Helios 40 85mm F1.5 – The king of Russian weird bokeh lenses
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Old Russian Lenses – Mir 20 N 20mm f3.5 – Faulty Copy :(
I’ve become a little obsessed with old manual lenses of late, particularly the Russian ones, I have a Helios 44-2 58mm f2 and a Jupiter 11 135mm f4 which I LOVE, they are very sharp, have some amazing bokeh characteristics and are cheap, which means you can experiment with lenses with some personality without spending a fortune.
Would I use them on most commercial jobs? unlikely, but for when you have more time or want to get a bit more “creative” they are wonderful.
I was looking for something wide to compliment the 58mm and the 135mm which lead me to the Mir 20mm f3.5.
There are, it turns out, a number of variations of this lens but I particularly wanted the Russian (as opposed to international) version with Russian script. Why? well, just because.
I came across a Mir 20N with the Russian script in M42 mount (this, it turns out, should have been a red flag – more on that later) on eBay and ordered it. Happy Days!
I had to wait another week for a different M42 to E mount adapter to arrive as there are 2 kinds, the ones that have a flange inside at the base of the thread to aid in registration and those that don’t (see photo below)
The Mir 20 I had ordered had an aperture lever which prevented it from being used on the adapter I already had.
Initial testing looked good, the crazy flares (God rays anyone?) were there and the lens seemed sharp, but I noticed some problems with the aperture blades not fully opening and realised the copy I had bought was damaged.
If you look closely in the photo below you can see the aperture blade at the top is not in the position it should be and all the aperture blades are not fully retracted at f3.5.
From what I’ve read HERE (great site if you are interested in old lenses by the way!) and various other places I think the copy I purchased has been modified from Nikon F mount to M42 for some reason (It looks like the Nikon mount version and not the other photos I’ve seen of the M42 mount version) and in the process the aperture mechanism has been damaged.
***UPDATE*** It seems I may be wrong about the modified Nikon F mount thoughts, apparently the 20N was made in very limited quantities in M42 mount. Doesn’t help with my faulty aperture blades though :(
Of course the eBay seller failed to mention any problems……..
Reluctantly I initiated a return on eBay, but not before I’d shot some more tests you can see in the video at the top and the photos in this post.
All images and video Shot on a Sony A7III.
I really like the lens and will definitely be buying another copy and thanks to the internet will be more careful and buy a MC 20M M42 version next time.
Happy Jesus’ Birthday 2018
I love me a good co-opted pagan festival celebrating the historically incorrect birthday of a middle eastern man (now rendered as Caucasian, because…… white people) who thought he was the offspring of a deity and wasn’t averse to subjugating the odd sex worker, especially when the festivities involve choking (between mouthfuls of antibiotic infused, factory farmed & force-fed till its legs broke meat product) on the rancid engorged member of late-stage capitalism whilst sobbing gently in self-loathing at not being able to afford the latest Sang-Apple-tendo electronic gadget for your ungrateful little snow flake spawn. Love it.
I don’t do Christmas cards……. but if I did they’d be 3d printed working snow globes (filled with the tears of food bank children and the ground up bones of pedophile priests) based on the animation above that I spent way too much time making as festive as I could.
I’d send them out using an online retailers zero hour contract staff to everyone I’d ever met whilst dancing naked around a fire on the shortest day of the year pleading with the old gods to strike me down where I pranced.
Merry Christmas 2018 and a very happy new year to everyone!!!
“Sexsomnia” pulled from St Neots Film Festival – My public statement
“Sexsomnia” at The 13th Porn Film Festival Berlin
‘Boys For Sale’ wins Best Feature Film at Nachtschatten BDSM/Fetish Film Festival 2018
Adrian “Uchujin” Storey – Collusion Maker Takeover – Presentation
Last week I was honored to be invited by Lee Mason to give a presentation about my work at the Collusion Maker Takeover event taking place at iMet in Huntingdon.
