tIM rUDDER’S bLOG

Some more photos and interviews for Lang’s research. This time we ended up in a maid bar in Ikebukuro. I have been to a maid bar in Akihabara but this one was quite different, very formal and not so in your face cute that you feel the urge to kill a living being. But in some ways that actually made it quite hard to shoot, couldn’t do anything with lighting or just go crazy due to customers being in the store and it being a very formal atmosphere. The two girls who Lang interviewed also weren’t so used to being in front of the camera (but in retrospect the photos look much more natural and interesting than the other staff who posed). It took a while but actually think a change of lens and an extra F stop was the difference between walking out of the store with what we wanted or being slightly disappointed. The 35mm f2 saved the day.

First girl noted Fellini as her favourite film director. respect.

$5000 nikon D3 my arse. $4,000 Leica M7, pffft.. (ok well secretly I do want both)
$16 40 year old camera, $2 roll of film, $5 to develop it in 30 minutes. I’ve been totally surprised what this piece of machinery can do. Now I just need to get used to focusing with a rangefinder..

There’s something special in shooting something assuming it won’t turn out, only to be pleasantly surprised. It’s a feeling that is totally lost in digital photography.

Two lovely ladies both named Tomoe:

Ones I like.

The images are to accompany Lang’s research into Japanese fashion, for which she received a grant to come over and do. She said she liked my dark moody style and let me run with it which I was more than happy to do. I think there’s a plethora of Harajuku girl photos out there, but hope we got something a bit more unique.

Got back from my shoot with Lang and a couple Harajuku gothic lolita girls. Was a lot of fun, took a lot of crap but will be happy with 3 or 4 decent ones. More to come later.

Taking a leaf out of John’s book in the taking a photo through the finder of a rangefinder kind of way.
My first rangefinder came in the mail today and I’m super keen to give it a run. Just a simple canonet I got for $16 on ebay. The lens + viewfinder are clean, light seals are nice and fresh, the shutter is working and is quieter than a mouse. I just realised the metering doesn’t run on batteries, so will definitely load her up with a roll of Centuria 400 and give her a spin tomorrow night. I don’t expect it to take great photos, but do expect it to be a bundle of fun.

* above photo by this guy

Got a few projects on at the moment which is great. Thanks to a heads up from Josh I will be taking photos for Art Below, an exhibition that replaces advertising in train stations with artworks. Icing on the cake is I’ll be having my own print in the exhibition. It’ll be at Shibuya train station at the end of the month for a week. Shibuya station sees 2.5 million people daily. Chosen photo is below.
Shooting for Akina next week. Doing an organised photo shoot of some Harajuku girls for Lang’s Fellowship research. I believe she’s already got some mags lined up to run articles + photos.

Been doing some shooting for Ping Mag again, been taking a bit longer than I hoped though.
Finally, was also asked to submit to a small Australian art/design mag. Want to try and shoot something specifically for it. Not sure what yet.

I’m in love.

portra 800. gorgeous film. might be a bit too pricey for me to shoot often though. this is 800 pushed to 1600.
talking photography over drinks with brian and john. turned into a long night, but a good one indeed.

Roll of Fuji Superia 800 from a couple weeks ago when I was showing Joe around Shinjuku. Met a few people who like knock off Superoa, but I don’t mind it. I have to turn on an ‘enhancer’ on my scanner to get some finer grain but quite liked the blue tint that came out of this roll and it is relatively cheap.

One thing that isn’t quite apparent in my street photos is the amount of interaction that goes on. People are very approachable here on the street and often quite interested in why I’m going around with a camera. Some say it’s the ‘gaijin factor’, if I were Japanese would people be so open to photos and a chat? I don’t know. Here’s a few examples from last friday. This is fuji pro 400 pushed to 1600, which I don’t think I’ll do again. The last one’s portra 400 pushed to 1600, which seemed to hold up a lot better.

This girl caught me trying to take a candid shot of her. She was carrying a camera so I started talking to her and she turned out to be a photography student, so she joined us for a bit of a walk and took some photos.

These guys were sitting in a yakitori place that opens up onto the street. They were quite open to cameras so I actually sat down at the table. One of the girls started putting yakitori in my mouth and one of the guys gave me his beer. They were super friendly and a lot of fun.


The guy on the left made me laugh. He saw me trying to take his photo (from another angle) and put up a peace sign. I told him to act natural so he pulled out a cigarrette and he started posing as though he were James Dean.. Shot didn’t turn out so well though, this one’s a bit underexposed as well.

Quite funny I asked for her photo in japanese and she said no. I don’t know why but I said please in english and she replied with an ok, just 1. Would love to have shot this one again.

School, work, friends visiting, drinking, taking photos, slight cold. Been pretty busy of late, but in a good way.

Japanese school is going ok. It’s not especially hard, but my vocab is lower than others in the class which is a pain. A bit of preparation before class helps a great deal though. Going to school has definitetly got me talking more and wanting to talk more which is good.

Some random photos below. Got a canon F-1 body and shot with it last night for the first time. Had a lot of fun, think it might become my favourite camera, but bit worried about the results seeing I was pushing colour film 2 stops which doesn’t seem to be advisable. We’ll see how they turn out in a few days..

these are digital though shot on a 24mm f2.8: