Deptford — Art or Odd ?

In south-east London, just before the Thames River reaches to Greenwich,

it is the Deptford.  Unlike the posh Greenwich, this part of Lewisham is

rather poor area = hence lots of artists (I guess, rather poor artists) are

living in this area =  And it creating very distinctive atmosphere here

though, I wouldn’t necessary say it is artistic, but definitely it is odd.  🙂

Next to the Deptford open market, the Albany Theatre is

one of the center of the Community Art activity.

But half of the market is a Flea Market = or some might say junk heap.

Therefore, to distinguish Deptford’s  “distinctiveness” = whether it is

art or junk is a difficult task.  😀  Photo above left is — can you guess,

it’s a tattoo shop !

The area having quite a number of Vietnamese population hence

many Chinese-Vietnamese restaurant as well. 

And number of Charity shops (or junk shop). —– Important point is,

they were sold to the grown-ups, not to the children.

On the table, Permanent flower in a glass jar = What a great idea !

—– I’m wondering, who got a courage to cut a hair there ?

—– or the population here loves a joke so much ?

And so-called Laughing Buddha (Chinese Putai = Taoism figure, nothing

to do with Buddhism) must be a warning of obese in the restaurant.  🙂 

They are the Wedding cake kind ! = What a fantastic idea again !

So, where ever you go, ART (sort) is everywhere.

This is what Deptford is !

(Photo Right is, the entrance to the Site-office of construction site !

= not a joke ! )

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Mind-set of the Medallist

Now the news from Sochi Winter Olympic is the regular feature in the media.

So, naturally I read quite number of the words from the Medallists “How he

(or she) came to this point”. Such as the one from the first Gold Medallist

of Japan, Yuzuru Hanyu (羽生結弦) the Figure Skater.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoqHZH6KE1c

—– (Unfortunately I couldn’t find a proper video from Sochi in Youtube =

most of them are either old clips or the clip only using his name with

crap contents. = this one from last year’s competition.)

Yuzuru grown up in Sendai, Japan the place received that earthquake and

tsunami few years ago. So, even he had a part of the same fate, couldn’t

practice for 6 months, as a local ice-rink was destroyed, on top of all sorts

of life’s ups and downs. —– still, in his word on an interview, he said

“On the end I came to the point to realize that I couldn’t be anybody

more than myself or anybody less than myself, and understood, there

couldn’t be anything else but to go the life to be a skater.”

= No pretence of special pride carrying the top name or the feeling carrying

the duty to the country.   (Yet still, when he won, he carried Japanese Flag

on his shoulder. = He was thank-full to the people who supported him

back in Japan. —– He was a nice 19 years old boy !)

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This is in fact quite common feeling among the athletes who became

top medallist. = Non boasted the words like “I came to the Olympic to win

for my country”—– but “Just did my best and it happened to be an Olympic”.

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It is a common misconception = “To achieve such highest goal, it must need

to have highest concentration of the Will and the strong Mindset”.

—– strangely you might think, the stronger the will or higher the aim or

desire kind, it fails to achieve the goal. —– We human was not designed to

withstand to maintain such hard will, and our fate is not providing plain

sailing. = The higher the aim, the stronger the disappointment when the ship

hit an obstacle, then the person brake down.

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Athletes compete physical game though, it is in fact a very heavy mental game.

Minute fear or negative doubt would hinder the moment of judgement.

After thousands, tens of thousands of practices, the body got accustomed to

perform routine = let the body to perform.  = No “Will, Aim, Pride, Pretence,

Desire, Show-off, Sense of Obligation, Duty, Fear, Doubt, Arrogance or Shame”

= in other words ANY MIND was not required here.  = Just Do it.

Any how, in the moment when the athlete is competing, there couldn’t be

a margin to haggle any thought.

—– ? ? ? —– Don’t you think it’s sound familiar ?

Yes. This is exactly the same mental state to Mushin and Ichijo of the Zen.

Or, the Selflessness of the Buddhism. —– are they Buddhist ?  Not necessary.