I talked about myself (oh the vanity:), “Boys For Sale“, “Traces Of The Soul” and the showed the Handbook “New Day” video I made recently.
You can watch my talk (shot from a terrible angle on a Galaxy S8) above.
It was a really interesting day with lots of inspiring projects being shown and talked about and I’m very grateful to Lee and Collusion for inviting me and all the great work they are doing in the local area.
After myself in the evening session LAICA gave a talk about the “bunker project” album that he and Graham Dunning made, Miri Kat & Martin Dubka played us some of their beautiful live coding meets modular synth music and to top it off the amazing Graham Dunning played us some of his unique and wonderful Mechanical Techno.
There was also food provided by the insanely delicious Guerilla Kitchen (Those “black Bean Balls” were simply the most delicious balls I’ve ever had in my mouth, if you can find them, eat some:)
“Boys For Sale” wins Best LGBT Feature Award at Oxford Film Festival, Mississippi, USA
Uchujin / Adrian Storey Showreel 2017
My 2017 Showreel.
Work featured in order of appearance:-
Boys For Sale (Multi Award winning Feature documentary/2017) – Producer/D.O.P.
Traces Of the Soul (Feature documentary/2018 release) – Producer/D.O.P./Titles and VFX/Assistant Editor
Documentally (various) – VFX/D.O.P./Cameraman/Editor
MZed (Ident) – Motion Graphics
Immersive Shooter (Ident) – Motion Graphics
Newsshooter (Ident/Graphics/Show coverage) – Motion Graphics/Cameraman
CGON (promo) – Motion Graphics/D.O.P./Editor
Mujuworld (promo) – Self-shooting Director
Influx (Editorial/2018 release) – D.O.P./Editor
TCOLondon (unreleased promo) – D.O.P.
Laica & Graham Dunning (Music video/Documentary/2018 release) – Self-shooting Director
Andretti Formula E team & Kobayashi Kamui (promo/2018 release) – D.O.P.
Music – “The Jazz Police” by The University Of Warwick Big Band
used under a creative commons CC by 3.0 license
Uchujin 2017 Review pt 2
Self indulgence part 2, 2017 edition…….
Uchujin 2017 Review pt 1
It’s that time again, a self-indulgent review of my year and this is only part 1!, ostensibly for anyone reading here but basically for me to remember all the stuff that went down.
Christmas In August – Stolen photo in The Scum and its attempted removal
My Tokyo People (What I left behind) – 1 year later series
So, for the final part of my 1 year later series marking 1 year since I left Japan after my 10 stretch….
Pictures of as many of the people who made it fun/interesting/bearable/possible as I can find.
Whether they were close friends or merely acquaintances, whether we are still friends or not, all of these people (and more) touched my life for good in some way.
Thank you.
If there are people missing, I’m sorry (really sorry!)….I probably just couldn’t find a decent picture (or any picture!) of you and for that, I apologize.
(Also I just let the order fall as it may so no intended order just FYI)
Behold, what I left behind when I absconded, my Tokyo peeps…..
Death By A Thousand Cuts – 1 year later series
Let The Poets Cry Themselves To Sleep 2017 – 1 year later series
“Im not sure what the trouble was that started all of this” Let The Poets Cry Themselves To Sleep 2017 ©Uchujin-AdrianStorey
As part of a series of posts marking 1 year since I left Japan after my 10 stretch I am posting new photos from my most well-known photo series “Let the poets cry themselves to sleep”.
(published all over the world including CNN, The BBC, The Guardian, La Revue, Der Spiegel, GUP magazine and countless blogs)
It wasn’t long after first arriving in Japan I started noticing people asleep on the streets.
As an insomniac I have always been very interested in sleep and coming from a country where if you slept on the street you would likely wake up without your wallet and your shoes (and probably far worse), I was fascinated.
What started out as a very personal exploration of my own relationship with sleep turned into a commentary on overwork and alcohol abuse in Japanese society.
