My new friend Raul held a sidewalk sale Saturday in the East Village. Nestled among the clothing and household goods he had on a small folding table was a 35mm film camera that I zeroed in on from a distance.
Up close, I saw that it was a mid-1970s-vintage Nikkormat FT2, a quality camera made by Nikon to allow photographers on a budget to own a genuine Nikon product at an appealing price. More importantly, it gave such photographers a camera that would accept the dizzying array of Nikon's professional-quality lenses.
Raul was asking a ridiculously cheap price for it.
I thought to myself about the comprehensive 35mm film system -- two camera bodies (one of them a superb Olympus OM-3Ti), assorted lenses, the works -- I had sold last fall. I thought about the investment I made in a great digital SLR with the proceeds of that sale. I thought about how much better the computer-based "digital darkroom" was, compared with the "wet" chemical-based darkroom of film photography.
I put the camera down, thanked him for letting me handle it and started to walk away.
He responded with a price even more ridiculously low than the first.
I couldn't resist.
The camera needed a minor repair that I was able to do in 20 minutes at home, and the roll of film I ran through it showed that it was in good working order, right down to the light meter -- not bad for a camera that sat unused for several years.
The lens that came with it was an old, beat-up Nikon lens that I replaced Tuesday with one in near-mint condition.
A fire was rekindled.
I love digital photography. I love its versatility. I love that the results are visible instantly. I love that it eliminates the expense of film. I love that I can do the same things and more with Adobe Photoshop that can be done in a traditional darkroom, and without the smell, mess and fuss. And, unlike in the darkroom, image editing done on a computer can be reversed if I don't like the result or make a mistake.
But I also love film.
I love the grain one gets with certain black-and-white films such as Kodak Tri-X. I enjoy the ritual I go through in loading the film, composing the shot through manual focus and setting the exposure by hand. It's what a friend of mine in Japan once called "making hand-made pictures."
It's a labor of love that has a more organic vibe than the one I get from my digital camera, even though I'm still setting the exposure by hand and (often, but not always) using manual focus in much the same way as I did years ago, before the digital revolution.
I'm into digital photography for the long haul. I don't plan on completely retracing my footsteps. But I'm going to tote that Nikkormat -- built like a Russian tank, and about as heavy and durable -- in my camera bag next to my digital camera.
I never know when a very special portrait opportunity will require the very special treatment that only a 35mm film camera can give.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Wearing my teacher hat
Staff photo, 1997 or '98Nosaka Junior High School
Nosaka (now Sosa City), Chiba Prefecture
Japan
Where's Waldo?
(The school motto roughly translates as, "If you think for yourself, you'll be stronger")
Monday, August 06, 2007
Love and hatred in Japan
I wrote here Friday that I had a love/hate relationship with Japan while living there, and a friend asked me why.
Before going off to Japan, I knew precious little about the country or the culture and couldn't speak the language at all. And a lot of what I thought I knew was peppered with typical Western misconceptions about Asia in general and Japan in particular.
And so, upon arriving there 12 years ago last month, I was struck by the degree to which Japan had adopted so many elements of Western society and had vastly improved upon them. All the modern conveniences -- the gadgetry and the electronics and all the other trappings of modern life -- were there in versions not yet on sale or even dreamed of in America. Even in the small farming town in the middle of nowhere that I called home, technology reigned (except, curiously, when it came to Internet connections).
And the less-appealing elements of American culture also were abundant, such as the fast-food outlets and the 7-Elevens on every corner and some of the vapid TV dramas that were so laughably dubbed.
In many ways, it felt like being home -- or, more accurately, home away from home. And naively, I expected these similarities to translate into a high level of understanding between the Japanese and Westerners.
Hey, they have McDonald's and dig our music and sports heroes, I reasoned. Surely they must be able to understand where I'm coming from in terms of the many pieces of cultural baggage I dragged along with me.
I couldn't possibly have been more woefully mistaken.
The veneer of modernity was very misleading. I didn't realize at the time that Japan had been a feudal society up till about 130 years prior to my arrival (130 years is a drop in the bucket), and that the same distinctions and mores that regulated people's lives in the old days are still present today, albeit tempered by time and war and economics.
And then there were honne and tatemae.
Tatemae is the public face you present at school, at work, anywhere outside your small circle of family and intimate friends.
With tatemae, never is heard a discouraging word. You may hate a co-worker's guts, but tatemae dictates that these feelings be kept completely in check. You wouldn't give this person the steam off your piss, but to all outward appearances, things couldn't be better between you and her.
Honne is returning home to tell your family what an incompetent, self-absorbed, unreasonable bitch she is.
Honne represents a level of candor only a select few people in your life will ever see.
Of course, something akin to honne and tatemae exists here in the United States. But I think it's diluted and not nearly as intricate, systematic and, to the newcomer, as ostensibly deceptive as it is in Japan.
