Dave-Sensei

Okiten 2012 Judging Results

2012-01-27T22:03:00.000+09:00

Today the results for the photography category of Okiten 2012 were announced. (Just a reminder, Okiten is Okinawa's art show.) I've been working on my entries for four months, so the anticipation was pretty high. The results are printed in the Okinawa Times newspaper today, but since I live on a faraway island, we don't get that paper until the first boat arrives at 10am. And the results aren't posted online until about 9:30am, so I had to wait. Except, my ex-girlfriend sent me an email at 8:20am that said "Congratulations." I quickly sent back three messages as my brain couldn't keep up with my typing and clicking of 'Send'. But she wouldn't give any more details except to say "check the paper".

I had a class first period but afterwards I was able to see the results online:

The gist of that text is that there were 335 photos entered and 98 selected for display at the show. The top award was not awarded, but the Okiten award and mayor's award and a few honorable mentions were announced at the top, then (in order of the city you are from) all of the 'display awards' are listed. My name is highlighted in yellow.

Here's the newspaper clipping. My name is in the lower left corner in the text that doesn't look like kanji.

The show is in March. Interestingly enough, I don't actually know which of my two entries was selected. I should find out next week.

The Making of the Fire Dancing Shot

2012-01-25T22:32:00.001+09:00

As I alluded in my previous post, I would explain how I made the firedancing photo which I entered in Okiten this year. The idea began as simply a desire to photograph Zamami's fire dancer for the Zamami People Project. But I had all summer to think about it and as time passed, I began to want to make it an epic shot - something beyond just a simple long exposure of flames. I wanted to include an element that made it Zamami. But darkness complicates this. I had ideas to have him do the dance at the port while I took the shot from the end of a jetty, placing the village in the background, but I think this would've just ended in a big washout of hotel lights with a small, indistinguishable fire pattern at the bottom. I don't remember how the thought process jumped to a beach and star trails, but it did. I scouted three different beaches, photographing all three of them at night. Eventually I settled on one of the most remote beaches on the island because it offered multiple opportunities at dramatic shots with minimal outside light pollution, yet still containined recognizable Zamami elements.

[One of five 'rare' coconut crabs I came across during my numerous night rendezvous to Nita Beach]

With the location set, I contacted my good friend Yoshio who owns a local guest house. He helped me form a letter to write to Kiwamu, the fire dancer. We met with Kiwamu the next day and worked through a misunderstanding of the purpose of the photo shoot (he didn't realize it was for a Zamami photo project) and eventually we settled on a price I would pay to cover his fuel costs and some of his time, which I thought was more than fair.

Next, since I was paying real money for this one shot, I needed to practice. So when my friends Hazel and Setsuko were out for Sabani in September, I talked them into walking to this beach and using flashlights I'd tied onto strings as mock 'pois' (to imitate the fire on a rope). I set up my camera in the three places I'd previously scouted and had the two ladies walk along the beach swinging their flashlights. They were great sports and helped me out immensely with my exposure settings and framing ideas. I think all-in-all it took us over four hours to do the practice shoot and we didn't return until after 1am.

[flashlight practice]

Now I was ready for the fire dancing shot. We met on a weekend night with Yoshio and his girlfriend, who drove us to the path that leads down a treacherous mountain trail to the beach.

[Yoshio and Kiwamu]

At the beach we did some warm-ups before I was set. I explained the first shot and what I wanted him to do (i.e. how important it was that he kept moving in one direction because if he spent too much time in one spot the light would overexpose that section of the photo). It ended up that he was fantastic at understanding what I needed and I got usable shots from all three of my planned points plus a bonus (which ended up being the shot I used). I was proud of how efficient I was with everything and how I nailed the shots I needed - in retrospect I can't think of anything I would do differently. :)

I still would like to complete each of the best photos from the three shoot locations so I will not post those flames here, but you can see a sample of the different angles and patterns we did above.

So the most exciting portion of the shoot was done, but that was still only about 33% of the completed shot. Next I needed the startrails and lastly, I needed Photoshop.

There no clear skies good enough for a two-hour exposure before I left to America in October, so I paid attention every night in November and December until finally a starry night opened up around December 20th. The next four nights found me at the beach, either fighting with clouds or actually taking photos. On the night that I got the usable star trails, I was at the beach for seven hours (7pm-2am) completing the three shots.

[A sample shot taken just to get my framing correct. I know it's beautiful and maybe nicer than the star trails photo, but this is taken at the highest ISO setting my camera offers and the quality is awful. Taking shots of stars that are not trailing is hard (while maintaining usable quality)]

One of the few things that film is still good at is long, single exposures (i.e. star trails). When shooting in digital, too much noise develops as the sensor heats up so the best way to shoot star trails is as a composite of many short exposures. I chose a shutter speed of 30 seconds and put my camera on continuous shoot mode for two hours. Then I moved to the next spot and repeated. And again. Fortunately I brought my computer and watched a couple movies then fell asleep. But I couldn't see what exactly I was produced until I got home and stacked the 120 exposures together to see the final product. Here is what I got:

The first exposure of the series for each of those three was about 4-5 minutes. I did that to make sure and develop some ambient light in the sky and foreground so I could tweak it later (i.e. add contrast). Without that long exposure the photo would just be black and white - you wouldn't be able to see the island outlines, the beach in the foreground, or the colored sky.

Those shots were not what I had in mind, but the second shot was passable so I went with it as winter once again clouded over the skies. The last portion of the photo was putting the fire dancing shot together with the star trails shot (taken in the same location) in Photoshop. That is boring so I won't detail it, but it took a long time and I learned a lot along the way.

Once I finished the composite we once again got a clear, starry night (the Wednesday of the week I was to turn in the photo to the art show), so I ran back to the beach to try to get better star trails. This is an example of what happens when you forget to do one extra long exposure at the beginning to bring out the detail of the foreground and sky:

[nothing can be done with this photo so it was a three-hour lesson in what not to do]

[another huge coconut crab]

Lastly I had to print. At the same time I had to learn to print. This means adjusting exposure to account for the fact that things look brighter on a computer screen than on paper. It also means getting the printer and paper profiles matched up until everything is perfect. In the meantime each of those prints costs me about $8 between the paper and ink.

But I'm happy with the final (for now) fire dancing photo and am excited to get going on the remaining images for the Zamami People Project.

Okiten 2012

2012-01-21T21:46:00.000+09:00

For the last month I've been hard at work on a few photos for my 2012 Okiten (Okinawa art show) entry, but I didn't want to show them off until they were finished. The first photo is one that I developed during the spring of 2011. I let it simmer in my brain during the summer before finally settling on a plan, which began in September. The location I selected for the shoot was on one of the furthest beaches from my apartment, which was not convenient. During the course of this shot I made over 20 trips to the beach to scout, do practice shots, do the real thing, then go back to get the star trails shots. Between that and the post-processing, there's easily 40 hours into this photograph. I will do another post later further detailing how it came about. This shot is actually meant for the Zamami People Project that I am working on, but I liked it enough to use as one of my two Okiten entries.

The actual photo is a composite of ~120 different frames taken over the course of two hours. What you are seeing in the foreground is a dance performed by Zamami's fire dancer, Kiwamu Miyakubo.

I'm not very optimistic that it will be chosen for display (or a prize) at Okiten, but considering how subjective the judges seem to be, it might get lucky.

The second entry was inspired by an online friend of mine who critiqued last year's entry of a young girl as being 'too easy of a shot' to win at an art show. She suggested shooting old people instead because they aren't naturally as cute or willing to be photographed as kids. I spent much of the last year trying to think who would fit the bill and it finally it came to me during Geruma's Sports Day in September when I photographed this man's hands. He also wove the bamboo baskets that were given as prizes during that rope-making contest, so I approached him in December to ask if he could make a basket and let me photograph him during the process. He obliged and so I spent a Saturday on Geruma shooting him for two hours, then I went back on Sunday to photograph him using the basket for its traditional historical use, collecting shellfish.

I was pleased with the photographs, which actually turned out to be a little troublesome. I had 1400 shots to sort through and it was very difficult to narrow down the choices. I settled on 15 of the best shots and sent them out to some trusted [photographer] friends to get their votes. Unfortunately the votes were spread all over, accompanied by many valid reasons for the various choices. Eventually I settled on using the panorama shown, which meant I needed two 'portrait-oriented' photos above. I wanted one with his face in focus and one with his hands. The hand shot chosen doesn't compete very well with the landscape hands-only shots I took, but I just couldn't make the formatting work to include a landscape (though now, in retrospect, I think I might have been able to include two landscapes on the right side).

My entry, which was submitted late due to printer troubles I had last week, was numbers 336 and 337 in the photo category. Of that total, I think around 100 will be chosen for display during the art show and of those, only 4-5 will be awarded prizes. I am not expecting to win a prize, but I would be quite pleased if my work was chosen for display.