The full series can be viewed on my main site HERE and the 10 new, mostly never before seen photographs below….
I keep waving at the taxis; they keep turning their lights off – 1 year later series
As part of a series of posts marking 1 year since I left Japan after my 10 stretch I am posting never published before photographs from my archives.
May I present a completely new series “I keep waving at the taxis; they keep turning their lights off” a companion to my “Let The Poets Cry Themselves To Sleep” series which I am also posting new photos from.
A road close to my old apartment that ran along one side of a lovely park was used by taxi drivers to park up between their obviously long shifts, they would use the public toilet, watch baseball games in the park, eat and day or night sleep in their cabs.
I would walk past them every day and it would always make me feel a little sad to see these mostly older men eating their unhealthy convenience store cup noodles and grabbing an uncomfortable little sleep in their taxis.
Like the “Let The Poets” series it is intended as a comment on Japanese societies unhealthy and frankly terrifying over dedication to work at the expense of everything else.
1984 Symposium 10th Anniversary – George Orwell’s Birthday 25th June 2017
On the Sunday 25th June 2017 I found myself in the graveyard of All Saints Church, Sutton Courtney, Oxfordshire to celebrate 2 things:-
Eric Arthur Blair’s (better known as George Orwell) birthday and the 10th Anniversary of the 1984 Symposium, a gathering put together by Christian “Documentally” Payne to bring together some like (and not so like) minded people to discuss issues surrounding civil liberties, surveillance and the current political climate.
(And this year quite a lot about Hammocks and barefoot shoes…)
Christian always holds his gathering on George’s birthday regardless of what day of the week it is, this year it happened to coincide with the Orwell Society’s visit which happens on the closest Sunday. That meant that as well as our merry band, a number of Orwell Society members were in attendance including Richard Blair (Orwell’s adopted son) and Archie Blair (Orwell’s grandson), who both gave readings from Orwell’s writings.
Christian also had a special treat for those of us in attendance, a specially brewed bottle of “Wallop”, a “mild” beer brewed to the same recipe as the beer Orwell himself was fond of, with custom designed labels by Jess Payne.
(“Wallop” is rhyming slang – Wallop the child, Mild:)
I’m, of course, a long time fan of Orwell and in particular “1984” (though arguably Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” is closer to our current shitshow situation – The oppressive state does not need to force data collection etc upon us we submit to it willingly (Facebook et al) in exchange for shiny things…..) so to celebrate his birthday at his graveyard was a great honor and one I hope to repeat, along with Documentally and the other participants for many years to come (until such gatherings are illegal of course :)
You can hear the full readings by Richard and Archie Blair HERE (Audio recorded by Me and edited by Documentally)
Plenty of other #1984symposium content over on the Twitter hashtag HERE
Technical mumbo jumbo:
Video shot on Sony A7sII with Sony FE 28-70 lens, CameTV Optimus gimbal, Rode Video mic pro and RodeLink wireless filmmaker kit.
(Photo courtesy of Christian “Documentally” Payne, tattoos and receding hairline all mine)
Additional footage from Documentally’s Livestream of Richard and Archie Blairs readings.
Music “Diffusa Est” by the Soli Sisters (used under a creative commons license)
Documentally vs Water Balloons – 200fps Sony FS5 (Raw upgrade) / Atomos Shogun Inferno
Shooting some 200fps slow motion with the Sony PXW-FS5
What better way to test it out than to throw water balloons at Christian “@Documentally” Payne in the sunshine?
Music
“Down Around Bull Creek” by Walker Winn
soundcloud.com/walkerwinn
Used under a Creative Commons 3.0 licence
Our original plan was to film Christian on a trampoline, whilst throwing water bombs at him (I know right? genius)
However, during the warm-up shot there was a little….ahem…….incident :)
NO DOCUMENTALLY’S WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS FILM!
