Day 67
Jozankei
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Tag Archives: japan
Skier ascending summit
Day 66
Going up
Day 65
Bandai Gashapon iPhone Stand
Day 64
From Wikipedia:
The terms gashapon (ガシャポン?) or gachapon (ガチャポン?) refer to variety of vending machine-dispensed capsule toys popular in Japan and elsewhere. “Gashapon” is a Japanese onomatopoeiacomposed of two sounds: “gasha” (or “gacha”) for the sound of a crank on a toy vending machine, and “pon” for the sound of the toy capsule dropping into the receptacle. Gashapon may describe both the machines themselves and the toys obtained from them. Popular manufacturers of gashapon include Tomy, which uses the shortened term Gacha (ガチャgacha?) for their capsule machines, and Kaiyodo. In the United States, “Gashapon” is a registered trademark of the Bandai Company,[1] and gashapon are generally referred to as blind box sets.
Mt. Yotei
Day 62
Road side
Day 61
Hierarchy
Day 60
Nikka Whisky Distillery with Fuji X20
This past winter I had the privilege of visiting the Nikka Distillery in Hokkaido Japan. It’s amazing how something so traditionally Scottish such as whisky making can seem so indigenous to Japan. I guess it’s the Japanese respect and love for craft that makes something foreign their own. The founder, Masataka Taketsuru studied chemistry at the University of Glasgow in 1918. While in Scotland he married his wife “Rita” and moved back with her to Japan in 1920.
After working initially for Suntory he eventually started his own whisky distillery Nikka which is now owned by Asahi Breweries. There’s an amazing amount of things to see at the distillery including a free tasting of three products: Taketsuru 10, 17 and Nikka Apple Wine – all very good especially when had with beef jerky. It was the first time for me to visit a whisky distillery in winter. Be sure to click on the panorama photo to see the full winter vista from the tasting room. Both Hokkaido and parts of Scotland gets up to 2 meters of snow.
“Rasen Kaigan” by Lieko Shiga published by AKAAKA Art Publishing
“Rasen Kaigan” was included in many best of 2013 photobooks lists and rightly so – it is a stunning book. The photos taken are of the Kitakama region of Japan which was worst hit by the 2011 tsunami. Leiko Shiga is the resident photographer for the area and also recorder of its oral history.
The first few images of the book set the tone of other worldliness. High contrast shot of an extraterrestrial rock and martian sunset or dawn. You’re unsure as to whether you are on a different planet or some parallel universe. The landscape is familiar but altered in some way like the photographs themselves. An alien fish eye stares at you as you move through the images.
You pick up clues along the way that it has something to do with the passing of time. Images of tree rings are juxtaposed with images of youth and age. The flow is interrupted two thirds of the way through by a double black page spread. We are back at the beginning with images of an excavation site, antique photographs and another series of high contrast rocks. The eye of an old woman stares at you.
Kiln and Flowers
Adventures in Photography 