About the photography on this website
As I mentioned in a previous post , the images I am showcasing on this site have a strong connection to themes and aspects of Japanese landscape which I have a particular passion and interest in.
First, I should mention that most of the photographs I have initially selected for the current four albums in my gallery are from an exhibition I held recently in Yokohama and Kobe. The great people at Patagonia made the exhibition possible — twenty three of my photographs were on display in two stores for most of June and early July.
The common underlying theme of all of these photos is that I took them while travelling along the ancient Japanese kaido (街道) roads in Shinshu （信州）, Echigo （越後）, Echizen (越前) , and Echu (越中）. (I would like to talk about the “kaido” in a later post — they are a fascinating way in which to understand better the Japanese topography, ethnology and history.
A few words about the technical aspects of the images.
These are all shot on slide film — mostly Fuji (Vevia 50 and 100, and Fortia, which appears to be available only in Japan); I sometimes use Kodak Ektachrome in winter. Generally, I do not shoot negative film, although I do have some black and white work I would like to post in the gallery at a later date.
The flip side of this as that none of the images here are digital, nor have they been digitally altered. I may need to tweak the saturation or contrast a little, but this is only to get the scans as close as possible to the orginal slides. I am against digitally altering photographs. I don’t see the point; I am trying to capture on film what moves me as I really see it with my own eyes, not create an idyllic memory of it. (More on this topic later, too…)
As a rule, I don’t use filters. The only exceptions are, depending on weather and lighting conditions, I may use a polarizer filter, a half neutral density filter, and/or if appropriate, a light-balancing filter to compensate for light-temperature related colour shift. I talk a little about my “filter philosophy” at this post. And anyways, filters get in the way of the brilliant optics of the Carl Zeiss lenses I use.
Unlike examples of my work you might find on-line elsewhere , which is mostly shot in 35 mm format, the focus of what I want to showcase here has been shot in medium format (6 x 6). The subject matter and style is subtley different, I think, than what I do in 35 mm format. I would like to talk about the interesting differences between 35mm and 6 x 6mm in a later post. For reference, I use a Hassleblad 503 cxi and three lenses: 50mm, 80mm and 180mm. I sometimes use a 2x teleconverter.
As you can see, there are four albums in the gallery, which you can move between by clicking on the little icon in the lower left hand corner (some people miss this). If you roll your cursor over the image, photo data will cascade down from the top of the image. I have not finished adding all the data, but will update as time permits.
I hope I have answered some of the questions you have been thinking about — most of the above is based on what people ask me. Feel free to submit any questions or comments you have!