Categories
Photography

Nobuyoshi Araki 70th birthday

Thanks to some wonderful people from the Mexican embassy (Thank you very much!), Jairo and I were invited to the 70th birthday party of Nobuyoshi Araki, considered one of the best photographers in the world. Moreover, Wikipedia says that he is considered one of the most prolific artists in history:

Having published over 350 books (and still more every year) Araki is considered one of the most prolific artists alive or dead in Japan and around the world. Many of his photographs are erotic; some have been called pornographic. Some of his most popular photography books are Sentimental Journey, Tokyo Lucky Hole, and Shino. He also contributed photography to the Sunrise anime series Brain Powerd. Continue reading in Wikipedia…

The truth is that I like much more the photos of Daido Moriyama, but I enjoy the crazy and original personality of Araki, I talk about them in the introduction of my second book Momentos. The birthday party was quite crazy, very weird people, gorgeous women (many of them models that work for Araki) and varied performances.

The theme of the birthday party was “Life and death”; Araki was very unfortunate as his wife died when he was just 50 years old, his cat has died recently and now he is facing death alone fighting against a prostate cancer that has been bothering him for years.

We started the evening watching some of the latest photos of Araki in a projector while a pianist and a violoncellist played music. After a while, when nobody was expecting it the God of Death (Shinigami, 死神) appeared an played a performance which ended with a hug to a smiling Araki. It seems like he is not scared of death at all. In his own words, Araki is not scared of death because there are many women next to him, there are many Goddesses (Megami, 女神) that protect him. Up until now it seems that the Goddesses protection has worked pretty well for him, and we hope it continues working for many years.

Some Araki memorable quotes from the evening:

The Goddesses that I have always by my side scare the God of Death (Shinigami) away, so don’t worry about my cancer.

Men like soft things and women like hard things.

I still have to live at least until I am 90, I still have to live longer than Picasso and Hokusai.

Nobuyoshi Araki (荒木 経惟)

Nobuyoshi Araki

Nobuyoshi Araki
The God of Death 死神.

Nobuyoshi Araki
The Goddesses that scare the God of Death away

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Araki facing bravely the God of Death.

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Notice the cat in the cake. Araki’s cat died recently. His wife died long ago.

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Araki blowing the candles on his 70th birthday.

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An Araki model

Spanish people, Nobuyoshi Araki, Mexican people

This post doesn’t end here, the best is yet to come. Open this video in another browser tab, put the volume up and play it. Come back to this tab and play the following photo set in full screen. Turn the lights off and leave your imagination flow.

Categories
Photography

Vistaquest

I recently acquired a Vistaquest 3Mpx mini-camera. Vistaquest is a small company specialized in making very small cameras with not much quality; made of plastic and without LCD screen, the pictures taken are very saturated and very contrasty. I bought the VQ-3005 model to play and see what can you get with one of them; it has a F2.8 lens, it cost me 40 euros (50 dollars) and its size is similar to that of a lighter.

Vistaquest

These are some of the photos that I’ve been able to get; to center the camera correctly is quite complicated because of the lack of screen, but maybe thanks to that some of the pictures are more interesting. The only pictures that I’ve retouched are the ones in black and white, the rest I’ve uploaded them as the camera took them.

If you are interested, you can browse around this search in Flickr where you can see really impressive photos taken with Vistaquest cameras.

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Vista quest 3Mpx test pictures

Categories
Photography

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography is one of my favorite museums in Tokyo. It is located in Yebisu Garden Place (point 1 in the map) and here you have an schedule of the expositions shown. One of the things that I like the most is this three huge photographs that are located on the entrance hall to the museum. Can you recognize the pictures and their authors?

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography