Shrine Weekend

I got out into "Japan" this weekend (that is what we call it when we leave base), and went to a couple of shrines and temples to take some pictures. I shot a few pictures with my Kiev 60, and one roll each with my Arcus C3 and my newly acquired Yashica Electro 35 GX. I put about three rolls through my Ricohflex TLR camera, though. For those of you not familiar with a TLR, it is a kind of box camera, like you would expect to see your grandfather using. They are a lot of fun (as long as you are not in any hurry) and can take some really great pictures. Using these old cameras kind of strips away all the superficial parts of photography, and just leaves you with the fundamentals. In the end, all photography boils down to the same thing, and it doesn't matter whether you are using a 100 year old pinhole camera, or the latest 16 megapixel digital SLR, the light is still the same, and the same fundamental process is at work.

The Argus I mentioned above is a camera I just had sent to me from my parents. It was the first camera I owned. We bought it at a Salvation Army store for a few dollars when I was taking a photography class at a local junior college one summer. That must have been about 1984 or 85. It served me well for that class, and based on the pictures I took this weekend, it is still a great little camera.

Anyway, back to this weekend. On Saturday I managed to get out of the house to go to a couple of shrines and temples to get some pictures. All three places I went were almost entirely empty, and completely beautiful, making for great shooting opportunities. The best was the last place I went, a shrine in Fussa. When I got there, they were burning piles of leaves on the grounds as part of a clean up, and the columns of smoke winding around the statues and trees made for a very picturesque scene. I shot a full roll with my TLR, and most of another with my Argus. It was kind of magical...

Conformity and Non-Conformity

The Japanese conform. Very few of them do anything out of the ordinary (at least to there way of looking at it). This includes the way they dress during the week. Everyone here wears a uniform. School children all wear uniforms (the girls dress up in naughty Catholic school girl uniforms, and the boys dress up like they are in Prussian military schools), the road crews all wear uniforms (or rather, wear several different uniforms, all color coded to depict their function), even office workers all wear uniforms, in the form of almost identical suits. The Japanese seem to love to wear uniforms.

But I think this causes a problem. None of them get to express much individuality most of the time. However, on the weekend, some of them have found a way to express themselves. A few people, especially younger women (teens and early twenties) dress up in outrageous costumes and hang out in public areas to be seen. However, even in this small amount of non-conformity, they manage to conform, because they all dress basically alike. There are some variations, but in any given location, all these people are dressed in the same style, and usually have come with at least one other person who is dressed almost identically. So, even on the weekend, in their attempts to express themselves, that have managed to just change one uniform for another.

I think we should feel lucky that communism did not get a foothold here in Japan, because I think they really could have made it work.

I Hate People

I have said it before (although maybe not here), but I hate people. Not everybody, and not all the time; but most people, and a good part of the time. People, in general, are idiots; and worse than that, self centered, self absorbed, self important idiots (I guess I can't claim to be any different, except, of course, that I really am that important).

On a slightly related subject, I have been looking over some web sites with photography contests of one sort or another, including http://www.monsterphoto.com (with a $10,000 grand prize), and http://www.jonessoda.com/gallery (where your picture could be features on the label of one of their sodas). On these sites, you can view the photos that others have submitted, and I am amazed at the absolute CRAP that most people are submitting. Here are my basic rules for a contest entry:

1) The picture should be PROPERLY EXPOSED(or improperly exposed in an interesting way)

2) The picture should be IN FOCUS(or, once again, out of focus in an interesting way)

3) The picture should not be of any of the following:
a) a dog
b) a cat
c) your kid eating something messy, or being what you assume is "cute" (trust me, no one else cares how cute you think your kid is. Besides, they will never be as cute as my kids, so just give it up.)
d) you taking a picture of yourself taking a picture in the mirror

4) The picture should not include a DATE STAMP (learn to use your camera's functions)

5) The picture should actually feature the thing you are photographing (a tiny buffalo in the middle of the picture surrounded by acres of grass is not interesting. Invest in a telephoto lens, or get closer.)

6) The picture should not include your finger over the lens (or any other unintended obstructions)

7) The picture should not feature a car (unless it is an old rusting car covered in overgrowth)

8) Just because a picture is in black and white does not make it good.