(ok he had a tiny graze on his knee which he’s still going on & on about…….oh and a bill for a new trampoline :)
Massive thanks to Documentally!!
documentally.com
(subscribe to his weekly newsletter, it’s always a great read)
In case anyone cares:-
Recorded in ProResHQ on the Atomos Shogun Inferno
Lens – Fujinon 18-55 T2.9 at about 25mm T5.6 (Also from hireacamera.com)
1000ISO with varying amounts of ND
Minimal colour correction in Premiere Pro
Experiments in 360 and VR – Google Cardboard Camera
[vrview img=”http://blog.uchujin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/huntsrailways-converted.jpg” stereo=”true” width=”1000″ ]
Huntingdon Railway station Platform 2 – steroscopic 360 image from Google’s cardboard camera, shot on iPhone 5s.
Over the last few months I have become completely obsessed with 360 and VR technologies and have taken a run at the steep learning curve involved in producing and delivering this content.
I haven’t bought a 360 camera yet as the industry is moving fast and several cameras released recently or about to be released have upped the game again, so whilst waiting patiently for real world user samples before taking the plunge on what I know will be a huge money sink I’ve been trying to educate myself about everything involved – monoscopic or stereoscopic? immersive audio, ambisonics? post production, 360 motion graphics and a whole new way of thinking about storytelling.
90% of 360 content is consumed in 2D on mobile devices or other flat screens but where these technologies really deliver the HOLY SHIT WOW moment for me is when putting on a headset.
There’s some amazing content out there and it’s getting better all the time.
It’s really great to hand a headset to someone who’s never seen 360 and watch as they umm and ahh in amazement.
This moment for me is why I think these technologies are the future.
The cost of entry is negligible, the phone in your pocket, an internet connection and some way to view the stereoscopic image, the most ubiquitous being the Google Cardboard viewer.
I’m a way off shooting 360 stereoscopic video with the associated post-production and storage costs (a new computer, new software, more drives) and how to deliver it but what I have come late to the party on is Google’s Cardboard camera.
The image at the top of the page and those below were shot using this free app on my old iPhone 5s and whilst viewing them here (especially if you full screen them) is pretty cool, where they really make you go wow is if you view them on a headset.
Google and it’s neural nets have made it possible to shoot stereoscopic 3D images with ambient sound (only available when you view in the cardboard camera app, can’t find a way to embed them here with sound) using the single lens of your smartphone!!!!
The effect is quite simply amazing. If you have a headset I urge you to open this page on your smartphone and hit the little headset icon on one of the images to see what I mean.
Even better download the cardboard camera app and look at some of the examples there with sound (it makes a world of difference to immersion) and shoot some pictures yourself.
Yes, its far from perfect, its essentially a horizontal panorama so you can’t look up or down but, for me the effect and the fact that I can shoot them with a device I have with me ALWAYS is (and I really hate myself for saying these words) “game changing”.
Watch this space because believe me more 360 images and video and hopefully stereoscopic 360 images and video is coming from me, see you on the holodeck!
Outside “The Junction” In Cambridge
[vrview img=”http://blog.uchujin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_20170519_14137-pm.vr-converted.jpg” stereo=”true” width=”1000″ ]
Inside the main auditorium at “The Junction”
[vrview img=”http://blog.uchujin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/insidejunction-converted.jpg” stereo=”true” width=”1000″ ]
Our back garden
[vrview img=”http://blog.uchujin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/garden-converted.jpg” stereo=”true” width=”1000″ ]
My Office
[vrview img=”http://blog.uchujin.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/office-converted.jpg” stereo=”true” width=”1000″ ]
I’d like to thank Sarah Redohl from Immersive Shooter (Nice ident on those Immersive Shooter videos Sarah, what talented and available for hire guy did those?) for taking the time and answering some of my stupid questions.
If you are interested in this stuff, Immersive Shooter isn’t a bad place to start.
360rumors.com is good for camera reviews and other tech related news too.