It knocked me for a loop, and I was never quite sure where I stood with my colleagues in the junior high where I taught or in society at large. I wasn't even sure at times if my friends were really my friends.
I always felt off-balance.
I felt like a vase perched precariously at the edge of a table.
In time, I believe I came to understand honne and tatemae much better. I learned to recognize some of the physical and verbal cues that distinguished one from the other. I learned some of the nuances of body language that hint at a person's true feelings, and how even sounds -- yes, sounds, such as the sucking of air through one's teeth -- drip with meaning.
But looking back on that first year or so, my naivete embarrasses me to this day.
Twelve years ago, I was more outspoken than I am today. I know my friends and family are having a good laugh as they read that.
I was more self-absorbed. I fought for what I wanted, strove to do things my own way.
After all, in the United States the squeaky wheel gets the oil.
But in Japan, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
In time, I learned that a personal agenda could be pursued to a degree if I played by certain rules. I learned that even though potentially troublesome circumstances could have been staring me in the face, there was much less of a problem as long as the existence of these circumstances was not recognized. If I don't acknowledge it and my colleagues don't acknowledge it, then we can do a little two-step around the truth.
Besides, I was a gaijin, and gaijin aren't thought to be sophisticated enough to understand the nuances of Japanese etiquette and protocol.
I taught English in a public junior high school where the students, many of them the children of farmers, fishermen and shopkeepers, couldn't have given a toss about English. It was a subject they were required to study but conditioned to forget as quickly as they could. Many of those going on to high school kept up their diligence until the crucial entrance exams were passed. Many of those going on to a trade or a craft or to freedom from education altogether at age 16 couldn't have cared less about English and I couldn't blame them.
I felt that my role as an assistant English teacher was fairly useless, and over time I came to do just the minimum of what was expected of me professionally while I pursued my photography and my studies of Japan's language, religions and culture.
At first, I pursued this agenda unabashedly. Over time, I pursued it more tactfully, using social cues I had learned to bow out gracefully from certain personal and professional obligations.
Did this strategy work? Maybe.
Or perhaps my former colleagues still talk about that arrogant, opinionated, ungrateful, bull-headed, boorish American who ran roughshod over their feelings, traditions and expectations.
Anyway, the passage of nine years since my return to America has mitigated many of my unpleasant experiences in Japan. I've deconstructed and reconstructed the culture in that span to create in my mind a Japan that hasn't existed in generations.
My Japan is what younger Japanese would derisively call furukusai -- literally, something that stinks of the old.
In some ways, I've built a movie set that looks three-dimensional and realistic from the front, but behind the facade things are held together by strips of plywood that would give way in a stiff breeze.
The Japan of my mind is more a musty old museum exhibit than a living, breathing, dynamic, constantly evolving place. (I wouldn't have it any other way, though. I also pine for the lost America, the America that the gang of criminals in elected office has turned into a mockery, a parody of itself.)
I like to think that I understand Japan far better now than I did more than a decade ago. I like to think that given the opportunity to move there today, I wouldn't repeat many of the questionable choices I made.
Maybe, maybe not.
Before going off to Japan, I knew precious little about the country or the culture and couldn't speak the language at all. And a lot of what I thought I knew was peppered with typical Western misconceptions about Asia in general and Japan in particular.
And so, upon arriving there 12 years ago last month, I was struck by the degree to which Japan had adopted so many elements of Western society and had vastly improved upon them. All the modern conveniences -- the gadgetry and the electronics and all the other trappings of modern life -- were there in versions not yet on sale or even dreamed of in America. Even in the small farming town in the middle of nowhere that I called home, technology reigned (except, curiously, when it came to Internet connections).
And the less-appealing elements of American culture also were abundant, such as the fast-food outlets and the 7-Elevens on every corner and some of the vapid TV dramas that were so laughably dubbed.
In many ways, it felt like being home -- or, more accurately, home away from home. And naively, I expected these similarities to translate into a high level of understanding between the Japanese and Westerners.
Hey, they have McDonald's and dig our music and sports heroes, I reasoned. Surely they must be able to understand where I'm coming from in terms of the many pieces of cultural baggage I dragged along with me.
I couldn't possibly have been more woefully mistaken.
The veneer of modernity was very misleading. I didn't realize at the time that Japan had been a feudal society up till about 130 years prior to my arrival (130 years is a drop in the bucket), and that the same distinctions and mores that regulated people's lives in the old days are still present today, albeit tempered by time and war and economics.
And then there were honne and tatemae.
Tatemae is the public face you present at school, at work, anywhere outside your small circle of family and intimate friends.
With tatemae, never is heard a discouraging word. You may hate a co-worker's guts, but tatemae dictates that these feelings be kept completely in check. You wouldn't give this person the steam off your piss, but to all outward appearances, things couldn't be better between you and her.
