stevemandhk

My Uncle’s House

My dear uncle passed away late last year. He was my Dad’s older brother who never married and took care of my grandmother and other uncle until they both passed away. He would visit my parent’s house at every family occasion and at least once a month. He and my Dad had a good relationship and they joked and talked about their past whenever they were together. After my Dad passed away, he visited my Mom occasionally and I made sure to visit him or have him come over to my Mom’s when I was in town visiting. He selflessly took care of his his mother (my grandma) and brother (my uncle) when they could not care for themselves due to strokes and heart problems. He never asked for any help from my Dad and did not want anyone else coming into their house to help out in any way. My Dad never pushed the issue and let my uncle live as he was even after their mother and brother were both gone and my uncle was all by himself in the house.

My cousin and I started to visit my uncle at his house as we became aware of his failing health. He had told us that his blood work has always been abnormal but he never really had it checked out fully. By the time my cousin and I got involved, he finally had more tests done and it was found that he had a terminal blood disease. He tried chemotherapy to slow things down but he had complications which impacted his mobility. My cousin and I hoped to clean up his house enough so we could bring in a nurse to take care of him as he did not want to die in a medical facility. The house was so cluttered even someone fully mobile as myself had a problem walking through the rooms.

It turned out that my uncle had a number of other ailments that were untreated so he declined very quickly and around Thanksgiving decided with the rest of my family to transition him to hospice care. He passed less than a week after that.

When I went back into my uncle’s house for the first time since my early childhood I was shocked at the way my uncle was living. He was not poor and could have lived so much better. He kept himself pretty tidy outside the house so it wasn’t apparent that he was living in such a dirty home. The bathroom was not working to the point where he could take a bath or shower; he only sponge-bathed himself. He and his brother were also hoarders of things. His brother would bring home all kinds of things he found in the trash and he would buy a lot of unnecessary things and stockpile them.

What I learned from this experience is that even if I had to be forceful, I should have pushed my uncle to let me and other family members help him. I think he would have lived a longer if not better life in his old age. I was able to spend more time with him before his death than I had ever spent with him and heard so many stories about his life growing up with my dad and other uncle. I regret not hearing those stories earlier and being able to talk to my Dad about them.

I decided to make a personal photo project to remember these things. My uncle liked different mechanical things and among them collected a few film cameras. I started shooting film after he let me use his Leica M6 and decided to capture images of his house before my brother and I cleaned it all out using my uncle’s old Hasselblad X-Pan II and Agfa APX100. I’m going to post a bunch of the photos here and will take some time to decide which ones I will print.

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Painting with Photography

In addition to taking photography classes in college I studied drawing and painting. My style at the time was “figurative” but looked more like abstract expressionism. I started paintings thinking about the figure but it became abstracted.

Now with not enough time and space to do paintings, I’m trying to express my painterly sensibilities with some of the color photographs I make. My aesthetic is now more minimalist and I am trying to capture moments in which someone like myself would see something and ponder something else. The subject is therefore the scene a framed 2-dimensional moment in time. I hope to have time to actually paint some of these on a large canvas but for now they are in color negative and digital form, waiting….

Camera/ Image notes: the above images were taken with a Yashica Electro35MC and old, expired CVS brand color film I found at my uncle’s house. They where in a dusty old case stashed away in a cool dark place and I estimate the film to be around 20 years old. I read that people think Fuji made the CVS brand film. The Yashica has a clouded viewfinder window and a little corrosion at the flash mount but its 40mm f2.8 Copal lens makes wonderful images. Shutter speed is automatic and it only uses zone focusing which I am used to doing with the Leica M6 on the street. An interesting “feature” on this camera is that the winder slips at the end of the roll so I get double or triple exposures on the last frame. I highly recommend the Yashica Electro35MC for everyday or even travel film photography. It is pocketable in a jacket and you can find a whole kit for around $70 on eBay.

Making pictures every day

I’ve recently read a blog post and seen a YouTube video about why you should take photos everyday – even if you think you suck and feel uninspired. The blog post was from Eric Kim and the video from Peter McKinnon, both with very large social media following. The thought resonates for me because shooting is something I do to keep me less stressed and frustrated with things that are going on in the world today.

I hope the images I capture tell me something about myself or at the least give me a little joy when a nice image emerges. I shoot often with iphone for immediate things I am doing or things are happening right around me quickly, and then use a film camera when I have a tiny bit more time (because there’s some preparation I will need to do with a manual camera).

