It's
hard to believe that another year has almost come and
gone already. 2006 will be here before I know it and
I would swear that someone removed a few months from
my calendar this year if it were not for the fact that
I can go through my own archive of posts here at Sushicam
to see that indeed that time has passed.
I think time really does speed up
once you get a little older.
The seasons (summers especially) don't
seem like they last forever anymore. I remember as a
kid (back in the Pleistocene)
that the 3 month summer break from school seemed itself
like a full year. (Maybe it was the running and
ducking from stampeding
wolly mamoth and hungry saber toothed cats that
made it seem longer...)
I read somewhere that there is an
actual change in brain chemistry that goes along with
aging that changes our perception of time. So time really
does feel as if it passes faster as we get older.
These brain chemical changes seem
to affect us in other ways as well. What else could
explain why old people drive with their blinkers on,
wear their pants with the waistline hiked up to their
armpits, and feel strangely compelled to move to Florida?
--
I've been a little absent here at
Sushicam as of late. I apologize for that.
There has been a crunch at work due
to the fact that we are still short one person (of
a normal three-person office, and my being schizophrenic
does little to solve our manpower problem, as "we"
still count as only one person) and a larger than
normal number of my weekends have been spent selling
photos. Yesterday I was at the American School in Japan
up in Chofu, close to Setagayaku. Next weekend I'll
be doing one more sale here at Yokosuka naval base.
But after that I am done selling photos for the year.
Not that I am complaining. My sales
continue to fund my ever expanding collection of photo
gear along with my photo trips, so I will continue to
sell. But it's always nice to have a totally open weekend
that allows me to focus on taking photos.
--
I tried something a little different
with a few of the photos I posted today. A friend of
mine (Justin) had recently showed me some of his work
where he worked with some selective black & white
actions in Photoshop. So I decided to try my hand at
the technique and present something fresh for all you
long time Sushicam viewers. (It can be a challenge to
keep coming up with something new to show all of you...
^_^)
I also spent a lot of time this week
shooting with my Zeiss manual focus lenses. (28mm f2.8,
45mm f2.8, 50mm f1.4, and 85mm f1.4) It's easy for you
to spot which ones were taken with the Zeiss glass since
they do not attach any aperture or focal length data
to the image file since they are unable to communicate
with my camera.
I really do enjoy using them though,
and don't find the loss of auto focus a problem. In
actuality, manual focus, especially with the superbly
built Zeiss lenses can be a lot more suitable to street
photography than electronic focus. The manual stop down
aperture is a little more of a hassle, but in not too
much time you get used to that as well and it becomes
pretty much transparent to the process.
--
On my drive back home from Chofu yesterday
I saw a couple of things that once again reminded me
that I am in Japan.
The first was at a Matsuda car dealership.
(That's what "Mazda" is really called for
those that don't know) A person was pulling out of the
dealers lot with their shiny new car and what looked
like the entire workforce of the dealership had assembled
on the sidewalk. One person stopped traffic to allow
the customer to easily pull onto the road and as the
customer drove away the entire group of employees bowed
to them. And not just a "Thanks for your business"
kind of casual bow, but rather a very long, very low,
bow. Traffic was pretty slow, and it took a while for
the customers new car to disappear around the next corner,
but for as long as they were visible to the dealership
the employee s continued to bow to them. Only when the
new car had turned a corner and slipped completely out
of site did the group head back to their jobs.
You just don't see that kind of customer
service in most places anymore.
The second thing was a more of any
everyday type scene, only a little exaggerated.
If someone is taking a short trip
in Tokyo, it is many times more convenient to use a
bicycle rather than a car. You may likely be able to
arrive at your destination faster by bicycle, and you
also don't have to worry about finding a parking spot
once you get there. So even in well to do neighborrhods
it is very common to see very nicely dressed people
cranking along on their bicycles.
While I was inching along in traffic
(I've scene reasonably sized glaciers move faster)
I noticed a very well dressed woman riding a bike while
carrying some children. Not one child, not even two.
But actually three children were riding along on the
bike with her. One in a seat on the front handle bars,
one in a backpack , and a third on a seat located on
the rear fender. There was even a forth child trotting
alongside the whole group. This caused the woman to
ride the bike about as slowly as I have ever seen a
person ride a bike and reaqmin upright. She was working
pretty hard at keeping her balance and she had to keep
wrenching the handlebars back and forth to keep her
balance as she made her way down the sidewalk. I'm sure
the kid sitting in the front basket attached to the
handle bars got motion sickness (or whiplash) by the
time they got to wherever it was they were going.
I would have taken a picture of these
two events, but since traffic was so heavy I didn't
want to risk getting in an accident over it. But then
again, since I was probably driving around with my blinkers
on anyway I could just have told the police that I was
hit by someone who disregarded by turn signal. (Not
mentioning the fact that it had likely been blinking
for the past 40 kilometers)
Comment 28
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