travel photography – SteveMedinaPhotography.com

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.

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+).