sugimoto hiroshi

i like this guy's work:
sugimoto hiroshi

although his site is quite sparse.

another project!

i'm overflowing with ideas for t-shirt designs. might as well start actually making them!

next project!

so, the response to my new site has been overwhelmingly positive (maybe the people who think it's shit don't bother to tell me...?) anyway, i feel like i'm on a roll, and i'm working on my next project: to publish a book! the working title is "darkness," though this could certainly change. i'll be publishing it through lulu.com. i haven't gone through much of the creation/publishing process with them yet, but from what i have done, they seem extremely awesome. i'm very excited, and at this point, i recommend them to anyone who may be thinking about publishing almost any kind of book.

speaking of books, i wanted to talk a bit about where the motivation and inspiration i've felt this year came from. for years, i've been meaning to completely redo my photo site, and get started on various other projects. but i kept telling myself, "yeah, i'll start tomorrow." and then i found something else that required my attention 'tomorrow.' i would do this for days and weeks in a row, until i forgot about it for the next few months. i have a gift for procrastination.

but, early this year, i read a book. this book seriously, literally changed my life. you may have heard of it. "the alchemist" by paulo coelho. it made me realize that, if i have a dream, i have a choice: either fucking go for it at all costs; or, let the chance slip by and be miserable for the rest of my days. sometimes i read a book or watch a movie, and i'm overcome with some kind of emotion or motivation, but it usually only lasts a few hours, or days at most. but i'm *still* feeling this motivation to make my dreams come true, over half a year later. and it's not showing signs of going away. i recommend this book to everyone within the sound of my text, more than anything i've ever recommended. if you have a dream, do yourself a favor and read it.

bad joke

i heard this joke yesterday:

what's the difference between a photographer and a large pizza?

the pizza can feed a family of four!

ha!
(good thing my family is only 3 people...)

done!

finally! after all this time! the site is finished.

i'll say that it's still in beta, because i may have to make a few small tweaks.

photographsbyhikaru.com

anyway, i feel really good. it's taken so long, with so many difficult decisions, while trying to do so many other things. but i managed to keep myself motivated, and completed this project! time to move on to the next project...

it's on its way!

i finally finished all of the choosing, and also all of the editing of photos! now it's time to work on the raw html code of my site.

it will certainly take some time, but it'll be worth it! we're almost there, man!

progress...

i finished cutting. now i'm formatting the chosen photos for web publishing. it's relatively easy, as it's pretty much monotonous resizing and pasting.

but i still don't know how i'll organize the new site. keep it as-is, by photo type; or change it to category/genre view?

this will take some thought; and maybe some suggestions...

come on, peeps!

ganbaring

work is progressing slowly. my free time is spent helping a fellow artist, a member of my family, get ready for her exhibition. making fliers, setting up portfolios, etc. i hope to finish sometime this summer.

cutoff

i keep taking photos every day, and developing more and more film. while trying to choose which photos to use for the next version website, i realized that i'll never finish, unless i start disregarding the photos that i'm taking while making the decisions.

so i decided to make a cutoff point effective immediately.

finally, i have a finite amount of shots to edit from. maybe i can finally get a little closer to finishing!

april fools

yeah, there is no "japan's top photographer" contest.

but i got a few good shots recently. here's one:

japan's top photographer

guess what, everyone...?
i just won the 'japan's top photographer' contest!!

i'm gonna get prize money of $10,000, plus a guaranteed publishing deal! plus, i'll be featured and interviewed in several of the biggest, most respected photo magazines in japan! this is the beginning of an entirely new career for me. i'm so fucking excited!

organization

right now, my photo site is organized basically by the type of film/camera i used: black and white (film), color (film), digitally altered (mostly shot with digital cameras and photoshopped). plus one more category: figure. i made that one so that people who don't want to see nudity can browse my other photos. but now that i think about it, i'm not sure how logical this organizational scheme is. maybe i'll change it?

but how best to reorganize them? i could do it by subject. for example, people, things, abstract, places, etc. or maybe by "genre": funny, documentary, views, emotive, details, etc. or maybe i should make categories and subcategories?

this is going to take some thought.

scanning negatives

i just realized that the single shot that took the longest to set up of all of my photos is not scanned.

i made a shot of a typewriter in my uncle's apartment several years ago. it was unplanned, completely spontaneous. but i ended up spending about 5 hours setting up lighting and the 4x5 inch format view camera, with all of its settings. i was in the zone that time. except for the fact that it ended up underexposed. but anyway, it's a good shot.

and i never got around to scanning it! time to rectify that...

working process

i thought i'd post an example of what i'm working on at the moment.

this photo was from the "maybe" group of shots, that i thought might end up on my updated website:



it's interesting, especially to people who don't go hiking in the mountains of japan. but it seemed to be missing something. it didn't have enough punch. so, i messed around with it a bit, and came up with this:



it's a bit more interesting, and not necessarily very cliched. but...

i don't know. it's not quite there, and maybe i should go in a completely different direction. or just cut this one.

i haven't finished this one shot yet, and i have hundreds more to go. good times!

wait, i can make titles? i just found this text box...

it's been a very long time since i've updated anything on my photo website. at least 5 years, maybe more. i finally got up the amount of both good material and motivation to do a huge update. i'm working on it right now, and it seems like it'll be a while before i finish. but i'm focused, and devoting most of my waking, non-working time on this project. i've got a lot of ideas!

the hardest thing is deciding which photos to use. i went through my photos, and chose a *lot* of "maybes". that part was easy enough. but next, i'm working on cutting, taking out the shots that don't cut it for one reason or another. round after round of cutting. each decision takes so much consideration.

well, i decided to start this blog about my photographic/artistic activities and developments. partly to let anyone who might care know what i'm up to and how things are going. but mostly to motivate myself to actually *make* developments in my career, and to bring them to fruition.

i'll hopefully be posting fairly regularly.

to make this post (almost?) worth reading: i had an interesting idea. photo scavenger hunts!

here's how it works: get together 2 or more people, or 2 or more teams. there could be a list made beforehand, or the players/teams could take turns thinking of ideas to scavenge. let's say the item is "rabbit." everyone goes out and takes photos of either an actual rabbit, or a toy, statue, or cartoon of a rabbit. or, maybe something that vaguely resembles a rabbit, perhaps a tree branch with "rabbit ears."

next, everyone meets up again (maybe have a time limit?), and compare photos to see who got something closest to the stated goal. if the players aren't too competitive, they should be able to decide a winner among themselves. if, however, people anticipate problems with this judging system, an impartial judge should be brought in from the beginning.

the game gets more interesting when the "object" to photograph becomes more abstract. how about "love?" you could shoot a couple holding hands, or... well, what does love mean to you?

it could also be something difficult, like "fog" on a non-foggy day. people might try to find or produce steam or smoke, or shoot frosted glass. clouds could work, too.

judging is based on 2 criteria:
1. closeness to the goal; and, if two or more people/teams shoot the same thing--
2. artistic and technical quality.

anyone wanna play?

☆

hello world.