Honne is returning home to tell your family what an incompetent, self-absorbed, unreasonable bitch she is.
Honne represents a level of candor only a select few people in your life will ever see.
Of course, something akin to honne and tatemae exists here in the United States. But I think it's diluted and not nearly as intricate, systematic and, to the newcomer, as ostensibly deceptive as it is in Japan.
It knocked me for a loop, and I was never quite sure where I stood with my colleagues in the junior high where I taught or in society at large. I wasn't even sure at times if my friends were really my friends.
I always felt off-balance.
I felt like a vase perched precariously at the edge of a table.
In time, I believe I came to understand honne and tatemae much better. I learned to recognize some of the physical and verbal cues that distinguished one from the other. I learned some of the nuances of body language that hint at a person's true feelings, and how even sounds -- yes, sounds, such as the sucking of air through one's teeth -- drip with meaning.
But looking back on that first year or so, my naivete embarrasses me to this day.
Twelve years ago, I was more outspoken than I am today. I know my friends and family are having a good laugh as they read that.
I was more self-absorbed. I fought for what I wanted, strove to do things my own way.
After all, in the United States the squeaky wheel gets the oil.
But in Japan, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
In time, I learned that a personal agenda could be pursued to a degree if I played by certain rules. I learned that even though potentially troublesome circumstances could have been staring me in the face, there was much less of a problem as long as the existence of these circumstances was not recognized. If I don't acknowledge it and my colleagues don't acknowledge it, then we can do a little two-step around the truth.
Besides, I was a gaijin, and gaijin aren't thought to be sophisticated enough to understand the nuances of Japanese etiquette and protocol.
I taught English in a public junior high school where the students, many of them the children of farmers, fishermen and shopkeepers, couldn't have given a toss about English. It was a subject they were required to study but conditioned to forget as quickly as they could. Many of those going on to high school kept up their diligence until the crucial entrance exams were passed. Many of those going on to a trade or a craft or to freedom from education altogether at age 16 couldn't have cared less about English and I couldn't blame them.
I felt that my role as an assistant English teacher was fairly useless, and over time I came to do just the minimum of what was expected of me professionally while I pursued my photography and my studies of Japan's language, religions and culture.
At first, I pursued this agenda unabashedly. Over time, I pursued it more tactfully, using social cues I had learned to bow out gracefully from certain personal and professional obligations.
Did this strategy work? Maybe.
Or perhaps my former colleagues still talk about that arrogant, opinionated, ungrateful, bull-headed, boorish American who ran roughshod over their feelings, traditions and expectations.
Anyway, the passage of nine years since my return to America has mitigated many of my unpleasant experiences in Japan. I've deconstructed and reconstructed the culture in that span to create in my mind a Japan that hasn't existed in generations.
My Japan is what younger Japanese would derisively call furukusai -- literally, something that stinks of the old.
In some ways, I've built a movie set that looks three-dimensional and realistic from the front, but behind the facade things are held together by strips of plywood that would give way in a stiff breeze.
The Japan of my mind is more a musty old museum exhibit than a living, breathing, dynamic, constantly evolving place. (I wouldn't have it any other way, though. I also pine for the lost America, the America that the gang of criminals in elected office has turned into a mockery, a parody of itself.)
I like to think that I understand Japan far better now than I did more than a decade ago. I like to think that given the opportunity to move there today, I wouldn't repeat many of the questionable choices I made.
Maybe, maybe not.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Guess who's coming to dinner
East VillageManhattan
This weekend's photos have a dog theme.
Yeah, yeah, I know, it's the dog days of summer.
But seriously, it's just the way things worked out. I didn't plan it that way.
And just who is that camera-toting voyeur reflected in the window?
The dog seems to know.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Friday, August 03, 2007
A dream in more ways than one
Nitta Yoshisada offering his sword to the Sun Goddess for her help in his attack on Kamakura, 1333. Woodblock print by Taiso Yoshitoshi.During the night Wednesday, I dreamed that I was bidding my friends farewell. I was going to live once more in Japan. (I lived there from 1995-98.)
One of my friends from work responded with an incredulous "You're kidding!" before asking me if my health had improved to that extent.
I answered that it had.
And then I woke up, literally and figuratively.
The rest of my life probably will be spent near Manhattan.
I don't have a choice.
My doctors and surgeons are here.
I don't know of anyplace else where I can get this level of care for my medical situation.
And besides, the Japan that I love (and also hate) seems to exist anymore only in old Kurosawa films, antique woodblock prints and in the minds of dreaming fools like me.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Faded memories of her wedding
Words--
The stars are words ...
Who succeeded? Who failed?
--Jack Kerouac
A wedding somewhere in America, circa 1850
Daguerreotype, unknown photographerJust another couple of anonymous ghosts from my collection. A lock of the wife's hair has been put under the cover glass as a keepsake. A moment of wedded bliss, frozen in time.
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