8.29.2008

goodbye tochigi

Day 6: August 17, 2008
Last day of summer holiday...
After long stay in Tochigi than usual, I went to Saitama on my way to Tokyo, because i was asked to shoot my friend, a belly dancer, and more 2 dancers.
It rained, so I photographed in a room...
And, next, i went to Shinjuku to see Yoko, a close friend from childhood.
We catched up many things, were very comfortable with one another.

reunion drinkin' again

Day 5: August 16, 2008 - midnight-

Tochigi Foto session

Day 5: August 16, 2008

























The fellow of zorome-kai (11 people) came over my home town Tochigi from Tokyo, Saitama anad Kanagawa .
I totally arranged the plan and conducted them to nice places for photographing through the city.

During our tour, my dad, a historian, showed up and explained some history of tochigi to the fellow.
Besides, my mom showed up when we had a break in a nearby restaurant from parents' house.
So i introduced my parents to them.
I thougt some of them and my parents are almost from same generations.
(Then everyone photographed us, parents and me at the same time.It was like we were at a press conference with much strobe light. I'd never experienced before that. That was so funny.)
After we walked around for hours, in the late afternoon it started to rain and we stopped to take shelter from rain for a while, however it did not seem to be stopped.
So we decided to start walking again to go to final destination of my plan.
They just followed me making a line in rain.
When we arrived there, we were soaked to the skin.
------------------
10:47 Start!
*Tochigi Sta. (i welcomed everyone.)

*Kataoka Photo Studio (The oldest photo studio in tochigi city. There are many photo studios near the station. )

*Uzuma riverside

*Old Storehouses of Sake Brewing (according to my father, disappointingly the nice old buildings are supposed to be groken down inside this year... )

*Seitoshuka (Chinese restaurant for lunch time)

*Toshigi City Hall (old building) 
*riverside
*My parents' home

*Abuden(break time eating Miso-Oden with beers)  

*Yamasa-miso Houses (very old storehouses)

*My parents' another house
(Nobody have lived there for decades. It's like a place for my dad to put kind of collections, i mean, trash... And, there was a wrecked car of my dad. ......No, actually not. He disassembled the car from parts to parts...! And even houses there... Incredible...! I was very shocked when i watched that for the first time in January. I was embarrased a bit to show them the place which was like a space just for putting many trash. But all enjoyed shooting the sceen. I think dad he's gonna make the space flat after breaking and falling everything down.)
*Tochigi Hospital (surely old building)
↓ it rained suddenly around here.
*Yamada Kori (eating most wonderful kakigori around the world)
↓(moved by 100 yen- bus "Norasse". There are 13 seats in the bus. It was like a chartered bus only for us, 12 people. )
Tochigi Sta.

Izakaya (drinkin')

Tochigi Sta. (i saw them off)

I was relieved and glad they seemed to enjoy a lot their 12 hours-stay shooting around Tochigi.
Day 3: August 14, 2008 -night-

Day 3: August 14, 2008 -daytime-


reunion drinkin'

Day 2: August 13, 2008 -night-
Day 2: August 13, 2008 -daytime-

going back to hometown

Day1: August 12, 2008



8.07.2008

new prints






a little rough ...
some are needed to be printed again...

8.06.2008

Urayasu


Sunday
I went to Urayasu for visiting the event "Shashin-Yokocho".
Urayasu is the town my elder brother lives.
So i mailed him to ask if we could have lunch on the evening before. (we rarely exchange mails though).
He usually works on Sunday.
But fortunately last Sunday was his off.
He, his wife were waiting for me in the station, then we took a walk for 10 minutes or more and we ate lunch in an Italian restaurant.
We enjoyed conversation catching up recent events.
Last time we met was maybe last September when we had a farewell lunch for my second bro. was going to leave for Canada...
After lunch brother and I went across the river being led by some music and found the place of mini concert.
I checked the map there for the first time to find the place of john's show.
"Oh it's very close."
So i brought my bro. to the place in unplanned schedule. (but my bro. left soon, he was too shy... )
John's was nice exhibition in a nice Japanese room.
(I miss Japanese tatami room and its smell recently...)
And soon after that, I went back to the Urayasu sta. for picking up my friend.
Then we had fun with fotos and nice Japanese traditional houses.
Japanese old construction is awesome.
However it was very hot day, I felt good breeze coming through from the window to another window inside the houses.
Night was also very enjoyable.
Thanks for john's introduction to Akiko.
Nice people and nice houses comforted me.
Urayasu made my day.

Yokosuka


Saturday
I went to Yokosuka for kind of foto session with the members of zorome-kai.
Actually i was late an hour than them because i forgot to transfer in Yokohama thinking something in trouble too much and cried a bit in the train and finally reached to Chigasaki, far from Yokosuka...
That was not funny at all...
Anyway...the town Yokosuka brought back some memories as well as my favorite town, my second home Yokohama.
I used to go to Yokosuka until two years ago, because a couple of my friends i loved lived there.
We used to have parties like BBQ near the beach in summer.
So... it was first time to visit yokosuka in this 2 yrs.

The day was "Navy Friendship Day" admitting general public to enter in.
In the base, firstly luggage was checked in the entrance and allowed to enter soon.
It was first time to enter u.s. base.
Honestly i was not interested so much in the place itself at first, but that was fun with the fellow in the event.
On the way i walked around alone, a guy spoke to me "nice camera".
The guy was very missing film cameras.
I know this kind of thing happens often to me with camera.
I just enjoyed the nice greeting and conversation for a while.

Btw, everybody, the older members (were mostly professional commercial photographers) used digital single-lens reflex cameras.
While i listened the talk they had, i felt out of place in some way and noticed again how much i love film cameras than digital ones.
I've borrowed an EOS temporarily from my friend for last starwars celebration and use sometimes until the day i return it to her, however, now i think i won't buy a digital single-lens reflex camera...
Anyway,
I had a great day with nice and kind members.
and

LOVE MF!
This was my conclusion of the day.