Textures

I forgot what I thought when I took this picture, but now I think it's about textures. I generally don't make conscious decisions when I'm pressing the shutter. In fact, I try to avoid thinking too hard and too long about a picture while I'm shooting. I prefer to be surprised by what I "saw" when I later see the contact sheet.

8 Eyes

In the Akihabara area of Tokyo on November 10, 2008. I'm not sure anymore if the title was inspired by the photo's content or if I was rather subconsciously reminded of a Japanese Jazz LP called "Eight Eyes and Eight Ears" which I've had for a long time.

Taken with the M8.2 and the 28mm Elmarit at ISO 320.

The picture was converted directly to black-and-white in Lightroom without the aid of external tools. It was then slightly cropped and I added a small border because it looked as if it would otherwise fall apart.

Tuna

Another one from the fascinating Tsukiji market in Tokyo. Most of what's happening there is about tuna.

Shot on November 11, 2008 with the M8.2 and the 28mm Elmarit at ISO 320. Converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro.

Street jumble

I was very briefly considering to dedicate this photo to Daido Moriyama.  Not, of course, because I think that my pictures could be compared with his, but maybe because this one was inspired by him in one way or the other. But I'd rather not in order not to do him injustice.

Taken on November 14, 2008 in Tokyo (Minami-Aoyama) with the M8.2 at ISO 640 and converted using Silver Efex Pro. The lens was the 28mm Elmarit and the shutter speed was a whopping 15th of a second.

Three grumpy old men

Japan seems to have a plethora of old men whose main job it is to stand in front of construction sites, parking lots, and other places, doing essentially nothing. Well, OK, sometimes - very rarely - they might open a door or something like that, but most of the time to me it looked as if they were there just to be there.

This is probably a good thing as these guys might otherwise be unemployed and sit at home alone, but - coming from another part of the world - it looked strange to me.

This particular construction site even had three of them. Taken on November 10, 2008 in Tokyo with the M8.2 and a 28mm Elmarit at ISO 320.  Converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro.

Here's an update I received from a Japanese visitor of this blog: "Those grumpy old men are very common in Japan. The Yakuza (Japanese mafia) bullies contractors into hiring them to do practically nothing and then takes a (big) cut. Along with loan sharking, it's one of the ways the Yakuza survives in the modern world."