Through a lens

I clearly remembered the feeling of seeing the first digital images when this medium started to come out on the market in publications etc. It was often a flat, cold image with the wrong color balance, full of noise in the wrong places. I do not think that a blurred or grainy photograph is a bad thing, amy times it actually helps bringing out the reality , but when it came to the first digital frames I really saw that this was the new way to completely destroy the beauty of photography. During the years we have come to get use to these "looks" and it has become the norm. Todays sensors and software may have improved on top of that and to pursue the "original" style has become a quest from all major camera makers. I was looking through Annie Leibovitz work from the 80s and they have a clear look of color film photography. Those images were at that time the role model style for most high end publications. If you would try to push these today I guess not many would be to thrilled about them. So, our eyes has changed, our mind set has changed and nothing wrong with that I guess. Like when the first color images came out, most old school type of hardcore photographers disliked it. That's what Philip Jones Griffiths said during a seminar I attended here in Tokyo some years ago. If it was not in B/W it wasn't a worthy photograph! So just to show you my point and again post up older stuff from my stock, I have here below some photos from Asia where as ONE photo is a digital file. Since 35mm has to be, developed, mounted, scanned and downloaded and I am a really lame photoshopper there are some images with visible dust or even hair (or...), part of the process. Can you my fellow man tell me witch this digital photo is? If you are a follower of this blog you might already have seen it and will then see it clearly...or, maybe it isn't as clear as I have come to view it myself?

Family Suidae a.k.a Sus Domesticus

Just to get going and leave all that bad karma behind (last post), I just wanted to get the diptych going with these 2 frames I snapped during an anti war demonstration some years ago. I think these images speaks for themselves. To be against wars, to be freethinking and exercise your rights to live has never been a popular agenda of the only legal organization free to break the law and get paid to do so..."legal" and "law" suddenly falls under a different lights doesn't it? Well, nothing new I guess...

Dude, gimme a break

After 10 years in Japan I have come to like the place like no where else. Got treated with the same respect as I have treated people and never had any problems...till yesterday!



Me and my buddy were test shooting a new portable lightbox in the tranquility of one of my favorite spots in Tokyo i.e. West Shinjku and Chuo Park yesterday afternoon. Due to Japanese pride, misunderstanding and alcohol ( i.e. a drunk, uneducated Japanese middle age man) we ended up being attacked by this total freakish nut, a true raging mad dog released all his anger and sake vapor on me and at last we all ended up in the Shinjuku Police HQ (B.T.W.F.T.P) and spent more than a couple of hours dealing with this shit. Well, this dude deservedly ended up drenched in his own blood like the pig he is (don't ask me how) as well as had his mobile phone smashed to pieces (don't ask me how) when calling for backup from his possibly more that unfriendly loony park pals. Me being attacked by a complete mental mad man on the loose, I was suddenly to blame and was made out to be the bogeyman in disguise....cute move Sherlock!

I personally don't believe in that you are a guest in a country etc etc, borders, traditions and laws are all man made temporary stuff, deep down we are no more than half smart monkeys (I know, this is hard to hear for some! But according to studies, even a boneless octopus has more brain than the common Homo sapien) puffed up on ego and greed. I have decided to live here in Japan as a citizen of the world and don't feel that I have to live like some underdog due to my genetic background and be at service to the Japanese society, I live here on this Island and I have the right to do so, this is my home at the moment and has been so for 10 years, why not!. I respect people who respect me and keep a low profile, always have. But last night I could see that's not the way a proud overfed detective (BTWFTP) and a mental fuck up park gangster covered in his own internal body fluids looks at it. They do deserve each other, just keep me out next time.

Anyways, life rolls on, just another proof that pigs are pigs and you can dress him and fill him up to the brim with alcohol and self claimed dogma as much it's possible, it's still a pig, always will be!


10-4 over and out!

Window light

The beautiful view of urban megapolis Tokyo, liked the light here though.







#1

70mm 2.8 @ 1/750




#2

70mm 2.8 @ 1/500




#3

50mm 2.8 @ 1/250




The light this afternoon gave me this slight overcast filter tone. The room was bright with a large open glass door letting in just the right amount of light between highlight and shadow an enough balance to make sense. ISO400 was maybe a bit to ask for but works fine on the gear I use. I was shooting three pattern while just changing the shutter with a basic under, over and a mid balanced frame, a classic film bracketing thing.

I got some quite interesting comments on the last portrait below. Please do feel free to give some feedback on this post as well and give me your though in a photographic point of view.

In the shadow of Giants (A field study of Young Sam The Kiwi)

Young Sam was the victim today. The light falling through the skyscrapers we passed in Shinjuku this afternoon was just perfect for portrait photography if you ask me. Something in the reflection of the shitty grey steel and glass that makes the light a soft undertone in the shadow even if the sunny sky is bright blue. I noticed that stone buildings gives you the same effect many times. But the best part with these giants are that they are all in different color tones and often in different materials. There are red(ish) brick imitation, Black steel, matte gray stained aluminum and white(ish) old-school high polished "plastic"...and it's all up to you to find the right one with the right back drop and light tone. Today I found a gap in the facade that I could use for a couple of portraits of Young Sam. He has a pretty strong face, you see that clearly here in these images below. A photographic portrait will many times bring out some features we miss in "real" life. I just have to add, this Kiwi is a fast trasher on that brakeless fixed ride of his, RxKxBx style!