Here are the completed, framed photos as I submitted them today:

Judging is Wednesday and results are announced Friday.

School Bread

2011-12-23T20:14:00.000+09:00

We made cinnamon bread in class at Aka this week! I used this recipe, referred to me by my friend, Vaughn.

I taught the kids two important things to make bread-making easy: (1) disregard all the steps the recipe gives you, just put all the liquids together, then put all the dry ingredients in (flour last) and (2) don't measure flour, just keep adding it until you get the right consistency (a ball that is just past 'sticky').

[Who does the dishes? Girls, of course]

[post rising dough - thankfully it wasn't a cold day]

[rolling out the dough]

[adding a thin layer of water - I taught the students that this is the most important step of the whole recipe because if the dough is too wet, all the cinnamon sugar will melt out into a pool at the bottom]

[adding tons of cinnamon sugar]

[I didn't stick around for the tasting because I had to catch a boat, but I daresay this was the best bread I've ever had come out of a class - and I've probably made bread ~10 times with my students]

Homemade Pasta

2011-12-16T21:20:00.000+09:00

[It's a lot of work]

Christmas Cards

2011-12-12T20:57:00.001+09:00

This is the lesson I do with my kids every year at Christmas. Usually doing the whole thing (including the snowflake and the writing) would be too much for kindergarten, but at Geruma the kindergarteners are very advanced. I love these two kids - they have so much personality. They know the days of the week, weather patterns, fruits and vegetables, the alphabet, and many verbs. And when I ask them questions in Japanese (outside of class) they always answer with "yes" or "no". It's very cute.

[You can see they have never written Roman characters before, but I had them do it so that a 10 years from now they can look back with amusement at their first attempt.]

Stock/Family Shoot

2011-12-09T21:04:00.000+09:00

A few of the photos from a shoot I did at the beach last weekend:

Huntin' Fool Cover, December 2011

2011-12-04T16:45:00.001+09:00

If you've been following my blog for awhile you may remember last year's sheep hunt in Oregon. I never gave a real thorough recap on the blog, partially because I submitted the story to a magazine that required an exclusivity contract until publishing. Well, this month I've been published in one of the most popular hunting magazines - and I made the cover! This is great news because cover stories win a pair of $2000 Zeiss Victory FL T 10x42 binoculars.

Here's a scanned copy of the magazine:

Here's the story (and a few pictures at the bottom):

My winter/spring is probably like most hunters': using the Huntin' Fool to help with my decision-making as I pore through websites of the western states, comparing notes and point totals with my dad and uncles, and finally applying. The spring of 2010 started like all others: checking websites as the results came in and watching my point totals tick up while the backup plan to an 'over-the-counter' state seemed like the reality once again. But then I checked Oregon, the second-to-last state to post its results. I'd drawn the only nonresident Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep tag in the state - one that 535 of us applied for!

I live and work as an English teacher on a small island in Okinawa, Japan, which makes scouting in Oregon difficult. But thanks to the Internet, I was able to do a lot through email and Skype. I made hundreds of phone calls to the biologist, past hunters, landowners, and anybody else to whom I could get a phone number. I gleaned a lot of valuable information from the choices of the lottery and raffle tag holders and also tried to learn as much as I could about the resident tag holder for my same season. My dad and uncles attended the Oregon FNAWS welcome orientation in July and I was also lucky enough to get a passionate response on an Oregon hunting forum from Shane, a guy who took time off work and away from his family just to join us on the sheep hunt.

It took me 34 hours and over 7000 miles of travel via ferry, flying, and driving before I could meet up with my dad and uncles to embark on this most epic of hunts, one which I am only allowed to draw a tag for once in my lifetime.

Scouting proved difficult as the unit is huge, but having permission and gate combinations sorted beforehand helped immensely. Shane’s wise decision to bring along his dirt bike helped to reach some of the far corners of the unit while my dad, uncles, and I concentrated on the long, centralized ridges. But the pickings were thin – and mostly ewes. More than once I’d wished for a bull elk tag, but I reminded myself not to get too greedy. I had talked to one of the two hunters from the September sheep season and he offered advice on where he'd last seen the biggest rams. My dad and I made a plan to hike seven miles out that ridge and hunt it from above on opening morning.

We reached the end of the ridge in the late afternoon and set up a small camp in the only grove of trees before making our way to the very end for evening glassing, where my dad promptly spotted three rams. I examined them as best I could on 60x before finally determining that one was probably a full-curl on his left and over a full curl on the right horn. It gave me a lot to think about that night while my dad did what dads do: he built a fire much larger than we needed.

On opening morning we were up at dawn for the 10-minute walk to the end of the ridge, where we could still see the rams feeding on a faraway point. Just as they appeared to be going out of sight, two of the rams turned and began working back towards us. Eventually the bigger one bedded on a point facing us, conveniently so that his hide served as a light-colored backdrop from which we could judge his horn lengths every time he turned his head. This sheep hunt differed from all my deer and elk hunts in that I had ample time to make a decision. There came a point when I was sure of the horn lengths, a little apprehensive about the mass, but feeling like I had all the information I needed to make a decision. That, of course, was agonizing. It was 9am on opening morning of a ten-day once-in-a-lifetime hunt and I had a dream ram in front of me. But I was also hunting in a unit that put out a 189 ram last year and has the potential to produce more like that. If I subtracted the 3-4 inches from the broomed side along with my questions about the mass, I could be looking at a low-180's ram. Was that what I came for? Well, the answer, as it became apparent, was that I came for a ram that would make me happy. I had to balance my circumstances - a huge unit, unguided, help that is getting up in age - and conclude that this was a beautiful ram less than a mile away and unaware of my presence. So I decided to take the plunge down off the top of the mountain and see if I could get a shot at him. My dad followed a little ways, but stopped knowing that we'd have to go back up to retrieve the camp.

I made a plan to follow the backside of a ridge down and pop out across the creek bottom from the big, bedded ram. The smaller ram was feeding in the bottom so I expected the larger ram to follow. I'd take him when he fed closer to me. But I only made it a short distance when the big ram jumped up, ran to the bottom, crossed to my side, and began working out away and to my right. I quickly adjusted my plan and climbed back over to the center finger ridge to head him off from above.

When I came upon a cliff - an inevitability in this country - I started ranging everything below me. All the likely shooting windows were 250-300 yards - further than I'd prefer but a distance I can do. I only sat for a few minutes before I spied the two rams feeding between large boulders below. I tried to set up my camera to video the shot, but fighting the tall grass with my short tripod became a chore that cost me at least two shooting chances. After moving down to the left 50 yards, I set the camera down to concentrate on the nice window I was expecting the sheep to enter. The big ram came out first, standing broadside at 304 yards. I quickly checked that the curls extended down to his jawline and came up to his nose (and beyond) before settling the bobbing crosshairs behind his shoulder and pulling the trigger. I ejected the .270 Win. shell, put in another, and lined up again. Unfortunately the ram was still standing. He had flipped directions, but he was still broadside so I took another shot. The rams were confused after the first shot, but now they knew trouble was brewing. The younger ram led the way back. I looked left and saw him run through a window before the bigger ram appeared and paused. Recognizing this could be my last good chance, I fired once more before he stepped out of sight.

I worked my way down until I could look back into the hole where the ram had last stepped and there, on the ground, was a downed sheep. I put the binoculars up and immediately felt an awful knot twist in my stomach. The left horn looked half-to-three-quarter curl. Something I had learned in my sheep research was that when rams run, the biggest always leads. Even though I was sure the smaller ram had been the first to retreat, doubt crept in. I ditched my rifle and pack to be more agile on the 20-minute ravine crossing, but once I reached the sheep and lifted his head, I was relieved to see I had in fact killed the ram I was after.

When I got back to my dad I sat down without saying anything, not realizing until I sat down that his vantage point didn’t afford him a view of the action and he didn’t yet know the outcome. After recounting the story and radioing the result to the rest of the team, we hiked back up to get our camp. Shane immediately set out from the truck and reached the ram at the same time my dad and I returned. A flurry of picture-taking ensued along with appreciation for the ram's ability to die on the only flat spot around. The meat-cutting went quickly, the pack down out of sheep country did not. Needless to say, we slept well that night.

The next day, the second of the season, we were packing up to move onto our next hunt: South Dakota pheasant hunting. But we had to stop at the Enterprise Fish and Game office first, where the biologist took a green score of the horns then – much to my dismay – drilled a hole in the horn for a DNA sample and to insert an identification plug. The final Boone and Crockett score on this 7.5-year-old ram was 182 4/8.

It’s hard to explain hunting tag lotteries, once-in-a-lifetime $1300 sheep tags, and B&C scores to non-hunters. It’s even harder doing it to children who speak a different language. So instead, when I returned to Okinawa I spent a lesson with each of my Japanese classes giving them a video and pictorial tour of the American hunting experience and its cultural importance to us. I was also able to share a sample of Bighorn Sheep summer sausage with every student, which they loved.

