autumn tactics

There’s something I was supposed to do today… lots of things, actually. But for the life of me I can’t remember any of them. I am alive, very much so, but exhausted to my core and rind. There is an effervescent haze that encircles my every thought like a Shanghai summer, coughing up black.

Tomorrow I leave for Thailand, fulfilling my two international trips a year quota early. I want to be quiet and peaceful, I want to say little and listen much, I want to walk through ruins that look like the set of Ico and have ages’ old Buddhism seep into my subway-texting deadened pores and give me some kind of vibrance deeper than I can extract from any brown, small caffeine-laced bottle.

Oh the road so far out it doesn’t even make sense from a map or my mind. The texture of stone.

この24時間はどうしてのか空前な写真家として充実な一日でした。昨日PLACE Mのワークショップに写真を見せずに90分の他の人の写真をじっくり分析した。他の素人をみると、自分がどこで前に間違えたのか振り替えて、まだ間違えてるところを洗い出す。目が覚めた。

昨夜遅くまで誕生日会で、午後までゆっくりして、SHANEを視て分析した。監督の精選はなぜそういう風にした。なるほど。

午後からMASUO亭の写真を撮るのが依頼されて、店の魅力を表現するために5Dと露出的にアンダーの環境で挑戦した。それ後夜with triangleの伊藤さんと出版業界について下北のFREE FACTORYに話し合いました。

紹介してくれたり、熱心が移ったり、レベルアップさせたり．．．

感謝。

感激。

Time moves on whether you like it or not. Suns rise and set, the days go by and you do your best living. There is progress whether you choose to be conscious of it or not. Perhaps it’s the simple idea of things progressing naturally that’s reassuring. As humans we are inclined to feel a need for control, that we can stop the car whenever we want. But there’s a special peace of mind that comes from the expected, even if it’s out of our control. The plants will grow, the birds will sing, and time will go on, giving us an infinite array of moments to experience, savor, and smile upon.

I have big plans, and sometimes when they don’t go how I envision them it bothers me. But as time goes by things not going as you plan comes to have it’s own appeal. You’d think that as experience grows you would become jaded and accustomed to the world. But it’s not like that. You can be surprised every day of your life if you just give yourself the chance. I’m enjoying it.

People come and go, meeting only for a moment or joining hands for the rest of their lives. And all of them are special, unique, and to be treasured. From the girl you catch a smile from on a crowded train to family member who will be with you until the end. In the world there is so much chaos and unpredictability, but that’s not a challenge, it’s a blessing.

Tickles.

The weather has been flip-flopping the past week, spring to winter. Tomorrow are forecasts of snow. I’ve caught a cold. The website’s database server has been misbehaving (it’s miracle if you’re still around to see this). Work is bearing down on me. I’m woefully behind schedule for all of my big three projects for the year.

Things could be better.

But then again, things could be much, much, worse.

So, we do what we can. We do our very best to apply time management techniques to our time, and strive to make life better in at least one way, for ourselves and for others. Every day.

Tip: Start in ProPhoto, deliver in AdobeRGB.

I bought a new Canon 50mm USM lens for the 5D. The zoom that came with the kit was always limiting at f/4, so this prime should hold its own in handheld, low-light situations. Just in time for the company Christmas party!

I am back. For those who were out of the loop I was in Austria and Italy for a week. I have something to the order of 20 blog entries and 600+ shots from the trip. It will take me honestly weeks to get through them all, so please be patient. Right now I have to spend the next 144 hours at least focusing on Design Festa 28, which is this weekend. I am in complete ordered chaos as nothing is done, but somehow I will assemble a show with unique and original content. In the meantime, enjoy this corny picture of St. Mark’s Square and keep your eye on the blog.

Ciao.

Today is the first day I have been able to rest in over two months. Last night we delivered another build; all the milestones have run together like watercolor, and then proceeded to pack the company for moving on Sunday. When I left at 11:30, everyone got together and went to eat yakiniku, but meals centered around meat have become like strolls down the cheap whiskey aisle the morning after an all-weekend bender… my mind and my stomach are in complete unison in their revulsion towards slabs of red animal protein. So I dropped back to the tail of the procession and politely excused myself.

I came home and had a glorious three-quarter pint of Kilkenny’s, and fell asleep in front of the TV with the screen door open to the chilling drizzle. Luckily, the bitter cold got me up on time for my lunch with Yamamoto-san. In the process I actually managed to look half respectable in a button down with my new haircut and a fresh shave. We talked about pedestrian things: friends and family, the yen’s legacy of being pegged to the dollar, and the price of butter. After waving goodbye I stood in front of the Tokyu Plaza and my mind drifted for a few minutes. The breeze carried the mist in waves through the canopy of umbrellas in Shibuya, but I decided to stop at Omotesando and walk home through the Meiji shrine inner gardens.