Youtube and facebook already have a lot of content you can watch, and both allow you to upload your own 360 content.
Uchujin visits Mujuworld at ToyCon 2017
Last weekend I went down to hang out with my dear old friends Mr & Miss Muju from Mujuworld at ToyCon 2017 at the York Hall in Bethnal Green.
The Mujuworld booth was amazing and it was so great to see them getting the recognition they deserve from the toy community for their truly fantastic work.
Also got to shoot a bit for the upcoming short documentary I’m making on them.
Apart from Mujuworld, there was so much great work on show but my personal favorite was Ghetto Plastic with their beautiful “Inuit Goddess”
A road trip to Harlech, Barmouth and Ynys Gifftan, North Wales with Documentally
10pm on a random Monday…….
Me: We still meeting tomorrow?
Documentally: Can’t sorry, will have to be Thursday…..unless you want to come to Wales tomorrow morning?
Me: Er….sure, I’m in!
And it’s as simple as that to end up in a car the next morning with an interesting, intelligent and funny man for 4 ish hours traversing the breadth of the country ending up in the majestic countryside of the Snowdonia national park and the North Wales coast.
Cries of “road trip”, plenty of swearing as we gradually lost first 4G then 3G signal, some great tunes, coffee, the changing countryside and great company.
Stay in an abandoned mansion? check
Explore a truly abandoned hotel? check
Visit Harlech and don’t take a single picture of the castle? check
Watch documentally and his brother play music together at an open mic night? check
Walk out to a tiny uninhabited island in the middle of a tidal estuary? check
Drink a lot and have philosophical conversations on the nature of happiness until 3am? check
Pop into a record shop having its 50th anniversary this year? check
Feel free and spontaneous and thankful for new friends? Priceless!
Behold, some pictures…….
As an added bonus here’s a video of Mr Documentally playing Harmonica drunk with his brother on drums in a pub called “The Last Inn” in Barmouth
(Shot on my crappy iPhone 5s despite having the A7SII sat on the table……alcohol makes me stupid)
Earlier this week in a Welsh pub. A not so sober me playing harmonica with my Brother @dannypayne on drums. Video captured by @uchujinphoto pic.twitter.com/orJfOU3Sce
— Christian Payne (@Documentally) March 10, 2017
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Uchujin 2016 Review – Part 2
(Continued from Part 1)
The ancient Chinese oft quoted curse “May you live in interesting times” got used a lot in 2016, for me at least it was a huge shake up of a year and “interesting” barely covered it…
This Part 2 of my look back at the heartless confusing and yet liberating and life altering bastard of a year that was 2016 begins in…
July
After 10 years and 1 day exactly and a LONG way overdue I finally left Japan to return to the UK.
I didn’t write much about that then, and I haven’t since.
I have plenty to say about it, believe me, but the little black ball of anger and disgust deep inside me is not a good place to make public statements from so I’m going to refrain.
It did feel like a huge relief to get on that plane knowing that it was the (almost certainly, but never say never) final time I’d be doing it.
