictures as part of a Japanorama workshop.  Due to the frenetic pace of the place (it is a fully functioning fish market) the group size was restricted to six students and two instructors.  As soon as I saw this one posted at Japanorama I rushed to sign up, knowing that the student slots would fill up fast.

For those of you you plan on going to see the Tsukiji fish market I have one word of advice.

Go early.  (OK, maybe that’s two words, but you know what I mean)

The place is a beehive of activity, and it only starts to wind down shortly before 10 a.m..

To sum the place up in a phrase I would have to choose, “finely orchestrated chaos“. Everyone and everything is in constant motion, including a lot of the fish!

The game plan was to make a couple of loops through the heart of the action, shooting short telephoto (85mm’ish) on the way in, and wide (20mm’ish) on the way out.   I was solid on the 85mm department, since I had my Nikon 85mm f1.4 with me.  But on the wide side I went a little nuts and tried using a Tamron 14mm f2.8, which turned out to be entirely too wide.  I rather quickly swapped that out for a 35mm f2 (my next widest lens).  I did shoot a few images with a 50mm, but that was the exception.  The idea was to obtain some reportage type shots through the use of these two focal lengths.  The wides to set the scene, and the telephoto to fill in the details.

This was not my first (or second, or even third) trip to Tsukiji, so adding some external structure to my shooting was a very good thing.  The tips and guidance provide by Alfie and Hunter were very much welcome as they helped open my eyes to some new ways to see and capture things.  This prevented me from falling back into my own personal comfort zone of shooting.

I definitely feel that I got a higher percentage of keepers that on my previous trips to Tsukiji.

This time I used the two extreme focal lengths

The real lesson for me was that I need a 20mm lens.  There seems to be no better focal length for dragging the shutter and getting some closeup people shots.

And there is a lot of people to see:

People hauling Styrofoam boxes on their shoulders, men pulling two wheeled carts heaped with seafood, and funny looking self-propelled three wheeled wagons that can turn on a dime and give you six cents change. (A very necessary feature in the crowded rows of fish mongers.)  The real change since my last trip to Tsukiji is that now a lot of these self-propelled carts are electric powered, so you can’t hear them coming.  You really have to keep your head on a  swivel to make sure you don’t get run over.

One thing that always strikes me about the place was just how clean it is. For a place that moves more than 5 million pounds of fish (worth nearly 30 million dollars) daily, the place has no fishy smell.

Part of the reason is that everything is so fresh. The other reason is that the place is given a very thorough cleaning at the end of each day.

5 million pounds of fish a day.

Think about that for a minute.

That is more than 10 times the volume of New York City’s Fulton Market, the largest seafood market in America.

Pretty impressive.

Tsukiji has already been reported to death on the internet so I will not try and give the whole history behind the place. Anyone interested in learning more need do nothing more that a quick google search and you will have loads of information to read.

It’s a must see for anyone who wants to get some interesting photos, as well as a snack of some of the freshest sashimi you are likely to ever come across.

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FYI – I just fell off the wagon again and ordered a Canon 5D Mark II.  Soooo,  I will soon be putting my trusty 5D mark I up for sale.  The going rate for used 5D’s seems to be about $1,200, but I figure I would offer it up here first for $1,000 (plus any insured shipping costs and/or paypal fees).

If I had to guess I would say it has about 40,000 actuations on it (the 5D shutter life is rated at 100,000 actuations) and it is in very good condition.  It comes with 3 Canon batteries (all hold an excellent charge), an 8 GB memory card, and all the original odds and ends (battery charger, strap, etc.) and the original packaging/box.

It has been lovingly used by me for the past four and a half years, but selling it will help fund the Mark II, so I will have to let it go.

If anyone is interested, please let me know.  If there is no interest here I’ll be posting at the usual online photo gear selling websites.  (But I would much prefer to give a better deal to one of my regular viewers.)

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ps: My heartfelt thanks go out to all of you who have been ordering prints from my Smugmug page.  Your continued purchases have helped to fund the 5D Mark II, and I will be sure to do my best to keep serving up fresh content for you all.  The video capabilities of the 5D Mark II particularly intrigue me, so expect to see some videos in the future.

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For those of you in Germany, check out page 28 of the February 2010 issue of FHM.  You’ll find one of my photos there.

For those of you in Japan, pick up a copy of the Metropolis 2010 calendar, one of my photos has been used for the month of February.

Seems like February is a hot month for me…

Last Sunday I met up with about 30 of my closest friends.  On the third Sunday of every month the Tokyo Cameras club gets together to shoot pictures, and last Sundays location was Rikugien Park in Tokyo.  It’s near Komagome Station on the Yamanote line.

Club votes on the location for each months get-together, and the last two finalists were Rikugien park, and Yokohama Chinatown.  I was pulling for Chinatown as it is a whole lot closer to where I live.  And to tell the truth i was a bit bummed when Rikugien ended up winning the vote.  But, not to be deterred by a 90 minute train ride (That’s what iPods were invented for) I happily hopped on the train.

