destressing

"chocottocheki in nakamura yesterday "
Shooting with cheki is a great relief for stress...!

*not expensive as 600 film
*no pressure as 135 film
and
*warmer than digital photos

hot weekend like it's at the height of summer

*new item
I bought a new choco-colored cheki i was looking forward to having.
It looks yummy.
I love chocolate...
I think i have to quit REAL chocolate for a while, to lose my weight i gained too much, so... it's good for me to spend with the camera.
I'll be satisfied...!!

*"Jichansama"
Yesterday, on a very hot sweaty day, I went to Little More to see the show of Kayo Ume, is of an age with me.
The show is of portraits of her grandpa, is now 92 years old.
Her grandpa was really cute...!
I got a warm feeling from the show...

My grandpa passed away when i was twelve, a long time ago...
But i remember the time i photographed him with an instant camera of FUJIFILM when i was 11.
He was sitting on the corridor and smiling nicely in a dark-blue jacket.
The photo has been put on the buddhist altar by my parents in their house.
I like the photo.

*earth garden
And I went to yoyogi park to see friends, Mami and Miyuki.
Last time i met Mami and her angel was more than a year ago, on her wedding last may.
They are both small and so pretty.
The angel said with satisfaction, "pretty...", when she looked the cheki photo of herself i photographed and gave her.
wow...amazing...
The two-year old girl was no longer a baby...

a surprise

I got a surprise from LA last night!

On opening the container,



a nice cheki photo was attached with a pack of 600 film!!!

wow..
Thank you so much JJ...

I was so glad because sadly the 600 films will be disappeared very soon as i wrote before... next month....
Besides they're expensive in japan now...
I wanna shoot with sx-70 in many scenes this summer!!
(I also like cheki recently so i might buy a new brown one!)

far away

I got a postcard from Nebraska last week.
Thanks a lot to John.

I wondered how big Nebraska is...

I've just been to CA, never to the middle of US.

One of my dreams is driving a car on a wide road in US..., of course, with cameras.
(i'm a sunday driver and below though....)

i think sometimes i just wanna shoot with mind in neutral, in a strange land, getting away from the routine here...

direction

I bought a used book "Asian generation" written by Kisei Kobayashi, a photographer, in a used bookstore more than a year ago, but I've not read for a while and just kept in my shelf.
There was no reason , i just forgot... :((
I suddenly remembered that last month and read through in a oner.
I'd never read his books until then, and never watched photographs, I knew he's a photograoher though...
In the book, he mainly wrote about his turning point when he left the newspaper company and went on a trip around Asia, and many people he met on his way.
I like such kind of story.
There're b&w photos of the trip in the book.

Now many young Japanese, especially college students tend to go to Asia as Thailand, India, China etc.
One of my friends, even on his thirty, kept traveling around the world as a backpacker for more than 2 years and came back last summer, and left again for Africa this spring...
He's almost haunted by Zimbabwe. (I never mean it badly.)
I think sometimes it's hard for people once left their home countries for a long time to come back and settle down again.
I'm haunted by San Francisco...

encounter×encounter

Time does fly fast, indeed.

Now we are halfway through this year...

In this year, until today, many unexpected things already happened to me ... but,

the most surprising thing was I encountered an incredible person last month...

How could i expect that!?

What a small world...

A wonderful encounter led to another astonishing encounnter.

Life is something like a journey, unexpected.