Zamami Baseball

2011-11-30T22:02:00.000+09:00

I joined the baseball team last year prior to the annual November tournament, but had a terrible showing and didn't blog about it. This year I was able to play in more games and while things didn't go much better at the plate, they went well in the field.

[not a very large cheering section for either team]

For the first two games I went 1-7 in batting, including at least three strikeouts (one I strongly disagreed with). I did do well playing second base, though, committing zero errors. The team had high hopes for my batting because I routinely hit the ball further than everybody during batting practice, but I think only I noticed that I had less fielding errors than anyone else on the team.

['Santa' owns a restaurant under the same name. He has three kids: GenTA, KanTA, and UTA, hence "san" "ta" (san = 3 in Japanese)]

In the semi-final game I was relegated to eighth in the batting order and right field (where I had two flawless plays!). One run had scored on an error and there were runners on 2nd and 3rd when I came up the first time, facing the principal of Geruma school on the mound. On the first pitch I cranked the ball over the center fielder and to that wall visible in the upper left of that picture above. It was a very solid double, knocking in both runs. The next runner walked, then I stole third (on my own!) then he stole second, then we both got knocked in on a single. On my second at-bat I again cranked the ball to center on the first pitch, but this time it was caught. I struck out the third time.

Unfortunately we lost the game 7-5 because our pitchers walk almost everybody, but I was very glad to finally exhibit some of my power, and off a school principal no less!

[I have no idea what the name of our team means]

The Doctor's Family

2011-11-28T21:58:00.000+09:00

I photographed two Zamami families this past weekend. The first was for stock photos, which I will share later, but the second was the Zamami doctor's family. I ran into the wife (who speaks English) on Saturday night and was talking about photography. I offered to take her family's pictures for their New Year's cards and they immediately accepted, so we set a time for Sunday morning.

It only took 25 minutes to get 4-5 poses, which was fortunate because concentration began running thin on the young children, dogs, and baby after about 15 minutes. I gained a new respect for family portrait photographers. I did this session for free because I'm a nice guy but also just to see how it would go (always learning!). I can see I have room for improvement, but I'm happy with the variation I got in such a short time.

Running Socks

2011-11-27T21:26:00.000+09:00

I like to wear them until they are worn out. Do you think I need a new pair?

Toru the FIsherman

2011-11-24T22:56:00.001+09:00

I haven't been in either a blogging or photographing mood since returning from America on November 2nd, so yesterday I grabbed my camera and forced myself outside. My intent was to photograph close ups of things I would usually walk past, but instead I walked past those things and photographed Toru - Zamami's dentist - who spends all of his free days fishing off this rock. He didn't know I took the picture, either, so I awarded myself five bonus points.

Arashiyama Bamboo

2011-11-22T18:54:00.001+09:00

Now that I have gone through David Nightingale's HDR course, I can begin tackling the shots I took in August back before I knew how to do HDR but correctly guessed I would soon learn. I had higher hopes for the color version of this shot it wasn't doing it for me, so I went B&W instead:

Dropped a Knife On My Foot

2011-11-13T17:11:00.000+09:00

Idaho Elk Hunt, 2011

2011-11-02T23:03:00.000+09:00

This hunt has been in the making for about five years now, so I was excited to execute the plan this year and have it work out as I always dreamed.

Arriving at the McCall, Idaho airport in the rain on the morning of Tuesday, October 11th, I was optimistic my plane would still get out. Eight hours later, it did. We flew up and over the mountain range and into a massive cloud bank, which forced us to turn around and approach the airstrip from another direction. At about 5pm we landed, many, many miles away from the nearest road, but only a couple hundred yards from the next person (a few Forest Service employees staying in their cabin - they would fly out two days later). I watched the plane take off, knowing I was to be completely alone for the next week. I hustled up and got to hiking, as the area I wanted to hunt was far, far away from the airstrip. I made it 4-5 miles that night before it got dark and I set up camp.

I hiked most of the next day before reaching my desired area around 4pm. I was tired of walking, so I set up my camp in a small grove of trees which protected me from the cold wind. This camp location offered a short 100 yard walk to an edge that was a good vantage point to glass (look through binoculars) the canyons and ridges below, which I did that night. The next morning it was cold and I was a little slow (and not motivated, since I hadn't even seen an elk track the entire previous day) to get up, but at 7:45am I went down to the edge to glass. There was a ridge to my right that was blocked by a tree so I took a few steps up to see the ground behind the tree. While I was looking through the binoculars I heard some hoof beats back up the hill by my camp. I leapt to my rifle, which was laying on the ground a few yards away, and stood there looking up at the edge above. I could see about 50 yards. Pretty quickly a cow elk came into view, then a calf, then some more cows. They crossed through some trees to my right with more following - about 10-12 in total. I expected there to be a bull with this group and that he would be at the back of the pack, so I just waited. Then I glanced back at the spot where I saw the first cow and there was the bull, quartering towards me and looking about, waving his 6x6 rack each time. I was after a 6-point bull so I raised the rifle and waited for him to step out. My ideal shot placement is just behind either of the shoulder blades, which is where the heart and lungs are. But after waiting 10 seconds and realizing he was looking right at me, I decided I had a totally okay shot with how he was standing, so I settled the crosshairs in front of his shoulder and pulled the trigger. He didn't drop in place, but ran away in what appeared to be an uphill direction. This is bad news because a mortally wounded animal will usually go down because it is easier.

[first blood]

[30 yards later]

It took me an hour of sorting through tracks in the snow, then replaying the scenario before I finally found his tracks. On his second uphill leap there were a few drops of blood in the snow - a good sign, but nothing conclusive as it could be a flesh wound. But on each of the ensuing foot prints there was an increasing amount of blood until, at about 100 yards, I looked up and saw the bull lying dead a few yards in front of me.

[can you spot him?]

[hey, there he is!]

[a pretty good bull for this wilderness area]

I spent the rest of the day 'boning out' the meat, which means taking the meat off the bones to save weight. Since the airstrip was 13 miles away, I needed to cut weight wherever possible, so taking out bones was not going to happen. I ended up with three bags, each weighing about 50 pounds. My bullet actually traveled through both front shoulders (not sure how) which destroyed some meat, otherwise my total may have been closer to 175 total pounds.

[I put the bags in the snow on the windy ridge line to get the meat cooling as quickly as possible overnight.]

[the herd of elk actually came within 20 yards of my tent to the left before walking beneath it then straight towards the edge that I was standing under. I could have shot my bull from inside my tent if I'd decided to lay around for another 30 minutes.]

[even when I don't 'gut' out an elk I still manage to get covered in blood]

[I left my SLR camera at home to save weight, but this is not a bad shot for a point-and-shoot]

Being that I was 13 miles from the airstrip, I had a big trip ahead of me. I had 150 pounds of meat plus the skull/antlers and all of my camping supplies. In all but one downhill 5-mile stretch, this meant four trips (I combined those into three for the big downhill). So 13 x 4 x 2 = 102 miles, minus 10 for the missing downhill trip = 92 miles of packing, which took me four days. It was a trying time, seeing the same trail eight times and spending much of one day packing in the rain. Also, I barely made it back to the airstrip in time, arriving just an hour before the plane with my last load. My feet were wet and blistered and my shower in McCall was one of the best I've ever had.

[with anywhere from 50-70 pounds on my back, this was the only 'action' shot I took of myself]

[not a fantastic 'fall' shot, but this was still a welcome respite during the long pack out]

[it rained much of the third day of packing out, rendering my feet wet and cold for the last 48 hours]

I'm pretty happy with the trip, as it went exactly as planned. If only I could've planned a better way to pack out the meat. I can see having a partner in the future would be an attractive option. But I am very happy with the area I selected and I am looking forward to exploring it more in the future. I barely scratched the surface this time before this bull walked into me.

HDR with David Nightingale

2011-10-10T09:49:00.000+09:00

Here is my first HDR image, created today at David Nightingale's CreativeLIVE course:

CreativeLIVE with David Nightingale

2011-10-09T11:12:00.000+09:00

Yesterday we photographed during the afternoon session of CreativeLIVE's Creating Dramatic Images course with David Nightingale. Today I went through my image live with David and learned quite a bit under pressure. It's funny how my mind blanks a little when I think of the 7000+ people who are watching me process my image. So David did most of the work but I am really learning how to see the possibilities in my images and where to start. It really is easy, the hardest part is realizing this.

Here is the original:

Here's the edited version:

Creative Live and Hunting

2011-10-05T23:16:00.000+09:00

[friends Vaughn and Hazel liking each other]

Leaving for America tomorrow for my annual photography/hunting trip.

I will start the trip off with three days at a CreativeLIVE photography workshop with David Nightingale of Chromasia fame. I have been following his blog for years and really love his work, so it will be great to learn from him for three days. I will be attending the course as a student in live attendance, which means the course is free for me. It is also free for you if you'd like to watch along live, otherwise it is $150 to download the course afterwards.

