50mm

So I have re launched the 50mm.jp website.
After a lot of playing around with different options I decided to keep pixelpost as the platform. Would have built it in wordpress but it was too difficult to make a seamless experience that handled images well, didn’t use flash, worked on the iphone and allowed you to track individual photo views on Google analytics.
The site does not contain all work I have done and I have not yet decided how I will approach the upload of new work but I’m hoping to keep it fresher than it has been in the recent past. If it (photo’s you have seen before by me) can’t be found on 50mm it could be located either on flickr or here. If there is an image you have seen that has gone missing please contact me and I’ll upload it to one of the 3 locations.
Any and all feedback more than welcome.

This shot is one I dug up from the archives again. To be featured in the upcoming update of the 50mm web site which hopefully should launch before the end of the year.

Sometimes you have to revisit the past to see if you missed anything. I think after a LONG hiatus I might be ready to revisit this genre. We’ll see. Anyway, was a bit of fun to hang with the lads and shoot a few pictures.

Caught him early one evening on the way home.

Man reads a morning newspaper. Caught on the edge of the frame with the Rolleiflex as I went to work.

From an ongoing series that doesn’t seem to have a beginning or an end. This guy at first glanced looked drunk but after closer inspection seemed to have something else wrong with him.
This was taken at about 8:45am which, as you can see from the onlookers reaction, gained a bit of attention. He managed to get on the train and pass out again and then somehow remembered his station and got off only to pass out again on the platform.
Never a dull moment in Tokyo.

Before I took some time off from shooting (something I badly needed) I was testing out an old Olympus Pen-s half frame camera. With all the talk of the new Olympus pen digital I thought I’d give the camera a try for the second time. My first attempts were not great as it doesn’t have a meter, has a shutter limit of 250th/sec and has a tiny ring where the aperture of the lens can be changed with a lot of effort. After more than a month on the shelf I thought I’d develop 2 of the films I’d shot with it to see what I had. I’ve not had a chance to go through them all yet but I did find this semi focused feel quite appealing. These 3 frames are actually taken in succession which, judging by the other frames further on in the film seems to be a reflection of my ability to gauge light and set the camera correctly. I think my speed judgment is off a bit but I’m not minding that I got these wrong

I’ll likely be posting experimental stuff up here for a bit while I get to work on the other projects I have lined up.

Shot (like usual) on the way to work.

This particular shot I like because of the light on her face and the softness of the shot in general. Difficult to find in stations.

Sometimes you have to really hunt for these types of shots.

Well, government men but they are not really G-men as referred to in Wikipedia (FBI).  When I shot this the hasselblad back was dying and was causing a lot of overlapping of frames. I like the picture but have never used it cause of the overlap at the top of the frame. Obvious solution if not very pure.

Looking for a way to escape, he looks back only to discover the best possible route blocked.

No eye contact, head down, no speaking with anyone. 8.3 million people in this town (source – probably more now) and my version of Tokyo seems like an endless stream of the same.

See this kind of thing every day. Hard to photograph at this angle though.

Resting up outside Bic Camera in Shinjuku.

Daytime photography. Something I really don’t do much of in Tokyo. Tokyo by day is ugly. Real ugly. Ugly enough to have to shoot in black and white. So, being a night shooter I’ve always got my camera loaded with 1600 asa (iso to you post film people). During the day this means f/16 and hope like hell the shutter speed is fast enough. The magic thing about f/16 is no focus! Which is why I can point the camera behind me, hope like hell and take the shot.

I think the strap adds a level of genuineness to the picture

Sometimes a girl needs accessories in her bag. This one seems to be bigger than most.

Last Xpan II shot for a while. Candid shot of an old guy looking a bit worried about the storm that was coming.

Girls hanging out in Shibuya

Part of a series. From the archives.