I cried me a river in the days leading up to it but only from saying goodbye to friends and I’ve never been any good at goodbyes so that was no surprise…
My almost weekly for 10 years Friday nights will never be quite the same…
My brother in law thought this would be suitable for a send off meal…
And then suddenly, I was here and it felt like a huge weight had been lifted…
I hit the ground running and within days was in London with Martin Cooper the director of “Traces Of The Soul” editing the trailer at Storm HD…
I had my priorities straight too and bought a lovely new bed to get out of at 6am everyday…
The weather was uncharacteristically kind…
I found some great photos in boxes I haven’t looked in for 20 years, this one by the legendary Dave “Mr Muju” Ashlin…
It’s me playing a gig many moons ago in Brighton with the band I had with Rochelle Vincente – “The Hawkline Orchestra”
And it was another month when we didn’t lose anyone who meant anything to me…though I personally experienced 1 or more little deaths :)
August
I was up in Sheffield with Martin Cooper shooting for “Traces of the soul” – 2 amazing artists with incredible stories, Calligraphitti Ambassadors Iranian born Ghalamdar and Englishman Karl “Kobe” O’brien…
We were “up north” so we breakfasted accordingly…
I bought a car and started driving for the first time in 14 years, not scary at all, no sir…
I was at Silverstone to film drift car nutcase Buttsy Butler for my friends at Postfuel. I didn’t let Buttsy drive my new car…
The UK was proving to very car oriented as I also went for a drive in this beauty…
I was reconnecting with some dear old friends from WAY back in the day…
Being back was beautiful and weird in almost equal measure…
We lost Gene Wilder and the man responsible for the Backstreet boys and N’Sync, Lou Pearlman…
September
The piece I DP’d/Shot/Edited on Buttsy Butler in August went up on the Influx site…
I started another Instagram account to post pics of the out of date food I kept finding in my Dad’s cupboards…
I was at IBC 2016 in Amsterdam with the News shooter crew and very interesting it was too, plus Amsterdam is beautiful…
This was my favorite tattoo from the show…
And this my favorite piece of street sculpture…
It seemed there was barely time to catch a breath before I was passing through Brussels on my way to Photokina 2016 in Cologne again with News shooter…
Where Dan Chung and Kai Man Wong were causing trouble outside the Fuji booth , and I was just lurking in the background…
I shot and edited a load of reports from the show…
Our hotel was next to a refugee detention center which made me feel a bit weird…
Dan Chung has officially the most ridiculous unread mail count I’ve ever seen…
Then I was back in the UK, where I hooked up with my new friend Richard Slade from Neotists to watch him talk at Pecha Kucha St Neots…
Again we didn’t lose anyone who made it to my radar
October
This months piece I DP’d/Shot/Edited for Influx was on Bowler Motorsport in Derbyshire who make custom rally cars based on Land Rovers…
I was self medicating because I had a horrible cold…
I did get a new toy from the lovely people at CAME TV and ran around using it for all kinds of fun filming…
After months and 1 expensive unsuccessful application my wife finally got her UK visa and arrived, to celebrate we went to visit my dear old friends in the awesome Mujuworld in Cornwall and I made a little travelogue about it…
After 10 years of not being allowed in swimming pools due to fucking stupid Japanese rules about people with tattoos I was determined to get fit and was (still am!!) swimming 1km a week…
It was a struggle not to fire bomb the house where Margaret Thatcher grew up on a visit to Grantham…
10 years in Japan and not one cos-play incident, 4 months in the UK and I was reduced to this…
And at last I found the answer…
We lost Pete Burns and Joan Marie Johnson.
November
I was super happy to have 4 of my films in the St Neots film festival…
I was on a plane again, this time to Barcelona, I’d signed an NDA so I couldn’t talk about why though…Luckily Dan Chung and I accidentally shot a video about it on a ridiculous Sony RX100 V set up…
Dan and Phillip really needed to get a room while we there…
I was starting to feel like I’d lost a little weight since I got back…
Luckily I found a supplier of the only thing I miss from Japan (my dear friends aside) to add some nutrition…
I didn’t buy anything at the farm shop however…
The supermoon was pretty impressive when it managed to make itself known thru the cloud cover…
Enid was providing me with reading material…
We lost Eddie Harsch, Leonard Cohen, Robert Vaughn and Andrew Sachs…
December
Richard “Neotists” Slade and I went on a mission to deepest Suffolk in search of…
A design classic, the Herman Miller Aeron, my home edit suite just seriously leveled up…
I visited a U.S. Air force Nuclear bunker with Richard Slade and Dave “Laica” Fleet, scouting locations for upcoming projects…
Charlie Brooker had some thoughts on the future of VR…
I published my 2016 Showreel (Hint Hint, Hire me!!!)
