Making of Daguerreotype by Takashi Arai from Takashi Arai on Vimeo.

I’ve just returned home from work and I’ve checked Uchujin’s tweet of the making of a Daguerreotype. Started watching it and was really impressed by the amount of work, preparation and tools needed to create one.
And I thought regular development was a challenge.

Another shot from the many many yet to be published shots.

So my mate mark finally kicked me very hard and managed to get this story he wrote in winter out yesterday. I was along for the ride to take the pictures. Was fun at the time. Would have liked to have spent more time shooting a more comprehensive set, but it seems life got in the way.  Article is well written so check it out if you are into bikes.

Normally I don’t post these kinds of snap shots but I need an easy way for a few friends to find the odd snaps I take. My mate Oleg was over from the Ukraine and Citt is about to leave our little team where I work as well as Stephan I guess soon too. So I figured I’d better shoot them all together before everyone runs off to new adventures. So I vow to shoot them all again at some stage, just maybe not all at once.

hmm. I just realized that I feature somewhere in here by accident.

Also from the wetlands (as is the one below) that I visited while I was in Australia. Missed the ladybug with the focus but the magic tones and the crazy background made up for it (for me anyway).

Visited a wetlands the other day. Was this amazing little 3km of land dedicated to the natural biodiversity.
Shame that power lines have to spoil the environment. Still, I guess this is why the land was handed to them in the first place to create the wetlands. No one else wants to be around them.

I was looking at my archive today and found this shot hidden away. Sometimes it take a year or two for me to finally see something in a shot. In this case it was not the foreground at all but the background craziness I had ignored up till now. Shame there is not more interest but still, I quite like the painterly feel.

It’s an old shot that I guess I’m re posting. Shot late afternoon near my house at the park with a Rolleiflex and a Rollinar 2. I ended up trading that camera in. It was a mistake of sorts to do that but I think I’m better for it. Less focus on cameras more focus on picture making. Still, the Rolleiflex had an amazing balance between sharpness and softness. If you have a chance to use one (f/2.8) I recommend it. But don’t go taking candid street photos at night with it. It’s even harder to use in that situation than the Hasselblad.

This is one of my failed kodak T64 shots that needed a LOT of contrast to give it any kind of personality. Not having a lot of luck with these 20+ year old films

So the sharp eye will notice that the book is not covered nor is the regular shape of a Japanese novel. The guy reads English! It’s the little thing’s like this that make the train journey interesting (for the most part).

The almost failed B+W shot on my last adventure to Kawasaki. Gotta go back soon.

So I’m looking for faces to shoot. I will be shooting in black and white with film so the image above is not really true to what I am trying to achieve. Actually I am trying to develop a particular style and so require a lot of people to shoot. Male, female, young or old, it does not matter to me. I imagine that I will use the images as some kind of photo series at some point but I have no real fixed plan.

Obviously I am not going to use your face commercially but if you choose to participate your image may end up on this blog or on my site sometime in the future.

If you are interested in having your face shot by me please send a mail to sean-at-50mm-dot-jp
People who’s picture I take that provide me with an email address will receive a copy of the image if it is to my liking (i.e. if I think I’ve done a good enough job)..

Asked this guy if I could take his picture. Still like the contax lenses even if it is non square. Shame I can use the lenses on anything else.

One from an up coming collection