If you want to see what I mean about awful pictures, got to jonessoda.com and look for picture by Alana from Lacey, Washington. She has managed to put together a truly amazing collection of the absolute worst picture I have ever seen. Now to be fair, we all take bad pictures, but we don't enter them all into contests. She seems to have no ability to edit what she is posting. One or two of her pictures are fairly good, but they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of CRAP she is throwing up on the site. If I were running the contest, I would disqualify all of her pictures for that very reason...

My name is Justin...

...and I am a photoholic. I admit it, I have become addicted to photography and to photographic equipment. In particular, I find myself drawn to cameras from the Former Soviet Union (FSU). These cameras are, in my opinion, beautiful cameras. They are simple, and beautiful.

In particular, I am drawn to the Soviet copies of Leicas, namely the FED and Zorki cameras. I currently am shooting with a Soviet Contax copy called the Kiev 4 (made by the same Zaphod Arsenol that made my Kiev 60 I have spoken of before). These cameras are such faithful copies of the Contax's and Leica's they were made after, that they can share the same lenses. I have coming to me right now a FED 2a, FED 2e, FED 3a, FED 3b, FED 5, and a Zorki 4. All are 35 mm cameras which use the Leica 39mm screw mount lenses. I can't wait for them to come....

For more information on these cameras, I would recommend the following two web sites:

http://www.geocities.com/fzorkis/index.html

http://homepage.mac.com/mattdenton/photo/cameras/index.html

My name is Justin, and I haven't shot a picture in almost 15 minutes...

Professional Photographer

I am officially a professional photographer. That is, if your definition of a professional photographer is that it is a photographer who has sold a picture. I recently uploaded some of my pictures onto a stock photo sales web site called shutterstock.com, and just this morning have discovered that I have had my first download from that site, resulting in a payment to me of ..... drum roll please.... 20 cents. I know it is miniscule, and doesn't begin to cover the time and energy I took to take the pictures and upload them to the site, but it is fun, and it is just the beginning (I hope).

Self Healing Kiev

As I have written about before, I recently purchased a Soviet Made medium format camera called a Kiev 60 (made by Zaphod Arsenal, located in the Former Soviet Republic of Ukraine). When I purchased it, it had one problem, the film advance counter did not function properly. It worked fine with no film loaded, but with film loaded, it would count up to "1", and then stop, just staying on "1" for the entire roll of film. The problems were: 1) You never knew what picture you were on, so you weren't sure when you had taken the last picture, and 2) since the camera mechanist always thought it was on picture "1", it didn't advance the film properly (the Kiev 60 advances each picture a little less than the last, to make up for the fact that as the film winds onto the takeup spool, the diameter increases, so by rotating a little less, the pictures are all evenly spaced), so I only got 11 pictures instead of 12 on a roll of 120 film.

Well, part way through my third roll of film, the film advance counter up and started to work. Now, I have put in my fourth roll of film, and the counter is working just fine. I have read that the Kievs like to be used, and that quite a few of the problems they have miraculously disappear after some usage, but I never really believed it until now...

Imperial Escort

I had a meeting in Tokyo the other day with the Ministry of the Environment. As we were driving toward the expressway, we were stopped by the passing of the Emperor's motorcade. We then followed them onto the expressway, and all the way into Tokyo. It was kind of like having the Emperor escorting us to our meeting...

The meeting itself was one of the most frustrating meetings I have ever had. We were trying to get them to define one of their laws, but the law is not adequately defined, so they couldn't do it. All in all, very frustrating.

On the up side, I have gotten back more Medium Format pictures from the photo lab. I got the first roll of black and white I shot with my Ricohflex VI, and the first roll of color I shot with my Kiev. Both are viewable at http://eljusto.smugmug.com/Medium+Format, if you are interested. I am still shooting my first roll with the Moskba 5.

I am having a party this evening to celebrate my passing the PE exam. I know I found out about in almost two months ago, but this is the first date that enough people have been available to make a go of it. I am taking everyone out to Izikaya, which is Japanese for "eat and drink", mostly drink. We will probably go out for Karaoke after.