Music “A shrine for horses” by Laica – laica.bandcamp.com
Then everything ground to a halt as I had a biopsy on my tongue that meant that it was really painful to swallow, eat or talk and sleep was a distant memory for well over a week…
(I’m sure some people thought the me not talking thing was fine)
We did go full Jesus’ birthday preparations, my first tree for many years, which cheered me up a little.
Pretty much worse time of the year to not be able to eat anything but soup tho, luckily single malt is most definitely a liquid…
We lost Greg Lake and Peter Vaughan…
There’s still another 2 weeks of 2016 technically but I doubt any of what that will contain is relevant here, probably a few more childhood hero’s deaths if the rest of the year has been anything to go by, so I’m gonna wrap things up here…
If you made it this far with my 2016 review, Thanks, but seriously you should get out more.
If you read my blog at all, BIG Thanks!
Thanks once again to all my friends new and now far away without whom I wouldn’t have made it to the end of this year intact. Big Love to you all.
Go! have a great end to the year and heres to a great 2017!!
Uchujin / Adrian Storey Showreel 2016
My D.O.P. / Camerman / Editor Showreel 2016
Music “A shrine for horses” by Laica – laica.bandcamp.com
Used with kind permission of the artist.
You can see my previous years show reels HERE.
Please contact me for worldwide projects large or small.
Uchujin Visits A Nuclear Bunker
It’s not often you get asked if you wanna go on a tour of a U.S. Air force underground Nuclear Bunker on a Wednesday morning, but when you do, you drop everything and say “Hell yes!”
So that’s how I ended up at a secret location taking pictures of one that was used as a U-2 Spyplane command center for an upcoming project (projects?)
Weird fun…
Uchujin 2016 Review – Part 1
Well…We’re here again, the end of another rotation around the sun.
This is a year I will never forget as it was the year I finally escaped Japan – after 10 years and 1 day exactly.
5 months in to my rehab/recovery and I can honestly say ….. well I could write a book on how I feel about the whole thing, but I won’t for everyone’s sake….Let’s just say, so far, it feels 99% like the right decision.
As I settle into my new life the only things I miss from that god forsaken set of islands off the coast of China are my dear friends (that was always going to be the hardest part) and natto, and I’ve found a natto supplier close by…
I’m splitting this years end of year look back into 2 pre and post Jexit (see what I did there? Topical :) posts to make them less ridiculous to read and because that’s how the year has felt.
A big thank you to the friends (new and far away) and colleagues who made it as always an interesting, productive year.
Thanks also to the clients who hired me and gave me the opportunities to work on some interesting and diverse projects and a pre-emptive thanks to all the new clients who are going to hire me in 2017 to do amazing work for them…
So settle in for part 1 of the run through of the bastard that was 2016……
January
Whilst I was hiding my scary tattooed body away from the poor easily frightened Japanese people in a private hot spring bath 2016 started the way we were soon to understand it meant to go on, with the death of David Bowie closely followed by actor Alan Rickman…
I published my collaboration video with calligrapher Nakajima Hiroyuki promoting his upcoming aptly named “LIFE” exhibition. (All shot on an iPhone 5s by the way…)
I visited my dear friend Sean Lotman and his family in Kyoto (probably for the last time) , managing to be there for the 1st birthday of his son.
Mt Fuji was peaking between the buildings in Shibuya…
My wife looked awesome in her kimono on a visit to Kawasaki Daishi…
We published the first episode of an ill fated collaboration podcast “You’re not from ’round here” with Matthew Downs a rice farmer on Sado Island.
And most days my head felt a bit like this….
