Exploring rural west Japan on bike: three cameras, four hours, 123 pictures.

 After a week of rain and unseasonable cold, the weather forecast gave everyone the promise of a dry and sunny day before returning to the regularly scheduled program of cold and wet. So I stopped at the JR Takefu train station to find the rental bicycle services that often can be found in Japan. The electric and non-electric bikes there were fitted with devices requiring a downloaded smartphone app as well as credit card to make electronic payment. Rather than lose precious daylight on the eve of the winter solstice, on the advice of the tourist information person, instead I walked five minutes north of the station to the terminus of an electric tram company. They have fewer bikes and all of them require pedaling. But for 100 JPY (less than $1 at the 2024 exchange rate) it is how I covered many kilometers between 9:30 and 2 p.m.

examples from the toy camera's lens, far from high-definition or true colors

One camera was in a chest pocket of my padded vest. The bigger one was in the outside jacket pocket. The cellphone rested in my rear pants pocket. The division of labor between each camera tended to follow a pattern. The project theme is old buildings and places of human activity. So the enthusiast camera (Canon g9x-ii) mostly recorded those subjects (see thumbnails, below). But the toy camera's strength is its lack of details (see thumbnails, above): only the main geometry and masses of light and dark, color patterns and dominant shapes can be recorded pleasingly; but not in contrasty light or low light. When there is plenty of illumination, and especially when it is indirect or comes through cloud cover, then the best results turn out. Treating the toy camera (Pieni II) as something like a watercolor brush helps to match scenes and subjects to its lens.

subjects for the Enthusiast Camera (1" sensor size)

So if the toy camera is for poetic representations and the enthusiast camera is for main subject, highly detailed images suitable for enlarging or printing, then what is the third camera for, you may wonder. The cellphone cameras have come a long way since the 1990s novelty of putting a lens on the phone first arrived on the scene. A generation later many people reach for their cellphone not to talk but to send text or to take a photo or a video clip of a moment in their day, either to share with friends or strangers (social media), or for personal reference. So you could say the device is a camera with added telecommunication uses, rather than being mainly for talking and the camera is an added tool.

Now that cellphone pictures are just about as clear and accurate and easy to make and use as the ones from a dedicated camera (for film or digital images), many serious and casual photographers record increasingly larger parts of their daily or weekly pictures not with a dedicated camera, but preferring the compact form and relatively usable images they create to the ones requiring bigger equipment. So for today's rental bike ride along the old feudal-era routes up and down the valley, the cellphone camera is the one I reached for most often.

Looking at the file count at the end of the excursion there were 123 pictures, including a handful of video clips among them. Of these, 38 were by toy camera, 29 were by enthusiast camera, and the remaining 56 were by cellphone camera app. What prompted me to reach for cellphone instead of toy or enthusiast was a set of subjects different to the poetic or the historical features: social changes, eye-catching light or texture or another compositional cue, panorama situations (the other two camera require the PC to stitch the overlapping frames into a wide canvas; the cellphone merges the scene in-camera), macro subjects for close-up (handy function on the cellphone's camera), and super-wide views (beyond the focal length of toy or enthusiast cameras). The following thumbnails from the cellphone camera give an idea of the mishmash of subjects recorded there.

close-ups, panoramas, notes on lunch menu, emergence of Christmas displays went onto the phone

 

Maybe all the purposes delineated here could fit onto the cellphone's camera app, but like all tools, it works best in some situations but not in others. For example, since so many people snap photos all day long in public, semi-public, and private settings, it rarely attracts worry or attention from the people nearby. The novelty of a tiny toy camera also is non-threatening. But somebody with a big piece of equipment, or setting up lights and a tripod almost certainly makes people wonder if this would be published, with or without permission. So in addition to the technical excellence of many cellphones today, the ubiquity of them can be an advantage, too. However, unlike a "real" camera with menus and dials and buttons for quick control and added functionality in challenging light or weather conditions, a cellphone battery soon runs out, the controls one might need in a special setting could be hard to find or unfamiliar to use, and there are other things happening on a cellphone besides photography, thus leading to distraction, for example. The coatings on the lens in a dedicated camera give superior results to the small bit of glass in a cellphone, as well. 

As for carrying a toy camera with its minuscule battery, lack of LCD screen, mostly unusable viewfinder, and plastic lens, it is true that some filters or specialist apps can mimic various quirky cameras by digital manipulation. But having a separate device to do those niche pictures keeps them physically and mentally in one location, rather than to be intermingled with other work. And the blind nature of shooting with almost no viewfinder and no LCD screen means that results only come some hours later when transferring the files to a PC. So it is akin to the days of roll film and processing delays before getting the results.

In conclusion, when image recording devices are getting smaller and lighter, but also more capable of delivering good results, it is not a burden to carry more than one. Each can be given a separate job to do so that reaching for A or for B produces a mental compartmentalization when the field location has many sub-projects or subjects to photograph; not all being used for a unitary publication but for several concurrent but differing projects out of the same event or place. Today's example is one way to traverse the cultural landscape with multiple lenses that record different parts of the day's experience. A different social observer may be dominant in video and only incidentally take still photos. And someone with an eye for hand-drawn compositions might mix camera(s) and sketchpad while exploring a place or a topic. By selecting the best tool for the purpose catches one's eye, the best results are most likely. It takes some practice to remember to reach to the rear pocket, or the chest pocket or the jacket pocket to fish out the right camera for the moment, but eventually things go very smoothly. The reward comes when reviewing on the larger screen of the PC and from there sharing commentary and images with the wider world.