Russian Medium Format

I have been into photography ever since I took a photography class at a local junior college one summer when I was about 15. I still remember that dark room chemical smell.... I love it. Well, I don't develop my own film anymore, but I still love photography. I had been shooting strictly digital for some time, on roughly 3 megapixel fairly compact cameras, and having a good time doing it.

I briefly considered getting the new Canon 20D, but the $1500 price tag stopped me (barely). Instead, I decided to break out my old Pentax K1000 that I hadn't shot a roll with in probably 5 years, and put a few rolls through it. This got me reinfected with the SLR bug, and I have recently purchased several more Pentax cameras of the same era (a Pentax ME, two ME Supers, and a KM). The lenses are all interchangeable, and I love cameras of that era.

In talking to a friend of min e who is also into photography, he recommended that I give medium format photography a shot (no pun intended). For those not familiar with this, it is film which is about twice as wide as 35mm film (it is 60mm wide), with pictures usually either 45mm, 60mm, 70mm or 90mm wide (depending on the camera). Because of these large negatives, the resolution is much higher (exactly like having a digital camera with a higher megapixel count), and this gives the possibility of larger blow-ups.

Because of the new digital cameras with extremely high resolution (above 10 megapixels), a fair number of professional photographers are abandoning film for digital cameras. As these photographers are the main users of medium format, used medium format cameras can be had for less money then ever before. However, for the well known namebrands (Pentax, Hasselblad, Bronica, Miyama, etc...), the prices are still well above my price range. A simple set up with only a single normal lens can easily be over $1000, and often well more, and the lenses can be even more for each one.

In looking on the web, I noticed that several people were talking about relatively inexpensive cameras made in the Ukraine (and Soviet Union before that) that had very good lenses available. These cameras are the Kiev 60 and Kiev 88. The Kiev 88 is a very attractive camera, and is an almost exact copy of a Hasselblad (so much so that some of the accessories are interchangeable). The Kiev 60, on the other hand is...... not attractive. It has been described as a 35mm SLR, greatly enlarged, and then hit with an ugly stick. I find the camera attractive, as it looks a lot like the Pentax cameras I own. But I admit it IS BIG (a Pentax K1000 weighs 1 lb 12 oz, and a Kiev 60 weighs 4 lbs 6 oz).

The problem with the Kiev 88 is that it is more complicated, and has more problems. I therefore decided to get the Kiev 60, which I purchased off of eBay for about $150, including shipping. Since it arrived, I have had a blast using it, and have actually purchased two other medium format cameras. One is another Soviet camera, called the Moskba 5, which was made in 1959. The other is a Ricohflex TLR (Twin lens Reflex) camera. So far, all are working well, and the pictures they create are incredible. The totally manual nature of these three cameras makes you take more time taking pictures, but I love that. If I want to shoot off a bunch of pictures quickly, I'll just use the digital, or 35mm, but when I shoot medium format, I want to take my time.

To see the results, you can go to http://eljusto.smugmug.com/Medium+Format

Justin Lancaster, Registered Professional Engineer

Back in October I took the professional engineering test. For those of you not familiar with the process, here is how it all works...

First, you graduate high school and get into college, majoring in Engineering (in my case, Environmental Engineering). When you finally graduate (or usually just before), you have the opportunity to take a test, called the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) (aka Engineer-In-Training) test. This test is eight hours, and covers everything that should be learned by a student in any engineering discipline. This test is pretty hard, with about %60 or so passing any given sitting.

When you graduate and get an engineering job, you start to gain experience. Once you have had 6 years of qualifying experience (various states differ on exactly what qualifying experience is, but basically it is work requiring engineering knowledge) you can apply to take another test, if you can get some already registered professional engineers to agree that you are ready. If the college you graduated from is ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) accredited some states will reduce the experience requirement to 2 years.

This test, the Professional Engineering (PE) Test, is very difficult, and consists of eight hours of detailed questions in all areas of your engineering discipline (again, for me that is Environmental Engineering). If you manage to pass that test (again, about 60% pass), then you are a registered professional engineer.

Anyway, back to me...

Back in October I took the PE test, and just learned earlier this week that I somehow (quite miraculously) managed to pass. So I am now a Registered Professional Engineer, especially qualified in Environmental Engineering, in the State of Oregon! Anyone who has an engineering background will know what a huge milestone this is.....