Here are a couple of samples. Please give me some feed back (comment) on which one is the strongest or the weakest, and please, tell me why. I know which one is the strongest and vice versa but would love to hear others opinions as well. 4649!

#1




#2



#3



Used this "gap" as a diffuser of a kind and got the dark back with the light from the right angle even if the light was pretty even and flat.






#4

The art of Seminar & Speech photography

I had the pleasure to shoot an editorial today. Seminars may sound boring and not full of life, but for me as a photographer it's the perfect challenge. To get the best shot under a often quite strict time and light limit and try to blend in, "not be there" and find that angle that makes the whole worthwhile for the situation. I tend to know what I am after and usually the first frames are the best, then after that it's just a repeating process and going over everything once more. I was lucky today because the room this seminar was held in was behind a set of huge floor-to-ceiling windows during a sunny and warm morning light. Shooting mainly with a long lens (70-200mm) but also blending in wide angles when suitable (16-35mm), 2 x 5D with these 2 lenses is a great set up for sure.






Snapped some on the way out from the Peninsula Hotel where todays shooting was done. When in Rome!?

--------NEW WEB PAGE---------

www.mattiaswestfalk.com







Yup, finally after having the same old stuff representing my photography for 5 years on the WWW, I asked a friend to make me a new look and this is what we came up with. The horizontal scrolling is an idea I got from Banksy's page which I really like. The other stuff is just a big mix of what I do and what you (clients) can expect from me a.k.a -mwcp-. Happy days are here again!!!


Thanx you guys for supporting -mwcp-


Designed by Pi, Inc (Katsu Dog)

Engineered by SOY (Inagaki Junichi)





4649

FLJ Magazine

Editor in Cheif, Mr.Toshiya Ohno produces FLJ, a free magazine focusing on Music/Fashion/Culture/ Art. Me and photographer buddy Yoshiki Suzuki got a couple of pages each in last issue. Kind of a look on who we are and what we do. The cool thing was that the portraits for this article of Yoshiki was shot by me and vice versa. Nice collaboration between the two of us, SOFTMACHINE and FLJ.

Come on people, if you want the real deal in photography...this is it. Guys like me and Yoshiki, fighting daily to make something that make sense out of this bloody mess. I am getting tired of the so called street / underground artists in all the hyped up-town "trend" mags in circulation. Junk for rich kids with no identity willing to buy one if the street credentials are set by someone else. If the readers and editors alike only knew what is going on, down on the asphalt, then they would see something quite different. I know I am a noisy-all time bitching no-good-for-nothing-looser white trash... at least I know who I am, and that is why I am still on the asphalt doing my thing.

It's all up to you, but I strongly recommend to open up your eyes!

KADENS - Bikemag from Sweden -

A 6 page article about the recent street cycle scene going on in Tokyo, based on ideas from the Road Kill Bikers (RxKxBx) as well as a Q&A from 5 bike shops and builders in Tokyo, shops I use for my private cycling life in the city. I very seldom write in Swedish so this proved to be a good experience, dusted off my old dictionary, back to the mother tongue. Was great to see that the editors gave me so much space for this article and used a nice composition of images. I always send more images than I know the magazines can use, to give them the freedom and choice to make something out of it all that suite the local market. What goes in Tokyo might not go in Stockholm.

Check it out, KADENS

Salvation Mt

Salvation Mountain. A piece of D.I.Y art/stoic do-what-I-want "thing" in the middle of no where near the half dead Salton Sea in Southern california. Being a huge fan of stoner rock legends Kyuss and have seen that really cool band shot from one of the album jackets, this place has been on my mind ever since and I always wanted to go here. I was driving down highway 111 to Niland one summer day in June last year with nothing more in mind than a cold drink, something to eat. The diner we (me and my brother JEREMY) stopped at had a couple of locals and the waitress asked us if we been up to Salvation Mt yet? That it was close by this outpost (nothing on any map of mine) just made sense and after lunch we had found "it" a couple of miles up a small hidden dirt road. Napoleon Knight welcomed us and guided us around without asking who we were and why we came to see him. Genuine in all aspects, friendly to the bone this Knight fella. I've been traveling in many countries and seen things that is hard to imagine for the untrained shoestringer, Salvation Mt is one of these places. Not that the "monument of love / God" is that mind blowing in it self, it's more that wholeness of it all. Mr Knight and his belief that love is the cure for everythign, the desert, the old dusty diner down the road and the Chocolate Mountains (a gunnery range for the war mongers) in the background. The wholeness of the atmosphere made the day a day to remember forever.