Life in Japan - Pictures galore !! Arcades, Temples, Rainy days, etc

Kodak EPX expired 1994 - cold stored (obviously)

Sakura by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

Pidgeon by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

Notes by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

Gulp by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

Feeding Time by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

 

Concidering that film expired in 1994 the results are still pretty good from it.

 

The freezer is an amazing thing. Scans well, too.
I shot two rolls of Provia 400x this past weekend which is pretty amazing stuff (fast, low grain, great color) and my scanner fucking hates it. Everything comes out w/ massive red shifts. I can fix it, but it's far beyond "tweaking" which I don't like doing... I'd just shoot digital if I wanted to color correct by hand. Another point for black & white.

 

Do you think it's an issue with your scanner? I actually use two different scanners because of the different results they give plus the Canon one sucks big time at scanning anything that isn't 100% flat.

 

If you really want to know how it all works, Google around for scanner calibration, IT8 targets, and moniter calibration. You'd think that colors are constant, but they're not, unfortunately...especially coming from analogue source. So yeah, it's definitely a scanner problem (and maybe even software problem as well). Cross processing usually comes down to the software. Generally if you scan in "color negative" mode it compensates for the orange film plane that negatives have (and positives don't). So, depending on your software, scanning cross processed slide film (positive film, but w/ a negative on it) gives "interesting" results. There's almost no color printing from negative anymore, unfortunately.

Anyway, I did another 4 rolls. Pretty happy w/ the results. More to follow... including a whole lot of gay dudes!


It's a bird... it's a plane... by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


A Good Phone Call by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


balance by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Earmuffs by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Enjoy moving by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Glasses by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


High Fashion by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Justin Davis by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Kimonos by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

 

nice work GP

 

It's been a while!

Poppy by martindesu, on Flickr

Rose by martindesu, on Flickr

はらみ (harami) by martindesu, on Flickr

Loitering by martindesu, on Flickr

Well Metered by martindesu, on Flickr

しばらくお待ち下さい by martindesu, on Flickr

自転車 by martindesu, on Flickr

東京駅眺め by martindesu, on Flickr

 

Wicked stuff. I like the bicycles the most.
On that E6 kick still. I have a C41 processing kit which is kind of fisting me right now. Until I get that sorted...


The Big Issue by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Bus Stop by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Cart by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Leoaprdy by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Kubaru by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Shadowy by gaijin_punch, on Flickr


Lines by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

 

Mario, Hello Kitty, Michael Jackson and Godzilla, on stage together at last!



And yes, they played that horrible song by Avril Lavigne when Hello Kitty came out. Also, does anyone know what the brown creature is?

 

hello, i wanted to ask for a log time, what is with the protection over the mouth? i only see that in japan....

 

Do you mean the masks? OK, there's two reason. People wear them so that they don't pass on their cold germs. Others wear them not to catch others germs and then there's those people who wear them not to breath in air polution. I wore one for the very first time in 15 years last month because I had the flu but still had to work.

@badinsults - What a gig, Jackson, Mario, Godzilla and a potato. fantastic What was that all about anyway?

 

It is not a potato, but some kind of owl.
http://images.sgcafe.net/2014/05/521.jpg
This is the toy:
http://images.sgcafe.net/2014/05/fzb.jpg

 

Reason 3: People are paranoid b/c Japan has perfected the art of selling fear.
Reason 4: Provides warmth for the face.

Not sure how prevalent #4 is (I heard some lady explaining it to some guy on the train recently) but #3 is 80% of masks, I'm convinced.

 

I don't always wear a mask to protect me from toxic pollutants in the air, but when I do I take it off to enjoy a cigarette.


Smoke Mask by gaijin_punch, on Flickr

 

hahahaha, classic!!! That should be on a billboard somewhere.

 

I've actually got quite a few of them!

 

I'm pretty sure the primary issue is that a lot of people have asthma, and the air polution can be pretty bad here. Especially true in the spring when a lot of dust gets blown in from the Gobi Desert. There have been days when I have had troubles breathing, even though I don't have any respiratory problems. But yeah, I am pretty certain that some people do wear them to prevent the spread of illness, even though they are completely ineffective in preventing the spread of viruses.

This picture was taken in Akihabara last week, at an event that was showing off various Bandai figures. It was like a history of their toys. Nothing was for sale, they just had displays, plus the catwalk.

I have to say, I was expecting more from Akihabara. It was just one and a half streets, with a few stores. We went into this super-creepy AKB48 building, complete with maid cafe. My girlfriend was expecting that the maids in the maid cafe would put on a show, but it was more like Raisins.

 

Akihabara is a sack of crap now. In fact it started to turn in to crap back in 2000. The golden days of Akihabara are well gone. Some who visit now think it's a great place. If only they could see it back in the early to mid 90's. Man that's when Akihabara really was special. No stupid maid Caffès, no stupid DVD porn shops (well maybe 1 or 2). Basically every other shop sold game or electronics and the back streets were a place of magical treasure hunting. Sadly that has all gone. No more multi story game shops with dedicated floors to each system either no more display booths of games out on the street as far as the eye could see.

Shopping in my local Manga Soko is better than going to Akihabara. To be fair, my local Manga Soko is the main store for the whole country.

 

Yeah, I have to say that the game section in this used store ぐるぐる倉庫 in Kumamoto was much nicer than Super Potato. Sure, less rare stuff, but the prices were far more reasonable. I think it is pretty safe to assume that video gaming is not as big as it was back in the 90s, considering that most of the entertainment stores I have went into have a relatively small games sections (i.e. smaller than an average Wal-Mart).

At least my girlfriend got to see lots of otoku, which is the reason she wanted to go.

 

I have nothing to prove otherwise, but I seriously am going w/ paranoia. Not that many people can have asthma. Or if they are, they are re-inventing the wheel... with a square block. I've never seen a Japanese use an inhaler in 15 years of living here. And not that much sand blows in from the Gobi (relatively speaking). Besides, the sand is so fine that the mask does shit from what I've heard. Martin can chime in on this, as he's an actual scientist and I believe has done research on this.

I've had some issues breathing, and that's coming from a zero-allergy background. Vaccuming my home and dusting solves it... until it gets dusty again.

Anyway, the masks aren't the real laughable one. It's the bee-keeper costumes that you see older women wear. Mark my words, in 10 years people are going to get ill from Vitamin D deficiency.

Yakumo summed it up. The pedos have won that battle. It used to be geek chic, and now it just panders to middle aged pervs.