Category: People

Views of people from around the world

Friday (18-May-2018) — Japan

Gone to See Japan.  Street Photography Workshop with Steve Simon and Soichi Hayashi. Day 2: Tokyo (Shinjuku Station, Harajuku, Shibuya).

The sky cleared, and the rising sun was reflected into my hotel room off the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. It took six images to get the entire building in order to generate a composite image. I still need to work a bit on the geometry of the two towers.

Reflections of the Sun Rising. Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building from the Keio Plaza Hotel. Composite of six images taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens. Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and AutoPano Giga Pro. (David J Mathre)
Reflections of the Sun Rising. Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building from the Keio Plaza Hotel. Composite of six images taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens. Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and AutoPano Giga Pro. (David J Mathre)

The first stop in the morning was the Shinjuku Station. This is the worlds largest and busiest transportation hub. We got there in time to observe the morning rush. I have never seen so many people moving in an almost choreographed manner.  I couldn’t really figure out how to capture the frenetic activity in a single photograph, so decided to make a short time lapse video of passengers entering and exiting at one of the main entrances.

After this I went outside to clear my head and look for another subject. I found a pedestrian bridge where I could watch a busy street crossing from a distance. The folks in Japan only cross at intersections when permitted by a green light. As soon as the green light starts blinking the pedestrians start running to avoid being in the cross walk after the light changes. These images of folks starting to run rather than walk were taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera with a 70-300 mm VR telephoto lens in burst mode.



In the afternoon we traveled to the famous Harajuku area and Shibuya shopping district. I am starting to lean toward a theme of folks taking pictures with phones, especially if I can see the image within the image on the back of the phone. Despite my preference for B&W, I have to show the two women in Harajuku with brightly colored hair. I noticed a large number of non-Japanese tourists during this walkabout.




Individual images in the slide shows can be viewed here.

Thursday (17-May-2018) — Japan

Gone to See Japan.  Street Photography Workshop with Steve Simon and Soichi Hayashi. Day 1: Tokyo.

May 17th is the day that Norway celebrates its independence. There was an article in the newspaper delivered to my hotel room where Japan congratulates Norway, and comments on the shared goals of both nations — especially having to do with the sea and fishing.

The sun rises very early here in Tokyo — at 04:35. Combination of latitude,  and not adjusting the time in the summer (daylight savings time in the US).  I am not sure how the local residents use this daylight time in the morning. I did see a group doing stretches and exercising in Chuo park near Niagara falls at 06:30. I took some pictures of the group from my hotel room (on the 20th floor, distance about 400 meters). Then played with the scripts/statistics function within PhotoShop to try to indicate the motion. Later on after breakfast I went for another walk in the park.

Pink Poppy Flower at Shinjuku Chuo Park in Tokyo. Image taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens. (David J Mathre)
Pink Poppy Flower at Shinjuku Chuo Park in Tokyo. Image taken with a Leica CL camera and 23 mm f/2 lens. (David J Mathre)

The Street Photography workshop started at noon, with a lunch and initial classroom session. After an initial greeting and orientation we got to look at some samples of the workshop participants work, and expectations of what we would be doing for the next eight days. Each day we would have a review session of the images taken the previous day. We also needed to decide on a theme/subject/story line for what we would be photographing. The definition of “Street Photography” can be nebulous. After the classroom session we did a photography warm-up walkabout in Shinjuku. There area is visually overwhelming, and I was having trouble even deciding on what to shoot. During the classroom session, Steve suggested using prime lenses, aperture mode (relatively wide open with a narrow range of focus), a high shutter speed of > 1/400 second (to stop motion — both subject and photographer), and auto ISO (up to 3200 depending on camera sensor). The two cameras that I am using for the workshop (Leica CL, and Leica TL2) do not react and focus as fast as some of the Nikon Pro cameras I am used to. I selected the mirror-less cameras and lenses that I would be using based on their lighter weight (both for travel and being smaller and less conspicuous for street photography).  I set the cameras to display the B&W image. I also chose to mainly work with B&W images for this workshop (although I saved the raw images so I can get to the color images). As you can see from the street walkabout images, I was struggling.

Individual images in the slide shows can be viewed here.





Five-Years Ago (06-May-2013) — Morocco

Gone to See Europe and North Africa. Semester at Sea Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage on the MV Explorer. Ultimate Travel Photography Workshop IV with Michael Mariant. Day 10: Casablanca, Marrakech, and Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

Berber farmer reaping golden wheat in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

Berber Farmer Reaping the Wheat. Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 Camera and 10-100 mm VR lens (ISO 160, 24 mm, f/5, 1/250 sec). (David J Mathre)
Berber Farmer Reaping the Wheat. Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 Camera and 10-100 mm VR lens (ISO 160, 24 mm, f/5, 1/250 sec). (David J Mathre)

Monday (23-April-2018) — New Jersey

Backyard Springtime in New Jersey.

The temperatures have warmed a bit, so it is time to get started on the red-brick walkway around the house. The path was laid out last fall with gravel and fine stone dust. The Japanese Andromeda shrub is in bloom. This, and the daffodils are some of the few flowers ignored by the ravenous deer.



Sunday (08-April-2018) — New Jersey

Early Springtime Backyard Nature and A Geology Walk at Rock Mill Preserve.

Several small birds working the bird feeder greeted me in the morning. I switched to a Nikon D4 camera and 600 mm f/4 lens on a Wembly tripod just inside the patio door. The camera is just past the minimum focus distance for this camera/lens combination. Birds captured include: Tufted Titmouse, Black Eyed Junco, Chipping Sparrow, House Finch, American Robin, and Black Crow. Later, in the afternoon I attended a monthly “Sunday Walk in the Park” events. This month the subject was the geology in central New Jersey and took place at Rock Mill Preserve, located within walking distance from my house.



Individual images from the slide shows can be viewed here.