Saturday, May 2, 2009

Not a good walk in the park


There is a looong story to this post but I am not sure I feel like getting into writing the whole tale down. I will give the high speed version: Ok here we go!


Me and Mattias was on one of our camera geek trips in Shinjuku. We wanted to try out not only my fancy new camera but also my new flash and more importantly the softbox I got to go with it. We decided to try it out just outside a park where we would be left alone and not be in the way of anyone. After taking a bunch of pictures of each other we decided to take it on the road. We went into the park to test it on some other subject like bushes and a lamp post as shown below. We were so exited about the light that we decided to ask the nearest person (happened to be a homeless dude. There is always a lot of them living in the parks) if we could take a few pictures. After answering with a few grunts, that we translated into that he couldn't care less, I snapped these two shots. To speed things up the next person wasn't that friendly and we actually ended up getting attacted by him...well Mattias did while I tried to get away from the loony with 2 big backs on my shoulders, my huge camera around my neck and the giant litedome connected to my camera with a 5 meter long wire. Not that easy. Well we tried to get away from this crazy person but he kept following us till we were waaaay out of the park and into the streets. In the end the Police was called and we all ended up at the Police station to explain what happened. This would all be fine if it wasn't for the little fact that I didn't have my passport on me. In Japan, as a foreigner, you are required to have your passport on you all the time. Speeding up again... Amalie had to bring the passport to Shinjuku station where me and a cop picked her up. After 3 hours of talking to different cops (since none of them spoke English that well), taking an alcohol test twice (because they didn't know how to do that right either, and writing a letter to the chief of the Police promising that from now on I would ALWAYS have my passport on me, we were free at last! What a day!







3 comments:

-Straight Edge Photography- said...

Cool. It worked out really good I think. Now when you have the basics down you can start to get your own impact in those frames. I will use the lightbox mainly on wide lenses outdoors, capturing a highlighted area (soft light) and let the rest slumber in a dark and moody abyss of shadows and dark doom-ish backdrop feel. With a radio slave you can place the box somewhere far away and light just the detail you think will bring out the strength of the image. Check Trasher Magazine - Photo Issue for great examples. There are some really great skateboard photo nerds out there to take inspiration from. Guess they like us learn from a passion and a DIY stance to get what you need with whatever you have. Thing with the SK8 mags is that they are really strong on composition and lighting.

M

Flora Amalie said...

Sikke en dag!

Ulrikka said...

whow vild oplevelse! men fandme nogle gode billeder!! Du ku sku snart starte et bierhverv som fotograf!