Next I will be going to Idaho for a week of solo hunting in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, otherwise known as the largest wilderness area in the lower 48. I'll be flying in to a remote airstrip and hunting elk and wolf out of there for a week. When I arrive at my final hunting destination it will likely be 7+ miles to the next human being.
If I return from that trip alive I will then move over to Oregon and join my dad and uncles to help out this year's tag holder for the sheep hunt I did last year. We had a lot of fun and we have a lot of knowledge of the hunt, so hopefully we can help the guy this year harvest a big ram!
Lastly we will be hunting for a week in central Oregon to fill my uncle's elk tag. This should be a relaxed hunt so hopefully plenty of time for photography.

I may have some chances to update the blog this weekend, but likely only once more before the end of my trip on October 31st.

Geruma Sports Day 4

2011-10-03T21:19:00.000+09:00

Geruma Sports Day 3, B&W

2011-09-29T20:25:00.001+09:00

Old Hands

2011-09-28T22:23:00.000+09:00

Geruma Sports Day 2

2011-09-26T20:20:00.000+09:00

Geruma Sports Day (undokai)

2011-09-25T22:37:00.000+09:00

Geruma is my smallest school, with only 13 students. As such, all of the teachers have to participate in the eisa performance and Zamami and Aka both send student delegations so there is competition in the sporting events. Many photos to post over the next few days.

Miyajima Sunset

2011-09-23T18:15:00.000+09:00

Hazel

2011-09-21T20:05:00.000+09:00

Hazel was helping me with a couple of morning shoots for the Zamami People Project a few weeks back when I needed to use her for some light tests. Yesterday I decided to use her images for some post-processing experimentation:

[I wasn't picky about focus when I took this shot, unfortunately]

Fushimi Inari 4

2011-09-18T19:19:00.000+09:00

Sabani 2011

2011-09-13T22:48:00.000+09:00

The annual traditional canoe (Sabani) race was held last weekend after being canceled in June due to a typhoon. There were 28 boats who raced from Zamami to Naha. I think my team came in 8th.

Though it didn't turn out very spectacular, a lot of work went into the photo above. I am standing atop a lighthouse to get this picture. The previous day I kayaked to this point, parked my kayak on the beach, climbed the overgrown trail up to the lighthouse, then figured out a way to climb it (and they've designed it to dissuade people like me).
I also borrowed a wider lens from another photographer, then got a ride out 20 minutes before the race start from my team's support boat. Unfortunately, I think I am too high up for this to be an interesting picture. If I have a chance again next year, I would climb the cliffs which are just out of the lower left of the frame.
Anyway, Zamami-maru is leading the charge in this photo, en route to winning the race.

[my team]

Zamami People Project

2011-09-11T22:19:00.001+09:00

I've alluded to this a couple times, but now for the big announcement! I hatched a plan a few months ago to do something special for Zamami during my fifth and last year here. It seemed appropriate, after this much time in a community that has treated me so well, to give something back. To be honest I can't tell you which ideas I rejected because my mind pretty quickly settled on this one: photographing the community over the next year and culminating with an exhibition at the port next summer.

Before I could lose enthusiasm for the project (which would be a bad sign), I quickly wrote down 40+ photo ideas. Then I started the small (so far) red tape portion of the project: getting approval from the village office both to photograph for the project and also to have space to display the photos next summer. The exhibit is so far away that I'm not worried about those details now, I mostly want everybody to have an inkling of what this project is about so my photographic requests don't seem random. I've also written a letter about the project to give to those whom I want to photograph, detailing their specific shoot, clothing I want them to wear, and other necessary details.

I want the project to center around people who make this community interesting and special (everybody?). So, for example, there will be shots of school kids, old people, dive guides, summer workers, the mayor, kayak shop owners, key figures in the whalewatching business, probably even some school, police, hospital, and post office staff. There is a possibility I will pull some shots from my archives, but primarily I want all of the content to be new and developed specifically with this project in mind. With that said, you've already been seeing some photographs on the blog that were shot for the project. I debated whether or not I wanted to post the project pictures on the blog, but since most blog readers live on land that is not Zamami, it seems like a good idea to include you. But if you live in Naha or the Okinawan mainland, I'd love it if you could plan a trip out to see the exhibition next summer. :)

The project became financially official last week when I ordered an $850 printer. Ordering all the prints I want for the project would easily run me over $1000 (in Japan), so this printer will allow me leeway for testing and in the end it won't cost me much more but I'll get to walk away owning a fancy printer. Also, all of my going-away gifts next summer will probably take the form of photographs, so this will lessen that cost.

-------

Here is one of the shoots I did last week. This is the school sabani team along with a man who helps out the school whenever something is needed from the community. This photo is about him and I wanted to show the connection he has with the school, so I thought this would be a fun idea. The race was last weekend and even with all my preparation - asking permission through various channels as well as getting the main man off his dive boat and to the beach for the shoot - I was still pushing my limits with the 10 minutes it took to set up and complete the shoot. I thankfully fired off a bunch of extra frames (total about 15) because there were some focus issues as well as problems with people looking at the camera and this is a result of a composite. There is actually a girl still looking away that I may fix later.

An interesting side note is that this photo shoot upset a couple people because of the man I chose to be in it. As I said before, this photo is about him, not the sabani team. They are an accessory. But this was hard to explain and there were a few people who were annoyed because there is a different community member with a greater role in this year's school sabani team. Hopefully the placard that accompanies this photo will clarify what I was trying to achieve.

Sabani 1

2011-09-09T22:34:00.000+09:00

The Sabani race was held last weekend. Here are a couple shots from Saturday, when the teams were moving their boats from the harbor over to the start at Furuzamami:

Fushimi Inari 2

2011-09-07T21:58:00.002+09:00

My Annual Birthday (plus a week) Post

2011-09-06T21:39:00.000+09:00

I haven't been in a 'produce content specifically for the blog mood' in awhile, which is nice for those of you who just like to look at pictures, but it was brought to my attention that I skipped out this year on my annual review of data on my birthday. So let's do it a week late.

[fatter or more muscular?]

Birthday height: 181cm (71.25 inches, 5'11.25")

Birthday weight: 186kg (189 pounds)*

Files in my iStockphoto portfolio: 174

Downloads on iStockphoto: 264

Roundtrip airline trips in the last year: 3 (America, Tokyo Marathon, Hiroshima/Kyoto)

Marlin caught this year: 4 (I think)

Average number of hits on zamamienglishguide.com last year this time: 2-3/day

Average number of hits this year: ~30 (50% from Google, 33.5% from referring sites, 16.5% direct traffic)

I've just finished my fourth year and am entering my fifth and final year. It's strange - the last couple months I have been a lot more unsure of that decision than I was when I made it in February. I wouldn't say that I regret it - and I doubt that I will since I just passed through one of the tougher times of the year (for me) - but I got close. I've seen/done most of what I want to see/do here and my mind has begun wandering off to everything out there in the rest of the world that I'd like to do. I'm getting into dangerous 'feeling trapped' territory, but luckily I have a few things to keep my content.

I am working on a photo project which I will soon officially announce on the blog, but that is and will be taking up a lot of my time over the next year. I'm excited about that because it makes me think about my life here from a slightly different perspective (one of recording it, which is a good way to remember this place by, I suppose).

I will be heading to America in a month for some hunting, then I'll jump into running season. I have a couple races I'm interested in doing, but nothing even close to decided. Going to Kyoto next spring for the cherry blossoms is on my ideas list, but otherwise I'll keep being an awesome teacher, plan for my successor and my next phase of life, take lots of photos, and continue sharing it all with you.

(I just reread last year's birthday post and here was the last line: Hopefully by next year the pictures I post to the blog will have gone from 'straight-out-of-the-camera' to 'wow!' Haha.. are you wowed?)

*I am not sure where those extra pounds came from as my clothes all fit the same and I have been running a lot more this year than normal at this time? Does muscle weigh that much more than fat?

A Few Good Things

2011-09-02T13:59:00.000+09:00

I was writing this blog post for my birthday, but then I went a produced a blog-worthy event.
So here is a summary of good things that have happened to me recently:

It took me three years, but I officially became an exclusive contributor to iStockphoto! A contributor has to have 250 downloads and an acceptance percentage of 50% on submitted files. I have worked hard in the last eight months to bring my acceptance percentage from around 20% up to 60%, where it currently stands, while my content from iStockalypse Tokyo (Nov, 2010) provided the downloads. My royalties will go up by 10% which is quite nice. Some of the other perks include higher rankings in the search results, inclusion into the two high-end collections which offer huge royalties (but they are only for the best photos, so I'll be lucky if I get even a few in there), and free business cards with my images on them!

