Part 5/6 - 5 roll Project

The city expanding rapidly and without mercy. The mentality of "He-who-has-most-shit-when-he-dies-wins"is blooming, thriving and even though I always liked the engineering behind any larger-than-life structure (lots of good stuff out here, I've seen some by now that would rock the sox of a 30 year younger me) I have to admit it's with a slight distaste I see how new full areas are popping up all around the city like there is no tomorrow. Gonna be a hell of a racket when the big Kanto quake level it all. Can't say I really care since I'm so far outside this spectrum of the society here and everywhere else that it's just a mere observation. If there is a demand there will continue to be providers. Heard somewhere that the economy is taking a steep plunge and people grinding their teeth of how the Yen, Dollar and what not is loosing it's values. Doesn't really affect me and my close to zero impact (and wealth) on any social balancing scale so I continuing to give off just the slightest footprint in the sand before next tide wash it away as one never existed in the first place. Always been the melody I have waltzed through life with. Here in this city as in any other place, power is displayed in real estate, vehicles, a beautiful/respected spouse and as much shit as you can possibly squeeze in between the gaps. Anyways…buildings are straight (most of the time, the once I like anyways), square and fun to shoot with a medium format 6x6 camera. Architecture is a way of human expression, though these apartment buildings has only "functionalism" written all over them, nothing wrong in being functional I guess. No flare, just function all the way. A rant is a rant is a rant…but this was essentially a 5 Roll photo project so we save the rant of all rants till another sunny day.


Lets call this set : Altho Do Diabo

Stone, lines and all shades of gray

Not first time in Scotland, but my first in Aberdeen. Couldn't resist to just wander the cobbled streets like a ghost and shoot buildings all day last Sunday. Small town, not much to see in terms of "things worth seeing". But, my books isn't written in the same lingua franca as most. What caught my attention immediately was the buildings and the streets intervening as a support structure below. Fantastic! The day turned from grey and wet to clear sky and back again in minutes. I liked the wet and overcast better since it gave the place a mood that was supposed to be. All shades of gray was on display in a bonanza of dullness and low-tone. People, the cars they drove, the clothes they wore, the skin they were enclosed in blended spectacularly fine with the surrounding architecture. It all fit inn here, I've never been to a city where all possible medium was on the same wavelength of grey like here and cooperated within it's boundaries like nothing else was ever possible. In one backstreet I found a closed down eatery that had had some colors applied once and see what happened to the place (see image below), survival of the fittest. One street corner in particular stood out (Lindsay Street Image below), I just laugh out loud…-"Wow…this is perfect…magnifique!". I spend a memorable long moment just sipping in the perfectness of the lines and mood of this completely empty intersection of gloom. Loved it, wish I had my Hasselblad with me.

Now in my damp basement room of the B&B I frequent, drinking cups of tea and listening to Pantera while uploading these images. Funny how things play out once in awhile, have learned to roll with the punches and just be where you are.

snafu

A Cold Day In Yurakucho

View Of a City

Not the first time Im on this floor in this building, the view over West Shinjuku always amaze me. Man made but lifeless, irregular perfection.




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Fading Protection

About walls. Built to keep others out or "the others" in?

Shot this morning on the way home after a stop at the train station. Leaving town tomorrow with the night express. Few remaining section of the wall surrounding the city still stands. Slanting piles of clay bricks purposeless stopping no one and his thoughts. I see labour and toil. Time erase everything.

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The Menara Berkembar Petronas, the tallest building in the world between 1998-2004, have the deepest foundation of any buildings ever built, hosts the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and Alan "Spiderman" Robert (French urban climber) made the summit climbing the Tower 2 in under 2 hours without ropes on September 1st, 2009. Useless information is the bomb!

This is my favorite image of the building

Classics shots of the twins, cool when you think it has been climbed without ropes. 

The Ghetto V.S The Ghetto

Check it out at the 2nd floor gallery at The Ghetto from August 20th ~











For many a homebase for the last 3 years...a true Shinjuku Ghetto













I was asked to do a small contribution to a 3 year memorial exhibition of the Ghetto. Since I was shooting here from day one when the place was a rotten old "love hotel" it could be possible to just reap the past and put up some "old school" stuff. But I decided to focus on the "now" and show the place in a way that we don't see it with our own eyes. We see it and we know it's there, but not like this (if you don't have a pair of fisheyes, 15mm view angle) ! I like it and think it gives a presentable approach to the memory and respect of this old pearl of the red light lanes of Tokyo's murky backwater.