Putting ballet on stage in west Japan at the city's Culture Center

Minutes before Nutcracker Suite begins - no cameras allowed

The Kyiv Classical Ballet Company entertained a big audience on Wednesday night with their rendition of the Nutcracker story set to P. I. Tchaikovsky's music. Since no recordings or cameras were permitted, this snapshot before the curtain rises is a writing prompt for the impressions of a newcomer to the dancing stage. In no particular order several thoughts came to mind, beyond the visual splendor, the athleticism of men and women, and the overall gestalt of High Art.

Logistics must be mind-boggling for a stage of 25 to 30 professional dancers and the supporting colleagues for costume, lighting, direction, make-up, physical conditioning/injuries, travel details for lodging and meals, and so on. And for long tours there may well be personality conflicts, entanglements, and spill-over of home and work settings. On the surface there are highly trained minds and bodies moving rhythmically around a stage, usually accompanied by music, but even without the music the visual "music" is a sight to see.

The Nutcracker and its Russian music may carry added meaning in these times of Russian invasion of Ukraine, ongoing since February 24, 2022. The military draft age of the male performers may give them an awareness that they are expressing the creative powers of the nation instead of wearing a uniform. At the end of this show on the Japan tour, the flags of Japan and of Ukraine were featured during the curtain call. And one of the scenes in the first half included a costume that mimicked the blue (above) and yellow (below) of the national flag of Ukraine. One of the backdrops had a prominent gold and blue look, as did the light pattern on the Christmas tree at the center of the stage. Perhaps the performance is so much a part of the Christmas season in Ukraine, that the Russian elements are not viewed as such. Or the way it is conducted in Ukraine may produce a locally inflected interpretation so that it has become domesticated to the Ukraine audiences and dancers, leaving little trace of the Russia connections.

When it comes to rehearsing, choreographing movements, creating the sets and fitting into the music, there are all kinds of social relationships and statuses being negotiated. The idea of "prima donna" (first woman/dancer) comes from the ballet world, where one dancer stands out from the rest. Audiences of newcomers or seasoned ballet watchers may focus on the main characters, but all the others on stage contribute to the whole, as well, even if overlooked in the passing minutes of the plot.

If the originator of the story and music and the stage adaptation from long ago could see the modern interpretation now, it would be interesting to ask about impressions of the way that ballet companies present the work now compared to before. But it would also be interesting to ask the creators long ago how the vision grew and changed between first imagining and finally drafting the version performed still today: how did it change along the way?

As for viewing the performance with the rest of the audience, an experienced ballet enthusiast will no doubt look for (and discover) things that a first-time watcher may not see or hear. And in the eyes of a former dancer seeing the new generation do the same story, it would be interesting to know how it looks.

In the end, the simplicity of dancers moving around the stage and the complexity of so many lives involved on stage and behind the scenes (now and in generations before and after the present moment) make for enjoyable viewing and reflecting on the storyline, but also on the production to make everything come together to delight audiences.

Temple visit of many layers - Eihei-ji monks, tourists, pilgrims, and townies

 

Rainy Saturday in December for visitors to temple grounds

On the 30-minute bus ride from JR Fukui train station (east gate) to the Zen temple town of Eihei-ji the many people of all ages and gender, including people speaking languages other than Japanese, spurred thoughts of the forthcoming sights and sounds of the temple town. After a few years living and working occasionally in this part of Japan during the decades since 1984, this bus ride would not be the first, nor hopefully last time to see the ancient cedars, imposing buildings, eager shopkeepers making a living, and glimpses of temple personnel resident or visiting.

An extreme case of interpretive lenses would be to use the "Rashomon effect" seen in Kurosawa's movie, itself an interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and tally up all the individual perspectives of the temple and its town on this day and also in a longer, longitudinal time frame. Countless experiences would fit into that kind of approach since each person's location within their own life shapes their field of view and the frame that they see the place and themselves within it. But taking a more modest layering of experiences, the following come to mind. One is surface impressions; what an observer might learn simply by watching and occasionally asking questions about the temple life and town activity, too. Another is an eye on the visitors - religious or sight-seeing or another other sort (experts of architecture, history, chanting, or traditional arts incorporated into temple lives and cycles of activity. Then below these observable patterns and practices there is a third layer; what the temple residents, staff, and leaders think about - how they use time and talent to carry out the things significant to them. Likewise for the several varieties of visitor, but also town residents; there is the layer of what this group of people understand of the place and the things they see or take part in. Finally, there is the layer involving the author of this blogpost: looking at the place from the time of arrival on the day's first bus at 10:18 to the departure on the 12:30 return, there is the layer for picking apart the previous four layers before making a statement or interpretation on top of all those others; an interpretation about the other interpretations all jostling side by side.

Clearly, there is no single interpretation of the Eihei-ji (永平寺) temple town. Whether it is a simple fact like the arrival of the 10:18 bus from Fukui station, or it is a whole day of Matsuri (annual festival), the several layers described here --and likely others by historian, journalist, novelist, religion researcher, and so on-- all figure into the total experience at hand, no matter if the reference is minutes, days, or decades. So while this short walk through the many points of view intersecting at Eihei-ji town and temple does not lead to a firm conclusion, illuminating cross-cultural comparison, or a crystal clear analysis of interplaying and evolving viewpoints, by identifying some of the moving parts in this picture, the complexity at least can be acknowledged.