Here are more little people, this time sweating out a hot summer in giant bricks of ice. Like the aurochs from ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’, they gradually melt free of their frozen prisons, to gallivant across the world and teach us all a thing or two about the most stylish way to wear swimming trunks. Or perhaps this is a love story, not a southern-gothic fable, wherein two permafrost golems eyes each other through the glass walls of their cages, and by the heat of their endless ardour, over the extremity of centuries, finally burned their way free, to …
Synecdochic Picnic
Look at this lovely couple having a picnic. Good thing there are no ants about. What fetching lime-green pants he has on! Bazinga. Can you spot the tiny picnic? (HINT- it’ just above the watermark ‘i’) And for comparison- Some points of note- Lime-green pants: I ‘rented’ them from Uniqlo, by buying, wearing (with great care), then re-bagging and returning them. I would never have worn them again. I felt a little dishonest, but no harm, no foul. Plastic ground: You can see a kind of plastic netting under the ‘grass’, which is common in Tokyo parks. It’s very uncomfortable …
Onsen Stroll
I shot these onsen stroll photos as a proof of concept, but liked them so much I went back and added a final component, in the fourth shot, so the stroll and outfits would make sense. “Keep up, Junior!” says Dad (in Japanese). Get it? It’s tricky to make water stay in the top of an aloe plant. Also tricky to photograph and make it look like water. But that is the intent. The big clues are all kind of buried in Japanese stuff- the word ‘onsen’ means naturally occurring hot springs, around which spa-like baths are built. Families (especially …
100th Day
For some time I’ve been looking for a photographic subject to succeed haikyo. Haikyo was great, and doubtless still can be, though my passion for it has flagged in the last year or so. So, what would come next? For a while (years ago) I walked around Tokyo taking photos of architecture, people, traditional culture, and whatnot. I also took pictures of funny products (all the flavors of Kit Kat and Pepsi) and Japangrish, but neither of those really excite me much. So, what next? I want something that subverts normal life, that is surreal and unusual in the same …