You may have noticed that there are a number of self-portraits amongst my Japan photos...

It seems that I have this sort of habit, or ritual, when traveling. I take a lot of photos of myself... Often these are during solo wanderings. Perhaps then it's a way of capturing the moments of my trip in a more meaningful way? Not so much as proof, but more a reminder that, hey, there I was.

Looking back over my Pittsburgh photos most of the self-portrait shots were reflections in things, my face mostly hidden behind my camera. In Japan I took a slightly different approach. I have about a 6-inch tall bendy-legged tripod deal that I can screw onto my camera, and while it's not the real deal it's usually sufficient as long as I can find something to rest it on (either that or get a good angle shooting from the ground). Japan found me inspired to take a bunch of self portraits using this little tripod and the newly-found self-timer on my camera.










...It’s been an interesting couple of years in college. Something that’s been missing (and missed) in my life is the lack of artistic presence. Let me explain. Not all of it is gone; I still see, and am greatly inspired by, the great works of friends and strangers in faraway places, beamed to me through the lightspeed of the internet. But there’s not been the personal presence of other artists very much.

I see the photos from adventures my friend has been on with her boyfriend, see her photos of him taking photos and his reciprocal photos of her... And I’m a bit jealous and mostly curious.. What is it like to have someone around that understands (at least some things, on some level)? Again, some explanation: One of my bigger issues in Japan was that I was traveling with two crusty older engineers, who seemed to always be furrowing brows and piling pent-up grouchiness at all my youthful dilly-dallying: in stores, while taking photos, etc. I got some good practice with snapping quick shots and doing lightning-speed lens changes, but I’m sure I missed some subtler pictures.

I think it’s developed my photo style though, as evidenced in these. They seem to perfectly capture the sense of artistic isolation I felt in Japan, and at large while pursuing my engineering degree.






Isolation is somewhat of a negative word in our extroverted culture, but it’s not all bad. Have you ever been on a photo-taking adventure with someone and you both end up stopping and taking photos of the same thing (by virtue of the fact that when one person has stopped the procession the other person naturally starts looking around for things to photograph, and often ends up deeming interesting the same subject that photographer #1 initially stopped for)? Yeah there was little-to-none of that in this experience. Which marks a trend of personal inspiration that’s been different than what I am used to, and I think it’s evolved me in a different direction than I would have gone otherwise. I guess I’m saying that my creative box has had very few directly artistic inputs over the past four or five years, so inspiration has come from different places (philosophy classes, engineering theory, even.. engineers (who’d have thought)).

..Which is nice to think about. I thought I’d just stagnated. I guess nothing really stands still though.







I couldn't decide which one to choose so I'm submitting you to all three.

Pretty sure I had this photo from ileum in mind (among other things) when desiring to shoot the above.




Remember the post from Japan where I remarked about the vending machines? It really was odd for me to see (or rather, for my eyes to be assaulted by) the contrast between the dark streets and the bright white vending machines. I wish I would have taken more photos of them.






I got some good stares from some high school boys while taking this photo.