Tag Archives: experimental

Individuation is a bitch!! – a postscript.

A Fishing Cormorant with Gardenia.

The wound of the unloved, is that of the human existence. – Peter Schellenbaum

A Fishing Cormorant with an Anklet.

After contemplating and experimenting on various available options (since May 2015), I made the first Zine, in digital format, earlier this month (November 2018).
It is available for purchase here.
Below you find additional info, in a form of postscript / artist statement. I will keep it short, sweet and straight forward.

Format

PDF – viewable on any and all devices.
Aspect ratio – 2:3 (as 35mm films – I felt it is the optimal balance for this issue’s gentle monochromatic look).
Put out independently – ie. outside the ISBN system – like a flower in the field, I’d say (smiles).

In the future I may make available in other formats / ratios, or even with ISBN. But for now, above is the middle ground I decided to place the book on.

That being said…my ears are open to your suggestions and requests, and I appreciate heads ups.

Grey and Grey

All photos were (re)edited in October – November, 2018.
Pure whites / solid blacks were mostly eliminated from the black and white images – they seemed too immutable to me. While editing, I was thinking of soft, understated sheen from graphite pencils, as the suitable range of tones for telling this particular tale.

Large Sized

Both in dimensions (1600 x 2400 pixels) and in file size (nearly 20mb for 20 pages). Images are web-optimized but left in high quality, in hopes they’d carry all the nuances I had woven in in those grains.

The subject matter – the psychological process of individuating – comes with much subtleties. I made a clumsy attempt at including, as much as possible, what cannot be adequately expressed otherwise.

Why this subject?

I made a journal post back in July 2016, with a line “#ownyourshadow, it’s a political act.” Felt strongly about it then, and still do to this day – as I continue to notice a seeming increase in reactivity among us humans, the kind that leaves us (figuratively) beating on each other, making us as a whole, weak.

This book is meant as a gesture, of my sharing hopes and encouragements, for the blossoming of us, the mankind, and the beauty of our individual uniquenesses, when fully owned, would truly unite us.

Are you Individuated?

Years ago I embarked upon an escape route from the state of deep discontent and ended up falling for the process itself.

In other words, I no longer care where I’m at on an individuation scale of 1-10. Try to figure that one out, I discovered thru trials and fails, I’d end up tripping on a type of self consciousness, which acts as an enemy to my creativity.

I only know, and talk about what I experienced. I intend to stick with the stance to the best of my ability.

Lastly.

I dedicate this book to a special friend who left the human plane last July, no doubt to be joined, on the other side, by her “partner in crime” – if courage motivated by love is a crime in this realm, by quoting from a book I found in her storage back in 1994, in Sun Land, California, where I spent a pivotal few, fortunate years immersed in desert sunsets and coyote howls, sensing there is, within myself a seed, I alone could water.

How can I believe there’s a butterfly inside me when all I see is a fuzzy worm? – Trina Paulus “Hope for the Flowers”

A Fishing Cormorant with Sun Flower.

Photos, all from the Zine, from top:
Career Cormorant, a portrait with Gardenia (2018)
Career Cormorant (Anklet) (2018)
Flower. (2018)

P.P.S. I am not a master marketer – in fact I suck at sales pitch. If you happened upon this page and think you know a soul or two who may like this book, please help me out by letting them know it exists.
Your support as such is muchas appreciated.
Thanks!!

(there are) things between black and white.

Grassy field.
Fishing boats at a port.
Wavy leaf veins.
Lights at a night port.
Magnolia blossom over ocean.
Dark clouds over sea.

From top:
Then the Big Quiet (descended upon the field) (2014)
Anchored Fishing Boats (2015) – Ibaraki, Japan
Calla Leaves in May (2013)
Takamatsu Port at night (2011) – Kagawa, Japan
Magnolia (2015)
A Trip to Tango (2013) – Kyoto, Japan

Illuminated Shadows

ALERT:
This video contains flickering lights and very bright colors.
(Flashy Christmas tree ornaments, blinking traffic headlights and slow moving color blocks in luminescent, contrasting saturation.)

The whole thing was shot on the 23rd of December, 2014. From a window of a “design station” (as in design hotel) with a floating lounge overlooking Pacific, then at a Christmas “illumination” event, where the whole town square was lit too bright and over saturated.
The sound, I took it off a webcast at slooh.com for Ursid Meteor shower that was taking place on the same day. I recall it said was recorded in Canary Islands.

Happy Holidays everyone, wish you all a wonderful time. Be safe, keep warm (if applicable), and stay cool. Cheers.

Miss California

Blurred traffic lights at dusk in the city.

“You can’t take California out of the girl.”

– A Modern Proverb

Tail lights in blur at sunset.

Last time I was in California, I took a long lone ride across the southern half of the state. Came alive in the open land where no one knows what I am. Beneath the desert sun the earth and the ether met at right where I stood.

Distant city scape and freeway traffic lights in blur.

Photos from my too few/far between visits, from top:
P1 – The first time in San Francisco, Christmas 2011, practicing my “light calligraphy” technique near Union Square. Posted the monochrome version on my then Tumblr around 2017.
P2 – The car was not moving but my camera was; the early incarnation of the above-mentioned “Light Calligraphy” thing. Northridge California, September 2006. Posted the diptych version of this photo titled “Miss LA” on my website, Flickr, and MySpace shortly after I returned.
P3 – Don’t try this at home: holding a camera on a freeway riding back from Half Moon Bay, into SF city, also 2011. Never posted this one anywhere simply because I don’t think it’s that good, but “the feel” is there; the California night, going places.

A quote in decorative letters from a conversation I had earlier in the day, as the other party, noticing the change in my tone as I spoke fondly of Calif. good-natured jokingly said, “Is that it, the ‘you can take a girl out of California but you can’t take California out of the girl’ thing?” And I laughed with her remembering that girl I once was, the girl who fought a long, lonesome battle against Creativity Itself.

Written and published here on May 23, 2022.

Also from the last trip: a photo journal post on vsco: “California 2011”
What’s this Light Calligraphy thingy? Explain!! : Light Calligraphy

Light Calligraphy

Christmas tree and people in the city, in blur.

Moon light over the shore.
Candle lights patterns.
Light house lights patterns.

Unlike a more popular approach to light calligraphy that is to move a flashlight while in long exposure, I swing my camera-arm around instead in a way much similar to ink calligraphers with enormous brushes.
I do this solely on my impulse, often times with my eyes closed, as there is no way for me to pre-plan or monitor what is being drawn.

Many of the resulting images (including the pieces presented here) have composition that require no cropping. Some of them even turn out to have resemblances to my past paintings.

Opportunities for light calligraphy arrive spontaneously.
The experience always had enlivening effect on myself and some of those who happened to witness seemed to have joined me in the enthusiasm with curious sort of excitement.

長時間露光と懐中電灯でパターンを描く通常のやりかたではなく、カメラを書道家の筆の様に使い、完全にインスピレーションに頼り(多くは目を閉じた状態で)撮影したもの。

ここに紹介した作品を含めほとんどはトリムの必要を感じさせず、また自作の絵に似通った出来上がりとなったものもある。
通常技術で仕上がりを予測する事を重んじる『写真』という表現形態への、いわば正反対からのアプローチ。

From top:
Christmas Lights at Union Square, SF.(2011)
Moon (2011)
Candle Night (2010)
Light House (2011)
Design District, San Francisco (2011)

Street lights patterns.

Last Edited: December 06, 2021.

Pool Series

Abstract image of a swimming pool.
Abstract image of a swimming pool.
Abstract image of a swimming pool.
Abstract image of a swimming pool.
Abstract image of a swimming pool.

Taken with single-use waterproof camera.

I, a life-long swimmer, who find the most out-of-ordinary images while swimming, one day decided to record what is really taking place at a common neighborhood swimming pool.

In purified moments of simple awe, I witnessed even a symbol like the cross could escape the weight of history and merge into the otherworldly.

真夏の市営プール、というごく一般的な舞台の文字通り水面下で随時繰り広げられる非日常。長年泳ぎ続けた作者にとっては見慣れた光景を、ある日思い立って使い捨てカメラで記録し始めた。

カメラ持ち込み禁止にもかかわらず、作者の「奇行」を数年に渡り多めに見てくれたプール管理者様に心よりお礼を申し上げます。

Pool Series (1999-2004)
From top:
Graveyard
Burning Cross
Three Crosses
Single Cross
Diagonal

The series was exhibited at Create:Fixate Photography Show, September 2006, Los Angeles, curated by Jason Elias.

Last Edited: November 27, 2020