23 February 2006, morning I'm watching Apollo Ono tear up the speedskating track, Kumiko's cooking up some bacon and eggs, and we're one day away from our trip to Sapporo. We're planning on visiting the Sapporo brewery works, sampling the local delicacies, such as hairy crab, ramen, and soup curry, and I think since we're looking straight down the barrel of unseasonable warmth, I might suggest a trip out to a nearby lake/national park area that sounds pretty cool. We'll see about that. I spend a lot of my computer time nowadays perusing the forums at APUG(the Analog Photography Users' Group) for advice on developing and equipment. It's a great resource for those who are interested.
18 February 2006, evening We just had heated-up pumpkin gratin. It was good but not great. I'm not sure where it came from, but it'd been in our freezer for ages. I'm excited about our upcoming train/Hokkaido trip. I hope my Zeiss Super Ikonta arrives soon from the repair guy in Slovakia. He sent it 2 weeks ago, but no sign yet. That's the camera I want to take if possible, even though it's spent the most time broken of any of my cameras. I think it's the perfect romantic camera for a romantic train trip. It just has "the look".
I meant to do some trial runs at the printing lab for my upcoming exhibition (April 10-15 at Early Gallery in Yodoyabashi), but when I got there the lab was closed. That was disappointing, but I took the opportunity to walk and shoot around Kitahama/Yodoyabashi, where the lab is. It's an interesting old part of the city. It's the center for banking and it seems for photo galleries as well. I had a good time shooting in my old style, walking in circles around the city, rather than riding in circles on the train. Walking is a much better way to explore a city than on a train, but a train is an easy place for photos because the people are sitting ducks. On the street, people tend to veer out of your shot. They always assume their ruining the shot, when in fact they're making it. So I walked around with a 35mm most of the afternoon, and explored some camera shops as well. I found a place in Shinsaibashi that's a kind of posh collectible camera salon. Off a side street and up a flight of stairs into a small, dark gallery with lighted display cases lined with near-perfect examples of the most collectible models only, I was the only "customer" there. There was an old man sitting quietly in a chair at one corner, and a girl behind a counter working on her schedule book. Jazz standards emanated softly from speakers hidden in the dark mahogany corners. I don't recall any cameras that weren't German or Swiss, and all were about double the usual dealer price. Interestingly, the only one I really wanted was one of the cheapest, another Super Ikonta, but this one in the 6x4.5cm format. I don't have any cameras that shoot that format, aside from my multi-format pinhole camera.
Now it's time to ripen the fruits of the day (develop my film).
12 February 2006, morning Kumiko and I have been planning our annual winter trip, and for a while, it seemed that tropical was going to win out over the traditional snowy. But human nature intervened. We couldn't get any of the cheap package deals to Okinawa or Taiwan or Amami Oshima because bookings were full, so we turned back to snow, and I'm glad we did. I love snow. And this year we've decided to take the "Twilight Express", a luxury train with sleeper compartments, up to Hokkaido. This train travels over 22 hours from Osaka along the snowy east coast to Japan's great northern city of Sapporo. This will be my first experience with a sleeping compartment on a train. All those old movies and Agatha Christie novels have built up the romance, so I'm really happy with this vacation choice. I might even bring my camera.
Some of Kumiko's classmates came over to watch the friendly match between the USA and Japan yesterday. We had pizza delivered, and one of the choices was Korean bulgoki pizza. I thought it might have been a bad choice, but it was the best. Bulgoki is barbequed beef, and it tasted wonderful on pizza. That's going to be the new standard! By the way, the USA (soccer team) won 3-2. We have the 7th rated national soccer side in the world. Amazing for a country that doesn't give a lick about it.
8 February 2006, morning I've now developed seven rolls of film with reasonable success. Loading them onto reels is the only tricky part. I used to use plastic reels when I was developing in my high school and college days. Now I've opted for stainless steel, and it's a different process to load. Plastic loads from the outside in, and steel from the inside out. Most of the rolls I've done so far have had one or two frames messed up from imperfect loading.
On another note, I went bowling the other night with coworkers, and one of them bowled 4 strikes in a row while holding for the first a tray of drinks and for the following three a big plastic cup of chuhai (an alcoholic beverage). Amazing. Why can't professional bowlers bowl perfect games every time?
Young and old on the Hankyu train. I took it, I developed it, I scanned it. Here it is!
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