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How to take a picture in Japan,
in 47 simple steps
1. Wake up and dust off the cobwebs
in your head from last nights obligatory drinking bought
with your co-workers
2. Wake up again after drifiting
back to sleep somewhere between steps number 1 and 2.
3. Roll out of bed and shuffle over
to the bathroom and attempt to brush all the chu-hai
induced moss from your mouth. Don't even bother to put
on your toilet slippers.
4. Slip on some sensible clothes.
Highwater plaid bell bottoms, birkenstosks, and
a sheerling vest. (No shirt) After all, photographers
are artists and everyone expects us to be a little eccentric...
5. Pack your photo gear bag
6. Unless you plan to hire a Sherpa....Re-pack
your photo gear bag since it was too heavy the first
time around.
7. Walk to the train station, but
once you get aboput halfway there turn around and go
back home to get your map and yen which you had mistakenly
removed fom your photo gear bag.
8. Return to the station and buy a
ticket. After staring at the board for a wehile, finally
just give up and buy the cheapest ticket you can and
adjust it at the end. It's just so much easier than
wading through all that kanji. After getting your ticket,
slip thrugh the turnstyles and head on up to the platform.
ONce you get up there, backtrack a littel and get on
he correct patform. Hop on the train to your
destination, making sure it is an express so you won't
waste time by stopping at every station.
9. While on the train, pretend to
sleep so you won't have to give your seat away to an
older person. (But keep one eye slightly open just to
make sure some Really ancient person doesn't
actually need it.
10. After getting busted by making
inadvertant eye contact with an old person, sheepishly
yet gracefully, give up your seat.
11. Take this opportinuty to resituate
yourself in the train car, trying to guess who will
get off at the next stop so you can once again snag
a seat. Smugly you take your place in front of a likely
candidate. Berate yourself for getting on the express
train because the stops are few and far between.
12. At the next stop, realize you
guessed wrong. That old lady you just gave your seat
to leaves the train and someone else swiftly slipped
into your spot.
13. Once you arrive at your terminal
station, find a bathroom and USE IT. (Or at
least give it the old college try.) At least for men,
going #1 one in public is not such a big deal here,
but #2 is sure to get you into some hot water. Bathrooms
can be far and few between at times.
But first, troll around the station
until somebody hands you a pack of tissues with advertising
on it. If nobody is giving up the goods, try using a
little Japanese on them. If this still fails, just sneak
behind them as they are busy with soemone else and grab
a handful of them from the box they are working out
if. Continue on to the restroom.
(Insert the theme music from Final
Jeopardy...)
14. Exit the restroom. wiping your
hands on your pants since none of the damn bathrooms
have any paper towels. (You don't use the free tissue,
as that is saved for emergencies)
15. To help orient yourself, check
the map outside the train station. (remember, area maps
in Japan rarely have north at the top!)
16. Give up on the map. It is all
in kanji, and the area around the station is all rubbed
off anyway from countless people poking their fingers
at that spot.
17. Take your best guess on a direction
and start walking.
18. Keep walking.
19. Stop at the first beer vending
machine you come upon and buy a can of "Liquid
Inspiration".
20. Continue walking and endure the
stares of passersby as you schlep down the street, chugging
away on a tall-boy can of Asahi Super Dry. (remember,
it is only 7:45 a.m.)
21. Pocket the empty can until you
happen upon the next vending machine with its accompanying
recycling bin. (This is usually only about 37 steps
from the previous vending machine)
22. Deposit your empty beer can into
the recycling bin. (Actually, just balance the empty
can on top of the bin since the bin is so full cans
are actually squirting out of the hole already...)
23. Resist the temptation to buy another
beer....
24. Fail. Sucumb to your desires and
buy another beer.
25. Continue walking until you are
absolutely certain that you are lost. (Signs being written
in languages other than Japanese or slightly odd Enlish,
say...Korean for example, are a good hint that
you may be slightly off course.) If you see anything
like this "Boise, 20 miles" go back
and follow the bread-crumb trail of vending machines
back to the station. (Don't forget to use the restroom
again while you are there.)
26. Assuming none of the things specified
in number 25 happen, keep walking.
27. Stop at the next 7-11 you see
(turn your head around, you are likey to see at least
two of them from the spot you are standing in) and buy
some kare age, or onigiri. Kindly
ask the clerk where such and such place is. (You can
actually say "Such and Such Place" instead
of the real name because she will not understand you
anyway.) You would actually have better luck teaching
water polo to a rabid pack of armadillos than getting
any good directions from the 7-11 clerk.
Once you confirm that she does not
understand your English, start talking louder. Continue
to escaplate the situation, gesturing wildy, until she
is nearly to the point of tears then swiftly, in your
most fluent Japanese, and with an Austin Powers accent,
ask her for her phone number. (The whole time you
keep stealing furtive glances at the stationary office
goods isle behind you.) After swatting at imaginary
flies for a while, run out of the pace screaming at
the top of your lungs, only stopping long enough to
take off your pants and hang them on the payphone outside
while complaining loudly about the tax codes of your
home country. (Still using that Austin Powers accent)
28. Now fully satisfied that you are
not the only completely confused person in the Prefecture,
continue on towards your destination.
29. Go back and get your pants. Put
them on (backwards) and go back inside the 7-11 and
buy something. Act totally normal. Pretend this is the
first time you had even been in the place. After paying
for your purchase go outside and continue on to your
destination.
30. Arrive at your destination. (For
the sake of argument, let's say it is a temple)
31. Wash your mouth and hands at the
fountain. (wipe your hands on your pants)
32. Rummage through your photo gear
bag until you come up with a suitable camera/lens combination.
33. Start strolling around the temple
grounds, looking for a good angle. (i.e. a view where
the sky is not completely obliterated by low overhead
powerlines)
34. Give up in frustration and just
resign yourself to the fact that you will just have
to photoshop the power lines out later.
35. Continue to wander, looking for
an angle that will need a minimum amount of post processing
work.
36. Find a suitable secene. (Could
be a monk walking by, or a child staring up at a large
statue...whatever)
37. Raise the camera to your eye and
look through the viewfinder.
38. Lower the camera and remove the
lens cap.
39. Bring the camera back up and reframe
the shot.
40. Curse silently to yourself after
realizing the moment has passed and you missed the shot.
41. Find a convenient spot to "camp
out" and wait for another Kodak moment. (Or Minolta
moment, Canon moment, ...whatever, pick your posion...)
42. Watch the people come and go,
keep an eye on the shadows splayed across the courtyard
as the sun traces its lazy arc accross the sky.
43. Twilight is upon you. You have
not shot one picture all day. (mostly because you passed
out from all those beers) But then out of nowhere comes
a subject. It is a girl, and she has some of the most
funky looking hair/clothes combination you have ever
seen. Kind of like a cross between Marilyn Manson, and
Captain Kangaroo, on LSD. (fashion can be rather eclectic
here in Japan.
43. She is walkiing along a path,
just about to be perfectly framed by a set of stone
statues and deeply colored purple banners. Never in
your life have you seen such a combination of color,
shape, composition, and here it is setting itself up
for you....
45. You bring the camera up to your
eye (sans lens cap) and track her figure as it appraoches
that perfect point where the picture comes together.
You partially depress the shutter release, focusing
and metering the shot and then....
46. The girl turns towards you, and
you recognize her as the clerk from 7-11. As she recognizes
you a look of horror flashes across her face. Oh, the
Humanity!
47. "Snap". You get the
shot. Freezing that moment in time forever. Repeat as
necessary...
Comment 29
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