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Photographic delirium #5:
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Jazzy tunes mingling in the air, I feel dizzy remembering the dreaded summer of Nagoya. The virile heat waves pursuing the effeminate typhoons since dog's day, the ventriloquist ventilator blowing its soul to my Canadian crust, I am happy to have my wet towel around the neck and of course, air conditioner in my room. Summers in Nagoya are getting hotter every year since the invention of the automobile and to think that I am part of the cause. Haaa! The Japanese economic model.
But while the air above every car hood is desiccating, my camera seemed to be surprisingly immune to torridity. Many festivals, fireworks and bike tours in the mountains would be just there waiting for the right clink. This time, I followed a mini-revelation. Matthieu, a Switzerland friend, a fellow cameraman who has told me about his uncle whose artistic motto was simply that proficient photography should be anything but the visible by the pure eye. Anytime and anywhere, the eye is only as fast as the TV set's electron beam, which is 80 images every seconds (1/80)! Hence, there are still a lot of slower speeds available on the camera. Starting from that, I decided to lengthen my time pose and hoped that the cold beer would not warm up.
My hometown, Kariya, has one of the most exciting festivals for formidable photography. Different personages of historical and folkloric glory are depicted on three-dimensional likeness ("hariko" in Japanese) made of origami paper. Every quarter of the city has its own "hariko" and parading begins at twilight. As usual, drunken young adults are ruling the parade. The heavy "harikos" are transported on the shoulders by one member of the clan and once at the corner of a street, are gyrated around frenetically until they almost fall down to the floor wherein another member will continue the procession. Ultimately, the parade arrives at the Akita temple where the "hariko" are consecrated for another year by the priest delegation.
Among many challenges, there are the infamous urban features such as electric lines, road signs and apartment windows that are plowing the background of every seemingly good picture. Everything is moving quite fast, particularly in the dark evening and I am setting the rule of thumb that two grades slower than the fastest speed read by my camera at the time of exposition would deliver a flowing image. Of course, this depends on to what extent the actual movement of the "hariko" is. Well, lots of luck and a few drops of wisdom can only control something unseeable. The pictures to the left shows two "harikos" moving toward each other while members of the East clan ("higashi") are watching the action. Although everything is moving, there is still some clarity left to distinguish what is going on. This equilibrium of hazy and clarity is quite hard to obtain and remain the main challenge of "slow" photography.
Needless to say that a tripod is essential and flashes are not. Albeit, sometimes the action is moving so fast or it is so dark that normal photography hand-held turns out hazy enough to be considered "slow" photography such as the little girl beside. But in general, hand-held photography is almost certain to be ill fated in the dark. This comes as to no surprise to any good amateurs but many people don't realize that a boat with an illuminated dome speeding full power across the river at nighttime is simply just impossible to be photographed*
Fireworks are appreciated all over the world for their splendor and Japan is no exception. Every city has its firework exhibition, which are very often sponsored by companies located in that city. Needless to say, that the cities with many factories and assembly plants possess the most striving fireworks which can lasts up to three hours! Toyota, Okazaki, Tokai and Kariya are good examples of this type of sponsorship. A friend of mine and I went on the top of the Aisin building (9 floors) where I work and set up my tripod. It was very windy and I could barely keep my camera steady. This is a concentrated factory and pachinko area, so there are neon signs everywhere. This creates a reminiscent aurora of light all around the city, which is not really favorable. I took one film and half with a success rate of 10%, meaning that the picture was not foggy due to camera movement or background light effects. To my opinion, the best picture turned out to be a close-up of the blazing fire descending slowly to the ground.
"Let's nature do its way". Just as simply as taking the famous Japanese fishes swirling around in a pond trying to grab food sprayed by passerby. The fishes move just to the right speed to be in the previously explained hazy-clarity zone and artistically speaking, their random position is about just as perfect as necessary. Just make sure that the light is reflected correctly and there is a really easy-get-the-winner picture!
How am I going to conclude this delirium? It seems that my passion for photography is slowly getting conceptual. But that is fine if art is just around the corner to fulfill its destiny, I hope.