Feburary
In what was to turn out to be the beginning of a great friendship I interviewed legendary calligrapher Koji Kakinuma for the documentary I’ve been DPing and producing in 2016, “Traces of the soul” about calligraphers worldwide…
The awesome talents that are Eiichi & Atsuko “Scart” Miyamoto finally (seriously Eiichi….finally!!) opened their gallery in Tsukiji and I was lucky enough to get riotously drunk with them at the opening party…
I interviewed super lovely guy and talented calligrapher Hiroyuki Nakajima for the second time, again for “Traces of the soul”…
After a shoot for his “Strangers” fashion label (All the product and look shots over on the site where shot by me) I grabbed a quick portrait of my dear friend Kevin Mullin and his writer/editor soon to be wife AnneMarie Luck…
I went to CP+ 2016 with Matt Allard from Newshooter and even ended up with my first cameo of the year in the video:)…
We published the 2nd and what turned out to be final episode of the “You’re not from ’round here” podcast this time with the awesome Anthony Davis…
Spotted a great paste-up in Shibuya alongside a new 281_Anti nuke sticker…
And I was enjoying taking pictures of the fucked up-ness of Tokyo again thanks to the low-light capabilities of my recently purchased Sony A7SII and having my hand firmly on the exit door…
We lost Dave Mirra, Vanity & Harper Lee among others….
March
I was hanging out with my new girlfriend…
And taking photos of Matt Allard for News shooter while he tested the Tokina 100mm PL mount Macro on his serial number 2 (!) Sony F35…
Matt Allard and I also went to NAC in Tokyo to test out some $1300 Arri Sky Panels and while we were there we tested my $70 Pergear light with some interesting results…
Underworld played a secret gig in Shibuya and I was at the soundcheck and got to meet Karl & Rick…
I was shooting for a personal project using the Varavon Birdy cam…
I also used the Varavon on another shoot with Nakajima Hiroyuki, and shot some great timelapses involving him too…
Grandma and I fully agreed on the whole situation…
We lost George Martin, Keith Emerson, Paul Daniels & Ronnie Corbett…
April
Sometimes it snows in April, and this year it most definitely did prompting me to write my 1st (and probably last) blog post on a celebrity death…
I half killed myself trying to keep up with Koji Kakinuma on another shoot for “Traces Of The Soul”
I did the motion graphics for the new News Shooter ident which plays at the beginning of every video…
I spent several hours a day with my head in After Effects working on my short film…
I held a $20,000 paint brush at a secret shoot…
My good friend the talented and lovely Laura Liverani was in town and she had an exhibition of her Ainu photographs at a sneak peak of the Ainu documentary she is working on…
I had given up not trying to frighten people when I went out…
The toilet at Scart Gallery had a polite request…
As well as the Purple one we lost Amber Rayne & Victoria Wood…
May
Once again I was shooting with Koji Kakinuma, this time him producing some amazing very large scale calligraphy pieces on a 3-day multi-cam shoot at his new studio outside Tokyo.
There was some interesting wallpaper in the toilet of a restaurant I was in…
I took possibly my favorite instagram photyo of the year at the Ryan McGinley exhibition which was otherwise a little underwhelming…
Some photos from my “Let the poets cry themselves to sleep” series were published on BBC Future…
I was filming with Icelandic DJ/Producer Arni Krisjanson for his crowd funding campaign…
There were some interesting parties…
Most days I wanted to scream this at the top of my lungs…
There was brief respite from losing people…(obviously thats not true, but there was a brief respite in losing people who had touched me in some way)
June
I went to Bali for “Brightening horizons by paying it forward” and directed/shot & Edited a video promoting the Banyumala Jungle Waterfall Trek in Wanigiri village.
It was awesome…
It was a scary place to be a vegetarian tho…
I released my parting shot to Japan short film “Not With A Bang” the result of literally months of work (read a little more about the process here)…
Hiroyuki Nakajima’s “LIFE” exhibition was on at Bunkamura in Shibuya and he was showing the film we collaborated on to promote it (see January above)…
It was (as it always is in June) my Birthday…
And I looked like this a lot, the two of which may or may not be related…
We lost Muhammad Ali, Kimbo Slice, Prince Be & Bill Cunningham
Mostly I was crazy busy with personal stuff because of what was about to happen in…