Here is the file that took me to 250:

I wrote about this before, but in June I photographed a Zamami woman for a magazine article. The magazine came out this month, featuring some of my pictures. I think it is unfortunate it's in black-and-white, but any publicity is good publicity, right?

[The name of the magazine is "Island". That's not my picture on the cover.]

[all pictures but the lower right are mine]

Also, I will include my favorite picture from the Miyajima fireworks show. Hopefully this will make the high-end collection at iStock:

Self Portrait

2011-08-28T20:30:00.000+09:00

I went into the woods yesterday afternoon to play with some off-camera lighting and my bow. I was pleasantly surprised with this result:

Photographing the Miyajima Fireworks

2011-08-26T16:06:00.000+09:00

On the 6:25am ferry, all of us walking passengers had to wait until all the vehicles exited. There was a rather large mob jockeying for front position, which quickly escalated into a fast walk and then a run. I was surprised how many people at the front of the run seemed to be families and not photographers. Since I knew it would be the only exercise I'd get for the next 13.5 hours, I ran the whole distance - about 5 minutes. When I arrived at my spot the old guy whom I'd brokered with the day before held his end of the bargain and let me stand my tripod up next to his.

[Unless you actually spent the night at your spot (and some people spent TWO nights), you weren't allowed to reserve a spot with a tarp until midnight of the day of the fireworks. So when I came Sunday morning at 6:30am, I was surprised to see ALL the waterfront areas for a couple hundred meters reserved. By the way, this section is not considered a choice spot to photograph from because of the limitations on the right-hand side of your frame.]

[See the two extra tall tripods (one with a hat on it)? This was a great idea apparently not used before. These two photographers still gained a choice spot just by getting above everybody (they used ladders), but they only had to wait 13 hours instead of two days.]

[This is probably the best spot because it lines up perfectly with the fireworks barge that puts out the 'fountain' style fireworks from water level - makes for great backlight/framing of the torii gate. I was in the second-best spot.]

[My tripod]

There was a man and woman who occupied this spot (above) for ~38 hours prior to the fireworks display. The man had a still camera and big video camera mounted on two fancy tripods with an umbrella attached to protect them from the sun. While I was on a bathroom break the wind came up and apparently blew both his tripods and cameras off the wall and onto the tidal flat below. Thankfully it was low tide, but his cameras still suffered enough damage to not be useful. He was a good sport, but he left his spot two hours before the show to return home. I imagine he would have been crushed to sit there and watch the show thinking the whole time about how he wasn't photographing/taping it. The woman stayed and offered me his spot. I gladly took it as it offered me a lot more space to spread out.

[one hour to go]

[the old guy at the bottom of the frame stayed in that spot for 2.5 days waiting for the fireworks show]

Mariko T. 3

2011-08-23T20:38:00.002+09:00

One more of Mariko T:

Mariko T.

2011-08-22T21:32:00.000+09:00

The first model I photographed in Kyoto, Mariko T. is a woman I met on Zamami a month ago and proposed photographing to. I left her with my email and website information and a little hope - and a week later she emailed saying she'd like to photograph. We met in Gion near dusk, which is a beautiful backdrop for a yukata shoot. Interestingly enough, a couple of times hordes of geisha-seeking tourists gathered around the end of our alley and photographed us. I think they thought I was a professional or she was famous or something. At one point there were 25 people all snapping pictures of us.

Zamami Matsuri

2011-08-21T21:06:00.001+09:00

I've got 4500 pictures from the Hiroshima/Kyoto trip to sort through and here I am shooting more at Zamami Matsuri (festival)..

[fire dancer]

MarikoTSD 2

2011-08-19T19:36:00.000+09:00

[I posted this one last week, but this time it is processed differently]

MarikoTSD

2011-08-18T22:27:00.000+09:00

I photographed two models in Kyoto, both named Mariko. MarikoTSD was the latter Mariko's username on the modeling site where I found her, so that's how I'll differentiate her here. We met at the Kyoto Botanical Garden for an hour of shooting with her son. She was on time, very easy to work with, and had a son who, despite it being his naptime, was a very good sport. I am hoping to get back to Kyoto this winter or next spring to, among other things, get another shoot in with MarikoTSD by herself. Her skin was amazing and I think with her hair down she'd be a wonderful, beautiful model.

Here's the first half:

Hostel Mundo Family

2011-08-17T18:29:00.001+09:00

I stayed at Hostel Mundo while in Kyoto. I had a few minutes to kill on my last day so I took their family out into the street and did a few family portraits for them. I think a lot of [Japanese] families go through life without any professional photos being done, so I figured I'd do a little capture while they're all still young and practice my own portrait photography. I don't think these photos are anything special, but I'm pleased considering I only shot for 10 minutes and had no plan.

[they were really embarrassed to do this but I'm glad I pressured them]

Itsukushima Gate at Sunrise

2011-08-16T18:21:00.000+09:00

Itsukushima Fireworks 2011

2011-08-15T23:48:00.000+09:00

Miyajima Fireworks

2011-08-14T23:01:00.000+09:00

Took the 6:25am ferry along with a ton of other people, ran from the harbor on the other side to the prime photo area and staked my spot next to an old guy who said I could. Waited 13 hours, took many photos. No time to even look through them, but here is a sample straight out of the camera:

Itsukushima Torii Gate

2011-08-13T20:57:00.000+09:00

I'm at Miyajima for the fireworks festival tomorrow night. Actually, there is a slight problem in that I am not at Miyajima. My hostel, which I remembered as advertising itself as being on the island, is not on the island. It's a ferry-ride away, but that means I will be on the first ferry tomorrow morning at 6:25am with a bunch of other semi-serious photographers hoping to score a good spot. I say semi-serious because our 13 hours spent waiting in the sun tomorrow pales in comparison to the guys in this picture, who are all spending the night at their spots right now. That's right, there's at least 30-40 photographers already staking out their spots 24 hours ahead and at least two have already been there since yesterday.

The space for the best photos falls between the guy in the green umbrella over to that wooden structure, though every place where an overhanging tree exists (twice) is heavily discounted. I made friends with the guy in the blue umbrella by busting out some Japanese, telling him about where I live and how awesome I am, then buying him a beer and promising to buy him a bento tomorrow. I'm pretty sure he promised me a share of his space in return.

Here is the view from his spot, which I would be psyched to be shooting from tomorrow night:

It's going to be a long, hot day between now and then, though.

Shooting Mariko (number two)

2011-08-12T21:36:00.002+09:00

I met with a model yesterday (second Mariko this week) and her son to photograph at the Kyoto Botanical Garden. There's a few more but only time for one now:

Kyoto Fireworks

2011-08-11T00:15:00.000+09:00

So I went to a fireworks show tonight to learn how to photograph fireworks. Here are some of the better ones:

Fushimi Inari 2

2011-08-10T13:01:00.000+09:00

Fushimi Inari was one of two landscape shots on my list for this trip and I think I've checked it off now. I went yesterday morning but was a little dismayed at how late I arrived (7:40am) so, after checking with the train station and finding that the first train goes at 5:35am, I rented a bike from my hostel, woke up at 4:40am, rode to Kyoto Station, and caught that first train. Naturally, the dream shot I developed in my head yesterday was at the furthest point of the 4km mountainous path that is Fushimi Inari. Unfortunately the sun was already coming up in the forest where I wanted my shot, but after doing some testing I'm not sure if, even under flat lighting conditions, it would produce what was in my head. So onward I went to try to get something similar. This is one of many scenes I did, so you may be seeing these pictures often over the next few months.

I have been averaging 500-600 pictures a day on this trip and I got 550 just this morning, so between today and yesterday, there's a lot of Fushimi Inari to sort through. (I should point out that for most low light shots I bracketed each frame with seven shots, so those numbers are inflated.)

Tonight I am attending a fireworks display in Kyoto. Having never photographed fireworks before, it is serving as a practice shoot before Sunday's show at Miyajima, which is the number one priority of this trip.

Fushimi Inari

2011-08-09T21:51:00.002+09:00

Torii Gate with Maple Leaves

2011-08-08T20:57:00.000+09:00

Hiroshima A-Bomb Dome Lantern Ceremony

2011-08-07T22:05:00.001+09:00

I woke up at 6am and took off with my larger packed bag for the Hiroshima Station on the other side of town. I deposited the bag in a locker and scouted out where my night bus would be leaving so I wouldn't have to worry about it after the lantern ceremony (scheduled to end at 9:30-10, my bus leaving at 10:30 and it takes at least 20 minutes to get across town).

I briefly went over to the Dome and the Memorial building for the moment of silence, which wasn't very silent because the anti-nuclear protesters at the Dome didn't bother to heed the moment of silence with the rest of the city. It was interesting, seeing all the groups protesting this and that (I got a paper, in English, about NHK's conspiracy to overtake Japan with Korean culture). I was asked to represent the U.S. in a 'peace' rally, but the messages were so muddled to me that I didn't want to end up in an anti-nuclear event instead so I just melted away into the crowd.

