Archive for October, 2009
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
Tokyo is an urban jungle that reflects it’s past and present.  It’s not uncommon to find a Geisha girl shopping in Ginza or Japanese business men tucked away in a small yakitori joint. I saw some things that reminded me how modern Tokyo is.  The first was Roppongi Hills thru a glass enclosure looking towards a bank of escalators.  I liked the reflections the camera caught in the back ground. The second photo was taken in the lobby of the Tokyo International forum. The mirrors created a very futuristic look.
The modern Tokyo is a gallery of mirrors, buildings and windows reflect each other creating a virtual city, what is real, what is a reflection what is digital. People appear and disappear between buildings, life become a game in a maze of images. Within the complexity and craze of Tokyo, a subtle harmony exist, a combination of tradition and futuristic simplicity.
Tags: Japan photos, Street Photography, Tokyo, Travel photography
Posted in Japan, My Work, Street Photography | 1 Comment » | Link
Monday, October 19th, 2009
Soul stirring, graceful, gorgeous – every region in Japan celebrates its own festivals and events in response to the transition of the four seasons. Called matsuri, festivals can be found almost everyday somewhere in Japan. Many festivals have their origin in Shinto and Buddhism, while other events, such as snow festivals and fireworks displays are held for pleasure.
One of the best Shinto festivals is the Grand Festival of Toshogu Shrine.  Toshogu shrines can be found throughout Japan. The most famous Toshougu is located in Nikko in Tochigi Prefecture, one of Japan’s most popular destinations. Nikko is unbelievably magnificent. One of the best areas in Japan that I’ve been to. The Toshogu Shrine is the main attraction of Nikko. The Shinto shrine is dedicated to the kami (spirit) of Ieyasu (d. 1616), who founded the Tokugawa Shogunate, a military dynasty that ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867.  To create a worthy shrine for the shogun, 15,000 craftsman worked for two years, using 2.5 million sheets of gold leaf. The enshrinement of Ieyasu’s spirit is reenacted twice each year, once in May and again in October, in the Procession of the Thousand Samurai Warriors. Nikko is also famous for the carving of the three wise monkey’s, hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil.
So what’s so special about the the event?  Three portable shrines are carried from the ornate main shrine to the sacred place among the cedars called Otabisho.  They are escorted by the 1,000 samurai procession, made up of cavalry, warriors carrying guns with spear, and archers with bows and arrows. The scene is quite spectacular and almost epic.  It’s hard to imagine that this re-creation has been going on since the 17th century.
 
 
More events like these, such as the Kanda Matsuri, can be found on my Photoshelter site.
Tags: Festival, Japan photos, Travel photography
Posted in Festival, Japan, My Work, Travel | 2 Comments » | Link
Friday, October 9th, 2009
For some, the plaintive wail of the shakuhachi (Japanese Flute) typifies the sound of Japan. For others it may be the ethereal pluckings of the koto, but nothing sounds more like Japan than the thunder of the taiko drums.  ”Taiko” in general is often used to mean the relatively modern art of Japanese drum ensembles (kumi-daiko), but the word actually refers to the taiko drums themselves. Literally, taiko means “fat drum,” although there is a vast array of shapes and sizes of taiko. Within the last fifty years since kumi-daiko was created, it has seen phenomenal growth to the point where there are over 8,000 taiko groups in Japan by some counts.  I shoot many festival and cultural events here in Japan. At many of them you can always find a taiko or some other kind of drumming performance.  I’ve seen a few good performances at the Hachioji Matsuri, Fukuro Matsuri, and the Tachikawa Suwa Shrine Summer Festival along with many other images on my Photoshelter site.
Taiko drumming goes back to the earliest Japanese communities where it was a part of daily life and rituals. Its roots stem from the drums that priests played to banish evil spirits and farmers played to celebrate bountiful harvests. Samurai used to carry taiko into battle to bolster their courage while instilling fear in the hearts of their enemies. Taiko were also used to carry the prayers of the people to their gods.
Today, taiko has become a dynamic performance art form of musical drumming and choreographed movement based upon traditional Japanese styles and techniques. It’s loud, strenuous, and pulsating with adrenaline. Rooted in the heart and spirit of Japan, taiko lives today as an evolving art form that is permeating the world.
Kodo is probably the most famous elite taiko drumming troupe based on Sado Island, Japan. They regularly tour Japan, Europe, and the United States. Many foreigners are learning taiko drumming these days.  Maybe it’s time to learn how to play the drums, except it must be taiko!
Tags: Festival, Japan photos, Travel photography
Posted in Festival, Japan, My Work, People, Travel | No Comments » | Link
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
Christian Houge lives and works in Oslo, Norway. His work has been exhibited at ParisPhoto, PhotoLondon and ArtBasel, as well as solo shows both in London, Oslo, New York and San Francisco.  Christian Houge has created a new body of work; Okuriomono.  With Okuriomono, Christian Houge guides us into a mystery between the ritualized shapes of the traditional Zen garden in Kyoto and the equally ritualized spaces of futuristic, urban Tokyo.  Both past and future Japan are explored and the contrasts are striking but alarmingly similar.  I found Christian’s images intriguing.
Excerpt by Erling Bugge: “…Christian Houge guides us into a mystery. For a westerner, Japan might look familiar, since what is held up for us looks like a futuristic spectacle somehow grounded in a western imagination. This judgment, however, is too easy. In Houge’s photographs, the sense of sameness withdraws and a very different feeling of strangeness creeps up on us. In fact, what this series registers is a remarkable place of alterity in today’s global order, a radical difference bang in the middle of the familiar.
This is pushed to the limit in the technological and virtual wonderland of Akihabara in Tokyo, where shop after shop trades in electronic products and computer games, while a weird costume play, “cosplayâ€, is being performed in the streets. A similar kind of simulation is being acted out in the district of Harajuku, where Houge found some of his motifs. There is no authenticity here, no western “essence†or “realityâ€; instead, the virtual conquers the carnal body in a purified play of surface, image and the hyperreal. This is exotic. All the while as we are conscious of these notions as pinnacle points in a western idea of the post-modern. But in this sense Japan has always been “post-modernâ€. It has always integrated the most refined culture and technology from the outside while somehow retained an identity for itself. So, what would this identity be? Houge takes the view of ritual and play. Indeed, Japanese culture seems to be grounded solely on ritual, in business and in sex, in its relation to nature and in religion….”
More photographs at Christian Houge web site.
Tags: Japan, Photographer, Travel photography
Posted in Japan, News, Photographers | 1 Comment » | Link
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