After getting to Komagome station, Saori and I stopped in at Matsuya for a quick meal of beef with rice and a bowl of miso soup.  Speaking of Matsuya, I am completely impressed with traditional fast-food in Japan.  Be it Udon, Ramen, or Gyudon, it’s always completely and satisfyingly delicious, not to mention worlds healthier than western style fast food.  Think of Puppies frolicking through a field of MORE puppies and you will get an idea of how satisfying a good bowl of gyudon and miso soup can be.

Thinking that I may find it hard to find interesting things to shoot in a park, I stopped in at a combini for a couple of cans of liquid inspiration  (aka: BEER)  ans set off down the street towards the park.  Polishing off the second can  just as I was passing a recycling bin near the park entrance, I dropped the can into the bin, and pulled my camera of the day out of my backpack.  (Olympus E-P1) I pulled off the lens cap, checked to make sure the battery was charged, the memory card was empty, and the lens was clean.  Check, check, check.  ”OK, time to go see if I can scrape together some images from this park” I thought to myself.

Boy, were my feelings wrong.  The park ended up being spectacular.  Not at all crowded, and beautiful.  It also helped that the weather was absolutely perfect, the ideal autumn day: clear skies, dry, and moderate temperatures.  It turned out that I didn’t need the beer after all.  (Although even knowing that ahead of time would probably not have stopped me)

The lenses that say the most use while using the E-P1 was the standards kit zoom (14-42mm f3.5-5.6), and a manual Olympus Zuiko 55mm f1.2 .  The kit zoom is spectacularly sharp, and built in such a manner that it can collapse down into a quite compact form when not in use.  The 55mm f1.2 equates to a rather ridiculous 110mm f1.2 on the E-P1s cropped sensor, so the shots and perspectives you can get are pretty fun.  It’s soft as hell wide open, but the bokeh is to die for.  Stopped down it gets satisfactorily sharp.

To make a long story short, the three hours of shooting went by all too fast. but now that I have gotten a taste of the place, I will be sure to return when the maple leaves are in all their full autumnal splendor.

So I guess the moral of the story is, ” Don’t be too quick to judge something before you get a chance to experience it” and also “Beer never hurts”.

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In case anyone is interested, I took part in another episode of “Cool Japan”.

It will air at the following times:
Nov. 17 (Tue) 22:00〜22:44 (NHK BS Hi-vision)
Re-run – Nov. 22 (Sun) 0:10〜 0:54（NHK:BS-1)

Click HERE for todays photos.

Last Friday, a normal workday for me, I took the day off just because it’s Sakura season.  It’s a wonderful time of year, the cold of winter is over, the days are getting longer and it’s starting to warm up. But it’s not yet sticky and humid like summer so the skies are still brilliant blue.

It had been a long time since I took a day off from work just to go to take photos, usually I spend my weekends doing that, but the weather has just gotten so nice recently I couldn’t help myself.

And this trip to Kamakura was a little bit different than others that I had taken in the past. For the first time in my nine years of living in Japan I did the tourist thing and rented a bicycle, at Kamakura station.  I can’t believe it took me this long to get around to doing that. Probably the main reason is because since I live here, I have plenty of time to see Kamakura and I don’t feel the need to rush, thus I never felt the need to rent a bicycle. I was content just to spend my time walking, wandering really.

I was pleasantly surprised not just at how much ground that could cover by using a bicycle but just how much more “concentrated” the place felt when I was using a bicycle. Instead of spending 80% of my time walking between locations, that was cut down to maybe 15% or 10% of my time so it really felt like I could see a lot of things in a relatively short period of time.  And as a result, I think I was able to get a higher percentage of good photos.

I didn’t rent a bicycle as soon as I got to Kamakura because it was too early in the morning and the bike rental shop was not open. I do like to get there early in the morning because I can feel like I have the place to myself.  The only other people around are maybe one or two other photographers such as myself and the people who work at the temples and shrines.

By the time I was done shooting near Kamakura station, the bicycle rental shop was open. So I rented my single speed Mama-Chari with the requisite basket in front, # 47 to be exact,  and proceeded to peddle my way over to Hokokuji, otherwise known as the bamboo Temple. Three of today’s photos were taken at Hokokuji Temple. The first one being the temple bell, the next one being the green ojizou, and the third one being the entranceway showing the path, gravel rock garden, and the cherry trees in addition to the temple buildings. It was a beautiful morning really, and seeing as I got there right before the place opened at nine o’clock, as I got to the bamboo grove in the back I had the place completely to myself, which is always a nice thing.

From there I pedals to Ankokoronji Temple, that’s in the southeastern side of Kamakura city.  And it didn’t take me very long to get there, and seeing as it was still pretty early in the morning there were not a lot of people there so it was nice to not have to jockey for position and instead have the photographs just present themselves to me for the taking.  Two of today’s photos were taken at that Temple, the first one with the maple leaves with a red background.  The red background was the felt covering of a bench where people can sit down and have tea at the temple. The second picture is of the worshiper chanting and hitting the drum in front of the temple.

After I got my fill of uncle Ankokuronji I then peddle down to the ocean near Yuigahama beach and headed west.  I then circled my way around stopping off at Hase-Dera, and then looping my way back to Kamakura station.

Not the most exciting day, but exactly what I was looking for.