At 11am I checked out of my hostel and went to scope out where I wanted to take my photos. I had thought about this briefly during the previous two days, but my suspicions were confirmed that morning when I saw someone throw rose petals into the river at 8:00am and they floated away from the dome, rather than towards it. This was because it was still low tide, so the water was flowing out to sea. I checked the night tides during the day and found the tide switch to be at 8:25, which could mean that I might get photos of the lanterns going both ways, but I would definitely have to alter my 'first shot' plans to account for the lanterns floating down stream.

I set up under a bridge at 1pm and had an old guy show up around 2:30pm. Apparently he'd never been beat, or so he told me, I think. Anyway, my promptness helped warm him up to me and he ended up on my team as dusk approached and people tried to squeeze between us or cut below us as the tide went out. He defended out territory so vigorously that I only needed to worry about shooting.

They started launching the lanterns at 6pm, but the light was so bad that there was nothing to be done about it with cameras, so we just watched thousands of them float by before dusk brought about the light we'd come for. I made sure to shoot all three of my test white balances at each of f/3.2, f/8, and f/16, then repeat that pattern for vertical shots. I had written out a schedule that morning of the three places I wanted to shoot from and where I should be when, but I finished up my first spot (and the others) early so I moved on quickly. It did hurt a little to give up the spot I'd been sitting at for seven hours, but I made sure to give it to a video friend I'd made.

I went high to get a different angle, then went on the bridge above my first angle, then over to my money shot location (see last blog post), then on around between the dome and the lanterns. I wasn't paying attention until I heard somebody behind me say "the wind must be getting stronger, the lanterns are changing direction!" My senses, already on adrenaline-fueled high, jumped into action and I grabbed my camera/tripod and booked it back up to the bridge, where I got a great spot (3 feet to the right of the best spot) and got the shot I'd originally wanted.

I still had a little time so I ran down to the water's edge and grabbed one more shot on my list before hurrying back to the tram for the station, arriving at my bus 15 minutes before it was to leave. Enough time to change out of my sweat-drenched clothes into a new set and apply some deodorant!

I ended up with 632 shots/15gb. I've just uploaded them and haven't even scrolled past the first 100. I won't have time to properly go through them for awhile, but I'll post two that I quickly processed:

[please don't use these photos without my permission]

Hiroshima A-Bomb Dome (Night)

2011-08-05T23:36:00.000+09:00

Sorry, very little time for post-processing tonight:

[One of my hundreds of scouting shots taken last night and tonight for tomorrow's lantern memorial 'ceremony', this angle is currently leading as my number one pick for tomorrow. I'm not excited about waiting out there for more than six hours, though, so we'll see if I get this spot or not.]

Hiroshima A-Bomb Dome

2011-08-05T00:29:00.000+09:00

I'm here to photograph the Memorial Ceremony on Saturday night, so I did some scouting today:

Shuri Castle at Night

2011-08-03T22:39:00.002+09:00

I have my friend Hazel to thank for this angle. It's from the roof of a building at a college, which I snuck into. Shortly after I began shooting a bunch of college students came out on the roof to shoot off fireworks. I photographed them dancing with their sparklers and then showed them the photos, so I think everything was cool. I'm somewhat disappointed with this photo, though not sure how to improve it.

[click to enlarge]

Couple at Shuri Castle

2011-08-02T23:02:00.003+09:00

Beach and Clouds

2011-08-01T16:17:00.002+09:00

Hermit Crab

2011-07-31T14:12:00.002+09:00

Dam Sparks

2011-07-29T18:33:00.000+09:00

This was the shot I was aiming for when I made the fire last week. Unfortunately it still didn't come out exactly as I had envisioned. But this gives me reason to keep thinking and come up with an alternative way to produce sparks that hold their spark longer.

Lightpainting with Hazel

2011-07-27T15:24:00.000+09:00

Friend Hazel is out for a few days. We started experimenting last night and in no time came up with this:

Magazine Feature

2011-07-25T18:06:00.001+09:00

I was asked to photograph a woman for a magazine article she wrote on moving to Zamami from Kanagawa this past April. I can't read the text so I'm not really sure of the point of the article, but all the photos but the turtle picture are mine. Unfortunately there was some miscommunication and I didn't know the end result was going to be in black-and-white, or else I would have shot and processed differently.

[magazine mock-ups removed at author's request, but the magazine will be published within a month so I'll post a picture of the finished copy when it comes out]

Here's how the pictures would've looked if they were in color (seriously, they still make magazines in black-and-white?):

Blue

2011-07-23T11:41:00.000+09:00

Enjoy the weekend!

Aka Sports Day - Taichi

2011-07-20T21:12:00.000+09:00

I was ho-hum on this shot, but the teachers all named it their favorite so I'll post it:

My Burn

2011-07-19T22:04:00.000+09:00

The grass was waist-high in this section before I leveled it:

In retrospect, I think I was just unlucky. To the left and the steel wool would have gone down into the concrete spillway. To the right, and it would have landed on that rock pathway or in the short green grass. But I can also consider myself lucky that none of the 1.5m-high flames jumped to the neighboring trees.

Light Painting Whoops

2011-07-17T22:43:00.001+09:00

The last couple nights I've been going to the Zamami dam to do some light painting experimentation. You may remember the shot we did with sparks last weekend at the workshop. Well, my idea was to get a cool effect by having the sparks to bounce down the front of the dam. So tonight I ran up to just get one shot before the near-full moon came up and made the lighting situation different. Unfortunately there is a typhoon bearing down on us and the winds are a bit stronger than usual. I thought that had the potential to result in a cool effect, but I also knew it could be dangerous.

[did this last night, hoped to get this effect across whole face of dam tonight]

To get the little sparks, we use very fine gauge steel wool attached to a stick with a clip on it. After clipping in the steel wool, it is lit with a lighter and then waved through the air and short-lived, tiny sparks fly out. The harder it's waved the further the sparks will fly. Well my goal from the top of the dam wasn't to have sparks fly a long distance, rather I just wanted them to fall straight and bounce down the dam. Unfortunately something went awry and the entire piece of steel wool fell out of the clip and bounced down the dam. I regretted my misfortune and went to grab another piece of wool, but then came back to watch what the strong winds were doing to the lit wool on the ground at the base of the dam. It was glowing orange for a few seconds and nearly out when the grass next to it lit up in flames. A big gust of wind came and the stalk of grass on fire instantly turned into a 1m fire that continued to grow. I started shouting expletives while I sprinted across the top of the dam, down the stairs, and back across the base, only to discover that my fire was on the roof of a shed (or something). It was too high to scale so I couldn't get up and stamp out the fire (and I probably couldn't have done that even if I could've reached it). The fire was roaring at this point and I was freaking out. I ran over to my camera, thinking 'I've got to get out of here!' but thankfully that thought passed quickly. I went back to the fire, back to my camera, back to the fire, rode my bike around and up atop the dam, all the while hoping the fire would just go out but equally afraid it would jump off the roof and down onto the flats, where it would only take wind to get blown into the village. I really didn't want to go report it to the village for a multitude of reasons (my job could be on the line?) but I decided that was the best thing to do, so I rode as hard as I could, trying to figure out who I could find to properly explain the urgency of the situation. I did immediately find a guy with decent enough English that I could get the point across that there was a fire and I started it, though it was futile to explain how I started it and what I was doing up there. He wasn't convinced of the need to call the fire engine, though, until he saw the fire, so I raced him back up there quickly. After surveying the fire we both agreed that it was probably going to be okay (so long as it didn't jump), but that we should call anyway. For the next 15 minutes we watched as the fire burned through all the fuel on the roof and gradually went out. When there were still two small pieces of wood on fire, the cars showed up. I was afraid word would get out and the whole village arrive, but luckily only four guys came.

Interestingly enough, one of the guys who came reads my blog and in trying to understand what in the world I was doing on top of the dam with fire, he suddenly blurted out "light painting!" I said "Yes!" and he proceeded to explain to the other guys what it was. Then they gave me a quick lecture about not playing with fire in a typhoon and I gave the most formal apology I could think of in Japanese and they all said not to worry about it, it's fine. We'll see if there is any fallout in the days to come. I know without a doubt, though, that this story is spreading like wildfire through the village right now and will almost certainly go into the annals of Zamami ALT (English teacher) history.

Since my camera was running during the whole event I ended up with a picture of it, which I actually quite like:

[you can see the streak where the steel wool fell off the dam on the right, star trails above, and my white headlamp sprinting down the stairs on the left and across the base of the dam]

Engagement Session 2

2011-07-15T20:37:00.002+09:00

I planned these shots early on and was able to sneak them at the end (oddly enough, during the filming of a Korean drama television show, which caused a lot of problems because the star actress kept getting in my shot).