So now making photographs for me is an extension of getting up in the morning and going out. Whether it’s my phone or film or digital camera, I have something within reach and keep an eye out for something interesting. I then hope that not all my photographs will suck.

Is a style emerging here?

Photography for me right now is therapy – something to decrease stress and increase happiness. It’s also a way to meet new people outside of tech and share ideas. It’s also a way to be more aware of what’s around me as I make my way in the world. I read that photographers should find their own style to set themselves apart from other photographers and people with cameras, but right now I am having fun experimenting with both digital and analog processes, old manual equipment and highly-capable digital equipment, and shooting different subject matter. If I had to choose, film is my preference – I really like the look different black and white and color films can produce. I also enjoy the excitement of getting my negatives back (preview scans in the email to be exact).

I guess at some point a style will begin to emerge and I will settle into a more consistent workflow.

Tokyo Side Trip: Kawagoe

Kawagoe is less than 1 hour away from Tokyo on the Tobu-Tojo Line which leaves from Ikebukuro Station. Kawagoe is famous for many old merchant houses many of which are still in use today. Many have been turned into sweets and souvenir shops. Some people dress in the style of the Edo period and walk the streets. The main activity here is to walk the narrow streets and eat your way through the different food and confection shops. There are a few old coffee and tea shops like Shimano Coffee or Shimano Tea that are great for a rest stop of Vienna coffee or tea and sandwiches. Also made in the Kawagoe is Coedo Beer which is being imported to the U.S. in limited quantities. Tourist booklets will direct you to take a bus to the main sights but it is best to walk since you will be consuming many calories along the way! Exiting the East side of JR Kawagoe Station you can walk through the Atre building and cross SanbanMachi (street) into a narrow shopping street with the Crea Mall sign above it. It is a long path with many food, drink and shopping diversions and will take you right to the area where all the old buildings are (Nakacho or Sawaicho area) . The center of all the tourist traffic is the Toki no Kane tower. By the middle of the day on weekends or holidays it is very hard to walk on the streets as they are narrow and full of people. If you want to take pictures and see less crowds it is best to go early in the morning. As far as shopping targets go, I found some really nice leather and canvas bags at a shop right near the tower and their a tons of candy shops selling a huge assortment of very beautiful hard candies. They are arranged in elegant boxes and make nice gifts because of the different designs.

Tokyo Side Trip: Chichibu

Chichibu makes a nice side trip from Tokyo. You can get there from Ikebukuro Station on the “Red Arrow” train in 1.5 hours. The Red Arrow is a limited express with reserved seats so it’s a comfortable ride. In warmer months you can tour parks and ride wooden boats down the Arakawa (river) from Nagatoro where there are beautiful cliffs and rocks. Chichibu is also home to a number sake breweries and the Ichiro whisky distillery. Ichiro has gained notoriety in World whisky circles and was completely sold out in Chichibu. We were able to get a tour and tasting at the Bukou sake brewery. They usually require advance reservations for tour groups of 10 or more but made an exception for us. The house is about 260 years old and has a spring underneath which supplies water for the sake. You can see the well inside the building and then drink the water from a spout outside. Inside the shop, you can see holes in the timbers where farmers would place their cutting tools while they drank sake. Around the town there are shrines and many old buildings.

The city is popular with lovers of anime as the city was used as the backdrop of a Japanese anime TV series called “Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day” that has also been translated for distribution in the U.S. There’s one bridge in the anime that’s fairly unique in Japan so fans will make the long trek from the station. You can rent bikes right next to the station to make the trip. Finally there is an onsen (hot spring) connected to the station (look for Seibuchichibu Ekimae Onsen) so you can bathe, relax and eat before returning to Tokyo.

Overall Chichibu is an easy trip to see a small countryside city in Japan.

Tokyo off the beaten path

I have been returning to Tokyo for decades after living here for 3+ years meeting my wife and working for many Japanese companies. There is a slick, modern, classical, beautiful side of the city that you see in travel photos and on Instagram, but I like to look for the grittier side of cities as well. I live in San Francisco now and when I tell people I live there when I am traveling, people comment on what a beautiful city it is. I agree it has beauty but there is a gritty, dirty side that residents of the city deals with every day.

Now in Tokyo I have not seen people sleeping on porches of million dollar homes or people shooting up and using the sidewalk as their bathroom. Ok, late at night maybe there are drunk people urinating in public and puking on train platforms and in trains.

