Blog

The photographic blog of Sean Wood (aka motionid)

Kanazawa to Tōjinbō

This is one of my favorite photos.On the train from Kanazawa to Tōjinbō there are these mountains that line the edge of the coast. I was sporting the 150mm lens for the Hasselblad and managed to take a few shots out of the window. Once I returned and developed the film I realized that the developer had died and there were real issues with how the film turned out. I was really surprised and happy to find that the mistake actually made the shot.

The buildings

buildings.jpg

New home for an old photo.I was visiting Sydney one year and wandering around the city on my own. It looked like rain but I risked taking the camera out. A drop of water hit me and i looked up and saw this almost symmetrical view of these two buildings. By some miracle I got the exposure right.

website makeover

It's been too long coming. I've finally gotten around to redoing the 50mm site. In theory I should have had the blog and the site run from the same installation of Wordpress but that would just take up too much of my time.The new site is slowly coming together and with it a review on what goes on there and what should be going on the blog. You might find a few thing's missing from the new site. If that's the case start looking for them on the blog. Which means that I'm likely going to post a lot of old stuff up here in the near future. Some of which has not seen the light of day and should I guess (bit of a waste otherwise). The new site is nothing special but, being a designer, it took me ages to find a balance between functionality and simplicity. That and I kept changing my mind every five minutes so I guess that doesn't help. There will be a style issue between the blog and the new site. Something I will need to work on over time to bring into alignment. I've gone for a responsive design this time around which means it should work on devices other than a computer. One issue I have discovered, however, is the ipad 3 is causing issues regarding file sizes. The resolution of the screen is so high I need to serve very large images so they look good. This has quite an impact on load time and is not being helped by a bug in the slideshow code that prevents the loading animation from displaying. I could work on serving up two or three versions of the images but that might have to wait until after the site is launched.

Stay tuned.

A day at the beach

During the holiday period (to be politically correct for Americans, or, as most Australians like to call it, Christmas)  I returned to Australia with plans to do a fair bit of shooting both inland and on the coast. My plans were dogged with sicknesses and bad weather which resulted in only a handful of pictures I managed to make while I was there. I was fortunate that the day was overcast and there was enough cloud in the sky to make the shots interesting. I've always liked dogs on the beach so while I was on the 35km strip I searched out the lone dog who became the feature of this three image set.

Shot on TMax 100 and developed in Tmax developer but scanned with the brightness and contrast way down so I was able to screw with the balance afterward.

A view near Fuji

As part of the trip to Aokigahara Jukai we also took a little drive around Mt. Fuji and through the road that leads right through the forest. To our surprise we came to a lookout area along the way.This is the result. Inford Pan F+ 50 shot using the Rolleiflex and an ND 8 filter and developed in Rodinal at 20c. The neg's turned out a lot more grainy than I expected but I guess that's what Rodinal will do.

Aokigahara Jukai

So I finally have a few thing's to show from the Aokigahara Jukai trip.Only took the Rolleiflex this time. Well, I took the 5d also but it was the light meter for day 2 and not a good one at that. It seems that my trusty Sekonic did the job just great. These B+W shots are proof. After seeing the results I'm keen to go back again. At the start of the trip it was pouring rain and Jon and I had to walk 20 mins to get to the station at about 6:50am. We hadn't event started and we were soaked. Still, the weather was actually a blessing and I'm really pleased Thomas, with his boundless enthusiasm got us all shooting in the rain in the forest. For me it made for better shots than the sunny day after. Next will be to see what everyone has printed. Thanks guy's. It was a lot of fun.

All shot on TMax 100 and developed using Tmax dev 1:4

Long Grass

The writing. Always the writing. I can't seem to find the time to write the words. The longer I stay in Japan the less of a words person I become I think. This is a shot from my Aokigahara Jukai (青木ヶ原) trip I made with Thomas, Koga san and Jon.

It was an excellent trip and I think I managed to get a few ok shots out of it. I'm kind of wondering why it took such a long time for us to actually go on a trip. We've gotta do this more.

I'll likely try to post a few new shots of the trip before I depart Japan for Australia for part of the summer.

This specific shot was taken near the forest using Jon's Velvia 50 and the Rolleiflex f/2.8 d with a Rollinar 1 closeup lens. The colour has been dialed back as the original was (to use Jon's term) too "in-your-face".

The Frame builder

I've been working on a little project that has taken a bit of my time.It's not done yet. There is still a way to go but I thought I would share a few frames thus far. I'm primarily shooting it on Kodak Tmax 400 @1600 using the Hasselblad and accenting the series with a little colour (Kodak Portra 400).

The subject of my project is a bicycle frame builder from Kyoto that now lives in Tokyo and has a shop not far away from where I live. I haven't come across anyone building frames in Tokyo as yet and have since discovered it's a bit of a rarity.

Tensyouren

So, as usual I have shot for the team again. For those of you who don't know me, my wife dances in an Awa odori team called Tensyouren in Koenji. As a way for me to participate I have become the team photographer of sorts. Each year I make a book of the images for each member of the team.This year with my lack of digital camera use I seem to be somewhat out of practice. I don't think I have nearly as many keepers as the previous years but as a few of you may know, I may be being a little harsh on myself (time will tell).

Anyway, the team just renewed their website and I think they did a fine job of it considering the state it was in previously. I've been a bit cheeky by posting this frame before I've handed off a small selection for the team to upload to their new site but I've not posted anything for a while and it's not for a lack of shooting. Anyway, if you want to see more shots (maybe old ones until later this week) head over to the site http://tensyouren.com/2011/

Stephan

I hope he doesn't mind me uploading this.The atmosphere in the shot, the focus, the light are the elements that I really like in this shot. I knew bringing the Rolleiflex back would pay off. Stephan gets all the credit for putting up with me constantly taking his picture. Shot on TMax 400 @1600 and developed in TMax developer.

You so big hardy colt!! Come striking me like crazy animal with doggy style.

About 4 years ago in what seemed like another world and another time a group of us came across this bike parked innocently in the back streets of Shibuya. A normal bike until we took a closer look. The reaction of everyone reading is a classic.

The Wedge

This building is around the corner from my office. After seeing the result I went out and tried to shoot it square without success. The format just didn't work.This was shot on the Voigtlander Bessa R2a with a 50mm @ f16 directly into the sun which is why you see the screwed b+w flare.

I like how the subject takes up the space in the frame in this shot. I also like all the textures and the exposure. Everything to me seems to have the right balance. The clouds, the flare elements fading into small lines on the left of the shot and the tonal balance overall.