Engagement Session 1

2011-07-14T21:27:00.000+09:00

Sunday morning we woke up at 6am and met this couple on the other side of Okinawa for their engagement photo shoot. It wasn't my shoot - I was just along to assist - so these are not my poses. I was given 20 minutes at the end, though, to do a couple of my own poses. I will post those tomorrow.

[What do you do when you forget to reset your white balance from the previous night's shoot? Make it black-and-white!]

Light Painting 3

2011-07-13T20:43:00.000+09:00

[this not done with sparklers or fireworks - and note the snorkelers' lights that showed up on the left]

[I borrowed the instructor's fisheye for this shot. I didn't want to give it back.]

Light Painting 2

2011-07-11T21:08:00.000+09:00

[these colors are not real, it was an adjusted white balance]

[this is a 100 second exposure while there were some snorkelers out exploring that rock with their flashlights]

Light Painting

2011-07-10T20:37:00.000+09:00

I attended a light painting [photography] workshop with Trevor Williams this weekend and had a great time. We stayed out photographing until midnight on Friday, then a few of us stayed up until 3am talking photography. Saturday we shot from 7:30pm-12:30am, went to sleep at 1am, then woke up at 6am because our host (Chris Willson) had a client to shoot at 6:30am, so Trevor and I went along to assist and second-shoot. I'll break up the pictures into a few posts over the next few days. From the first night (these are straight out of the camera, so the colors are not great):

Aka Sports Day - Taiyo

2011-07-06T21:37:00.000+09:00

Marlin #100

2011-07-05T20:55:00.000+09:00

This is Yukibo's 100th career marlin and the 22nd this year. I was supposed to go out with him yesterday but had a work misunderstanding that left me required to attend school with no classes to teach on a day I thought I should have had off. Days (and bureaucracy) like that - and missing out on things like this - are the nails in the coffin of full-time jobs for me. I'm not sure I can ever do a 40 hr/week job again, so hopefully I've saved enough while here to assure there's no reason to even consider it.

Oh yeah, congratulations Yukibo! 72kg.

Aka Sports Day - Kana

2011-07-04T22:22:00.000+09:00

Aka Sports Day - Saki

2011-07-03T21:10:00.001+09:00

Aka had their sports day (undoukai) today so I've got a lot of blog content for the next week. Will try to get one up every day. Saki (three years old) on her dad's knees:

Zamami Undokai Eisa - Sana

2011-07-01T19:27:00.001+09:00

Zamami Undokai Eisa - Elementary

2011-06-28T20:37:00.001+09:00

Zamami Undokai Eisa - Hana

2011-06-27T19:02:00.001+09:00

The other photograph I wanted was a really good eisa shot. I think this is one of three contenders for that prize:

Yo-chien Aerial

2011-06-24T22:17:00.001+09:00

I had to miss the second day of the fishing tournament because undoukai (sports day) was being held on Zamami. I wasn't psyched about attending, but I made the best of it and crossed some photos off my ideas list. I've been really pleased with my ability recently to develop a shot in my head and then execute it. I got both my goal shots on Sunday plus a few bonuses. This is a sufficient variation on my first goal shot:

Champion Prizes

2011-06-22T22:56:00.001+09:00

We had a party on Zamami last night at the captain's restaurant to celebrate our winning of the 2011 Sam's Cup Billfish Tournament. Here's the prize haul we had to stuff in a car, then take on the ferry to get back to Zamami:

There's three cases of American beer, a folding bike, a fan, beer-branded mini coolers, a marlin print, three trophies, rice, gift certificates for rice, a g.c. for a night at a fancy resort, $100 in g.c. to a steak restaurant, a nice kariyushi/aloha shirt, a resin head for a trolling lure (that says "Sam's Cup 2011 Champion), fishing line, a Penn International 50 reel, various jewelry and makeup, a sleeping bag, a big folding sun tent, a rolling box, and a stuffed marlin.

[the really good prize - worth around $1000]

[I didn't really want any of the prizes because I don't need any of them, but this awesome shirt was in size XL which is about three sizes too big for any other team member, so it went to me. Despite the tackiness, it's actually from an expensive Okinawa aloha shirt maker (Paikaji)]

Marlin Cleaning and Party

2011-06-21T20:23:00.002+09:00

The two-hour return trip from the weigh-in on Sunday was spent cutting up the four marlin. It was a lot of work that took six of us most of the trip to accomplish. It took awhile to unbend my body from the hunched over position when I finally cut the last chunk of fish off the spine. From there I had to pick hunks of fish from my leg hair, shorts, and head hair (there were three pieces about the size of a fingernail that I pulled out). Blood was everywhere and has taken two-three showers to get off my skin.

[it's hard enough cleaning 900+ pounds of marlin on a moving boat after two full days of fishing, but try doing it in the dark (there were no outside boat lights)]

Once we got back to Zamami we had to transfer all the marlin out of the coolers on the boat and into land coolers, which means it had to be moved individually (because we can't pick up a 500lb. cooler). Then the boat had to be thoroughly washed down/cleaned. Then the fish (now on land) had to be iced, which means it had to be moved again. Then we finally got around to dinner at 10pm and I didn't get to bed until close to 1am.

We attended the party last night, where I learned at the last minute that we actually didn't know for sure we'd won. So they counted down from 40 to number one and when number two was called (they had ~350kg, we had ~426kg) we were certain, and elated. I had to give the 'winning team's speech' because the captain said if I didn't then he wouldn't invite me to go out anymore. The haul of prizes we won was pretty epic. We're having a Zamami-based party tonight so I'll get some pictures of the prizes and post them tomorrow. This is the second time we've won this tournament in the last four years.

[Two guys are missing and the girl in the lower left didn't participate - she's the captain's daughter]

Sam's Cup 2011

2011-06-19T23:52:00.002+09:00

The annual billfish tournament (Sam's Cup) was this weekend. It began at 6am Saturday morning with a shotgun start at Ginowan Marina on the Okinawa mainland. It took 1.5 hours to reach the fishing grounds so I wisely used that time to nap as my previous night spent on the boat was interrupted every 20-30 minutes by mosquitos.

We started fishing at 7:30am and had our first hookup around 10am. I lost the three-way janken (rock, paper, scissors) game to determine who reeled in the first, second, and third marlin, so I got to be the leader handler at the end of this 40-minute fight:

The second fish was a mahi-mahi, so that put me in line for the next fish, which turned out to be a marlin. But it was incredibly weak and I brought it to the boat less than 10 minutes after it hit. I think it was 75kg. There are two categories in the tournament: biggest fish and most cumulative weight, so this fish was important for the latter category.

The next series of events is an example of why we are so serious about keeping lines in the water while we're fishing. Before taking the gaffs or spears or even the lure out of the caught marlin we set the trolling rig back up. Less than five minutes later, before we could even put ice on my marlin, we had another strike. This one turned out to be ~132kg and I was again the leader handler. Watch at 44 seconds where I freak out a little as I feel the loose line touching my neck. Hand-lining the marlin is the most dangerous job of the fight for a few reasons, but mostly because you are creating slack in a 10m piece of nylon and that line needs to go somewhere safe but also not get caught on anything in case the fish decides to run again. Getting a coil wrapped around a body part with a big marlin on the other end could be a death sentence.

[credit to Akiko for the awesome videos]

We came back to Zamami at 5:30pm and decided to put all of these marlin inside a walk-in refrigerator (because we couldn't come up with enough ice).

Unfortunately today was Zamami's undokai (sports day), which I sort of have to attend since I'm a teacher. So I couldn't go fishing. But they caught another ~85kg marlin today to add to our total weight, then came back to Zamami at 3:30pm to pick up the refrigerated marlin and me. I went along to Ginowan for the weigh-in, which was exciting and long. We ended up with 426kg (939lbs) of combined marlin between our four catches. This won us first prize for the overall weight category, which marks the second time in four years we've taken that trophy! (out of 40 teams.)

And as if we all weren't already tired enough from the weekend, we had to cut up four marlin on the boat trip back to Zamami, 30% of which was in the dark. There was blood, fish slime, and small sashimi pieces everywhere (including three in my hair). We ended up with an enormous amount of fish, two pieces of which are crying out to me from my sink to be skinned, cleaned and frozen.

Since I went to sports day today I get tomorrow off, so I plan to go to Naha with the captain and one or two others to attend the awards ceremony/closing party tomorrow night.

These marlin are numbers 16-20 for this year alone (previous record was 15) and #94-98 for Yukibo's (captain) career on Zamami. I still hold the number two position with the 188kg marlin I caught in this tournament four years ago.