So back to the topic of this blog entry. I write this from a 24hr coffee shop (Jonathan’s) where I do my overseas conference calls as not to wake my family and relatives in the early morning hours. On this trip I have tried to capture more of the city that is seen by the typical working family and working people.

These are parts of Tokyo that have not gentrified and still have the old shopping streets or shotengai with coffee shops and izakaya. Ok there are some trendy “baru” restaurants popping up here and there but they are trying to look like there are old so they kind of fit in. Above are some areas you can get off the beaten path – Akabane in Kita-Ku, and the side streets or underground around Asakusa (the old downtown or shitamachi).

W. Eugene Smith and Eugene Atget exhibits at TOP Museum

Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness – W. Eugene Smith on his photo essay of the Minamata incident

I visited the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum which is in the beautiful Ebisu Garden Place complex in Tokyo, Japan. The museum was exhibiting on 3 floors: 3F – Eugène Atget: The Eternal Inspiration, 2F – Photographs of Innocence and of Experience
Contemporary Japanese Photography vol. 14, 1F – W. Eugene Smith: A Life in Photography. These shows run through January 28, 2018

On F3 you can see Atget’s beautiful images printed in the methods of his time and then printed in modern methods. You then move through short but sweet collections of works by Man Ray, Daido Moriyama, Lee Friedlander and others. F2 offered a nice break with vivid color work from contemporary Japanese (or working-in-Japan) photographers. The W. Eugene Smith exhibit is huge, covering the major photo essays he did for Life. It is exhausting to try to take all the images in in one afternoon. The strongest story for me was for the Minamata incident involving industrial pollution by the Chisso Chemical Co. that ravaged a Japanese fishing community. My son just studied it in his environmental science class so it was stirring for him as well.

I highly recommend this set of exhibits and TOP Museum. If you are looking for a place to stay or just have a great breakfast buffet, the Westin Tokyo across the street is wonderful. My suggestion is to have a breakfast buffet at the Westin, view part of TOP Museum, take a light lunch break in their 1F cafe, view the rest of TOP Museum and then have dinner at any of the fine restaurants on B1F or at the top of the Garden Place Tower (also called TOP); most of them reopen for dinner at 5:30pm. Ebisu Garden Place is accessible from Ebisu Station on the Yamanote Line. There is a covered walkway from the station to the complex.

iPhone 8+ camera is very good

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I’m in Tokyo and set out to shoot a lot of 35mm film. I brought the following equipment: Leica M10, Leica M6, Leitz Summicron 35mm f2 and Summicron 50mm f2, Nikon FM3a with Nikkor AF 50mm f1.4. I still prefer the compact and stealthy Leica M bodies for shooting in crowds but the Nikon’s bright finder, solid clunk of the shutter release and AE mode make it nice to shoot with as well; I’m just conscious of the big piece of metal in front of my face when I shoot.

Anyway, some days I just carry one of the film cameras and my iPhone 8+ which has the same rear camera set up as iPhone X. I bring along an Olloclip wide angle/ telephoto clip on lens for the phone. For travel photos, the wide angle lens is good to get more of a scene in. The top image was shot without the clip-on wide angle, the bottom B&W image was shot with the wide angle attached. I use the iPhone for shots I mostly plan on using for Instagram. Some have turned out so nice I am considering to print them large to see what they look like.

I use Snapseed on the phone to do my editing and find that it has everything I need to punch up color photos to Instagram attractiveness if I want to.

So basically I’m thinking that with the clip on lenses the iPhone replaces a compact camera as backup to my 35mm film and full-frame digital cameras. I was considering to pick up a Ricoh GRII here in Japan but it seems easier to handle just the iPhone and one real camera at once. I considered buying the Moment lenses but one advantage of the Olloclip is that both tele and wide are on the same bracket so you just flip it over and shoot with the one you need. The little nit-picks are: 1) you have to make sure the bracket is centered perfectly or you get vignetting, 2) for telephoto, you need to use a camera app like CameraPixels to select the “T” camera (the wide and tele cameras are side-by-side on the iPhone 8+).

Shooting film

bikes indoorplant2 rings sadpool Shooting film on an all-manual camera helps me slow down and think about the images I am making instead of chimping after each shot. Also the Leica M6 is small and doesn’t cover much of my face when shooting so it really feels like I’m not behind the camera. Finally I like the excitement of looking at a contact sheet to see what I got and then scanning them.