I am so taut and bristling with verve. Yet my body has learned not to fight my spirit in fatigue and instead simply acquiesce, being led along at the hand like a bemused parent to a child’s string of sensuous wonders on Saturday.

Recently, every time it’s been sunny outside I’ve had the almost overpowering urge to climb on the Enjoy, ride around with a couple of rolls of Super Gold, and get a crackle-cold bin beer at the peak of my adventure. This is most assuredly the natural romantic in me augmented by my swollen loathing of computers. However, as nice as it generating gigabytes of data to archive, it creates a disproportional amount of back stock which may never see the light of day.

You are probably thinking, “Rusty, I haven’t gotten any pings from your Gallery RSS in months. I see a fair number of shots in your blog, but it’s just a tiny sliver from what you’ve been up to with little frame of reference.”

Yes, yes, you’re right. If I don’t improve my skills on the post-shutter click side of things, I’ll never get anything better for the shows. The truth is, I have enough material to produce years’ worth of similarly-assembled appearances at Geisai and Design Festa. But, there are three major problems with it all:

1) it’s unprocessed
2) it’s all unrelated (aside from the relation of my mundane current style, which draws jaded criticism in its own right)
3) the presentation medium is sparse, fragmented, and high school level

So, today despite it being one of the last few hot glorious days of summer, I stayed in this morning and put together two new albums for Gallery. One is touristy (thusly in Travel), and another slightly more artistic (in Tokyo Bicycle Wanderings).

The former is my trip to Seoul which happened only three weeks ago! That’s a pretty good turnaround for me. The latter is a trip to the Arakawa in July. Of particular interest to shutterbugs is that this set is a mix of the A-1 and 5D, and some similar shots are set up around the river, so you can see the differences in the medium and my current mastery of the formats. It’s not very scientific, the comparison factor was probably just in the back of my mind. So keeping this in mind, Ken, have a look and let me know what you think (provided I ever get the damn comments working again.)

Je suis revenu de mes vacances à la Corée, toutefois je suis toujours en vacances à la maison parce que maintenant c’est obon. Je passe mes jours dans la ville prenant des photographies. Il fait chaud. Le ciel est bleu, et les pluies du soleil vers le bas sur mes épaules nues. J’erre, d’un air endormi observant le écoulement des touristes le long de l’avenue ombragée.

Pourquoi la vie me fascine-t-elle ainsi?

近年段々冷夏になってた感じがします。

でも相変わらず、夏です。ビーチへ行ったり、野球試合を見たり、都心にぶらぶら歩いて考えます。

何回もそのピリッとした気持ちを経験すると、活動は擦り切れたレーザーのような、柔軟になります。活動は古い友達で、哀れみ深い。一千回早稲田大学までのんびり乗る。青島ビンに結露が生じて、歩道のひびを見詰める。

ああ、夏…僕らは一生にお互いを飽きれない。

Recently I’ve been going over sites looking for for Photoshop コツ while playing with CS2, and it’s sobering at times to find photos that look a lot like mine in terms of processing. Though I’ve been getting decent mileage out of levels and unsharp mask, Eliot Shepard has it down to a science. The Slower atn he provides on his site boxes up the basic elements to fuss with into one cascade of dialogs.

Which shot do _you_ like better? Check out the incredible detail that emerges in the water droplets (enlargements here and here).

This sort of thing is gradually getting wired into the firmware for digital cameras (5D, cough) making it even more mainstream for people to have punchy contrast and crisp edges in their tailgate and dog show photos. Ultimately what this means is I need to start getting a lot more creative with composition, or give up enough of my life to be one of those full-time guys that has a digital SLR body grafted onto his hand to find offbeat subjects. Being an engineer with a hunk of debt I’ll go the former and ultimately have to lean more on artistry than technique.

I don’t how or where it’ll lead exactly, but I’ve got to start climbing up. I’ve overstayed my welcome on this plateau.

何これ、この超現実的な平穏感じ？落ち着いたじゃなくて、沸騰。揺れる。アンティシペーション。真っ直ぐ進んで、一歩一歩元気な足取り。狂気ですか。いや、その軽い白昼夢。若者同類ででもそんなに狙いがないさ。なんか愛したいと思えるけど今だけ愛は中じゃなくて、愛は外。

We took a walk that night, but it wasn’t the same
We had a fight on the promenade out in the rain
She said she loved me, but she had somewhere to go
She couldn’t scream while I held I close
I swore I’d never let her go
Tell me what you wanna know
Oh come on, oh come on, oh come on
There ain’t no motive for this crime
Jenny was a friend of mine
So come on, oh come on, oh come on

Tell me what you wanna know
Oh come on, oh come on, oh come on
And then you whisper in my ear
I know what you’re doing here
So come on, oh come on, oh come on
There ain’t no motive for this crime
Jenny was a friend of mine
Oh come on, oh come on, oh come on

– The Killers