Sabani 4

2011-06-15T22:10:00.000+09:00

Sabani B&W

2011-06-14T22:18:00.001+09:00

Sabani 2

2011-06-13T20:16:00.000+09:00

Sabani Practice

2011-06-12T22:17:00.001+09:00

The Sabani Race is in two weeks so this was my team's annual practice weekend. I went on a 12-hour marlin fishing trip yesterday (no hits), so I could only practice today. But I spent the whole morning practice looking through my polarized sunglasses at the turquoise water thinking about what great photos I could be making. So in the afternoon I requested 30 minutes in the support boat to photograph, then to be traded into the sabani boat for practice. But I never traded in and instead photographed for 80 minutes. I still have to sort through most of the 500+ shots, but it's looking pretty good that I finally nailed a good Sabani shot. More to come this week..

A Night on Aka

2011-06-08T20:37:00.000+09:00

One of my friends from the mainland (who served in the Peace Corps with me ten years ago!) came to Aka Island yesterday with his family and stayed at a place I recommended. The couple who own this hotel have a pretty solid grasp of English and are doing everything they can to make their kids fluent, including inviting me over for the night (and it was convenient because I am teaching on Aka this week). In fact when I arrived the mother informed me of the one rule I needed to follow as an invited guest: I could only speak English.

It was really a lot of fun and gave me a better feel for the English level of their older boy, who is in 6th grade and has already passed a high school level English test. The mother (Ai) was very firm in her invitation for me to come back and said that next time I teach on Aka and Geruma I can just stay at their hotel for the two-week stint. I had so much fun I may take them up on a night or two.

[that cinnamon bread was my gift to them for having me]

[the view from the deck and my room just off to the right, which Ai referred to as my 'second home']

Asa Panorama

2011-06-06T21:09:00.002+09:00

I've never done a stitched photo before so after watching a how-to video last week I was anxious to try. I picked this spot on the other side of the island that has held some intrigue to me for awhile. It was a long walk from the nearest road, but not so bad at low tide. You can see it has a lot of potential on a more beautiful day this summer. This is a ~180 degree composite of 10 photos (for a total of 245mb!):

[click to make it bigger]

6/4 Fishing

2011-06-05T21:04:00.005+09:00

Went marlin fishing yesterday but had no marlin hits. Mid-day we went a little south an underwater fish attractant device (payao) and trolled around to catch some small fish for sashimi for the after parties of yesterday's baseball tournament. It was just the captain, me, and Miho:

The most interesting part of the day involved her and this bucket of blood-water:

When we pull the small tuna out of the water we immediately tear their gills at the base to bleed them out because it's supposed to make the sashimi taste better? We do this in the above bucket, which starts as saltwater but quickly turns red. Once we caught two fish at the same time. Miho was holding her fish in the bucket, so I tore the gills on mine and dropped it in to hurry and get the lures back in the water. Buuut, sometimes when the fish die they convulse violently. Mine did this as soon as I let it go, creating an explosion effect and spraying blood water all over Miho. She looked up at me, blood dripping down her face, and uttered the most perfectly slow "Deeebiitoooo".

[After trolling at the payao we brought in this trolling lure and saw something mean ate the hook off of it - mostly likely a wahoo (though we did see two hammerhead sharks! (but they don't hit these lures))]

[mahi mahi, bonito, and yellowfin tuna]

Prehistoric Decapitation

2011-06-03T21:18:00.000+09:00

Fresh off reading ReBekha's post about all the dead birds she found on the day after the typhoon, I took more seconds than I am comfortable admitting to realize that this baby dinosaur is made of plastic:

Furuzamami Fishermen

2011-06-02T18:56:00.000+09:00

I've always shied away from clicking "convert to grayscale" because I don't like it when people just convert their regular 'ole photos into b&w to make them look artsy. But I've done a little study lately into purposeful b&w processing so maybe I'll start posting them more than once/year.

Agenashiku and Gahi Islands

2011-05-31T21:46:00.004+09:00

Typhoon Songda Hits!

2011-05-29T17:20:00.000+09:00

From what I can gather, the winds at the peak were about 100mph sustained with gusts to 120-130mph.
My apartment is facing south and on the water which means I take the wind full-on (and serve to knock it down for all the buildings behind mine). But that also means the likelihood of an object coming through a window is slim (because there are no objects).

It was crazy. Easily the strongest and scariest typhoon I have experienced (of many). My window panes were flexing and I was very nervous one of them was going to break. I had thankfully brought my sit-in kayak in next to my apartment building but it was still getting blown around so I had to keep moving it with the adjusting wind. This also made me aware that my old sit-on kayak, which is in a very protected spot, might not be safe. I grabbed my flashlights and ventured out into the storm, finding it challenging to stay upright. When I got to the kayak spot by the river, it was gone. It and the tree it was tied to had blown away! I quickly walked upriver and happened to spot it floating downriver. I knew if it made it out to the ocean it would be long gone, so I plunged into the river to catch it before it floated past. I succeeded in grabbing it while simultaneously realizing my phone was in my left pocket. I grabbed it out and put it in my jacket pocket without any damage. I retied the kayak to a bigger tree in a more protected place and it was still there this morning.

Lots of videos and pictures so I'll quit with the storytelling:

[flexing window panes]

[saltwater - not rain - blowing up from the ocean and into my apartment]

[power's out till 4am, more water seeping in through every crack in the windows]

[saltwater blowing into the village, as seen in headlights]

[what was left of my chair on my balcony]

[this sign post broke off]

[all these plants had flowers yesterday..]

[this boat was originally centered on the trailer. They used an excavator to get it back to center before launching it today]

[the boats that were too big to be pulled from the water - they were saved by these bow lines. I saw them rocking last night and they looked like toys in a bathtub with an obnoxious little kid]

[a few of many]

[my pink kayak is seen on the left where I retied it after plucking it from the river last night]

[I actually found most of my chair a few blocks away]

Super Typhoon Songda

2011-05-27T22:50:00.000+09:00

It's big. The wave forecast, which I'm hearing is going from 3m waves today to 11-12m waves tomorrow (ELEVEN METERS!). (update: just checked the warning text on JTWC and it says max wave heights right now are 38 feet!) The main Okinawan island is just left of center on that graphic and my islands are a little left of that.

Winds are predicted to be 95-105 knots (110-125mph) sustained with gusts to 115 knots (130mph), but those predictions have been trending downward in the last few hours.

Here's a prediction graphic from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center:

[The arrow is pointing to about where I live]

The only preparation I had to do was move my kayak from the port to behind a concrete wall at my apartment building. There is a lot of loose stuff on my balcony but I should have time to take care of that in the morning. Some of the island's preparations:

[tape over the cracks, boarded up, newspaper to absorb water, and everything that was outside is now inside]

[Everything shuttered. Funny my old apartment building, which is on the ocean, doesn't have shutters. Could be in interesting day..]

[spiderwebs of ropes]

[even the big fishing boats are being pulled for this one]

Anri

2011-05-23T21:45:00.001+09:00

I met with Anri on Saturday to discuss future photo shoots. It gave me a chance to discuss her wardrobe and modeling goals and her a chance to make sure I am not a creep who just wants to photograph her nude. I took a couple quick shots just before we departed. I think she has lots of potential.

Japanese Girls Messing Up My Brain

2011-05-19T22:00:00.005+09:00

The trouble with being in a room with Japanese conversation and a girl you're interested in is trying to focus on the conversation. In America I can let the conversation go on in the background and store it in my short-term memory for immediate recall if necessary. But in Japanese it takes all my effort to be on the edge of understanding the conversation and if I drop out for even a moment it's hard to catch up. But when I look from the guy on the right to the guy on the left as they speak and my eyes pass over the girl en route, my brain wavers. And then I lose my ability to impress her by understanding and participating in the conversation.

Fortunately I brought brownies.

Lilies

2011-05-17T12:07:00.001+09:00

Beach Opening Ceremony #8

2011-05-14T17:43:00.000+09:00

Torii Gate

2011-05-13T17:47:00.004+09:00

[on Zamami]

Marlin #9

2011-05-11T17:44:00.001+09:00

Yukibo was going out alone on Sunday when I wrote Saturday night to ask, so thankfully he invited me along. I woke up at 4:30am to prepare for our 5:40am departure. We began fishing just before 7am. We had our first hit at 8:15am, then another at 8:45am, then I lose count. We ended up with eight hits throughout the day, including a big one that took out most of the line on the reel before getting off. The remaining 7 all jumped after becoming hooked, which was exciting. Unfortunately only one set the hook well enough to make it back to the boat. I reeled him in in just 24 minutes. Being that there were only two of us I did the hand-lining at the end while Yukibo manned the spears and gaff. 94kg (213 lbs.), which is 6kg heavier than my previous marlin this season. Hooked at 1:10pm, landed at 1:34pm.

[this fish came out of the intestine - note the damage to the fish from marlin's bill (that thing off the front that looks like a spear - they use it to stun their prey before eating them)]

Beach Opening Ceremony #7

2011-05-10T17:42:00.000+09:00

Beach Opening Ceremony #6

2011-05-09T17:38:00.000+09:00

Beach Opening Ceremony #5

2011-05-08T17:41:00.000+09:00