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Lord Buddha’s teachings = Buddhism, was the wisdom learned from the

human nature, and been applied to the general aspects of the life.

Wisdom in the human nature which was prevailed in the process of extreme

practice was in fact the wisdom held by the universe = Rules of the Universe,

which is in the Buddhist’s term Dharma.

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And the contemplation those athletes has gained, is nothing but

their Enlightenment = Being nobody else of the Self, who is in fact Selfless.

= This selflessness is in deed, the Dharma.

___/\___

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Tripod — give a thought

Among rather delicate Photo equipment, Tripod is exceptionally physical.

No another equipment would be thrown into a car floor. —– and may be that

was a reason why a film company disposed and gave a broken tripod to me.

When I got a huge Bilora tripod (Photo Left),  it’s legs were crushed. I replaced

them with 3 Manfrotto’s Monopod and put Gitzo No.4 (largest) Tripod-head.

= This 15 Kg heavy tripod can extend to 3 m high(with extension column) and

never produced blared image caused by a vibration, resonance kind. (of cause) !

(I was using this for Pentax 6×7 high-angle shot, or large format 4×5 kind.)

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Center Photo is a rather light-weight Gitzo (Reporter) with Ball-socket head.

Unlike other Gitzo which got 3 axis (X,Y,Z) fixing,

this ball-socket head has “a kind of” ease for quick

adjustment.  In the same time it is a disadvantage.  

If 3 axis can be adjusted individually = for instance, while keeping X,Y

fixed, but change only Z direction, it can have finer control.  

And being as light-weight and thin pipe, (even worse, ball and socket’s joint

is rather thin long neck) this tripod is sceptic to vibrate when all the

combination and the balance of the weight happened to resonates.

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And the Photo right is one of my small tripod (but not the smallest) which

become flat, when not in use. (Easily slip into a bag. )  

This tripod extends to 1 m and fold to 38 cm, the weight is mere 500 g !

It’s a typical case, “Better than nothing” but never perfect in any aspects.  🙂

The most important point of using tripod is, never fallen into an expectation

of false security. = Unless the tripod is really hefty heavy one, the use of tripod

may create more adverse effect = causing the blur.  Somewhere like a beach or

hill side, when the wind was strong, the tripod may be vibrating with the wind.

(You can feel it while rightly touch the leg.)

Test your tripod with your camera mounted —–> Click a shutter while rightly

touching your finger to the tripod leg. = If you feel tripod vibrates,

that is a quality of your tripod ! => Need to become aware of FALSE security !

Then take a measure.  Such as, hung something heavy from the tripod.

When tripod is vibrating, instead to use a Remote-Trigger or Delay-shutter,

grip the camera (on the tripod) and trigger the shutter by your finger !

(Hand works as a dumper. )  —– Or completely opposite approach against

Shutter-shock = drastically lower ISO and the shutter speed and make

shutter speed something like one second to few seconds !  

Unless the subject is moving, strangely, the photo become much sharper.

(See it yourself !  🙂 )

—– From the experiences seeing the broken Carbon Fibre Tripod, Golf club

and Fishing rod,  I’m not a fan of Carbon Fibre.  = When they brake, they

disintegrates.  Broken aluminium leg is still “a kind of leg” = You still able

to shoot a last photo or two on it. 

But, disintegrated bunch of plastic is utterly useless.  

Not to have a feeling of “false security” mean, better carry an insurance

for the worst situation too = carry one Kg more for stronger tripod !

After all, the steadiness and the reliability comes from its solid weight.  🙂

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Pinhole Portrait Picture

Some one might say, they looks like the photos of the earliest (100 KP)

digital camera. —– Oh, com’n they were created by a pretty expensive DSLR  

5D, Mk-III you know how much the cost !

(Taken at the Wednesday Workshop in Greenwich) 

And the others might say  “What a waste of time” = Hours of days of work,

and created this ? —– What for ? ? ?   Oh, com’n what’s wrong with you ?

I wanted to show = to be a portrait, what’s the minimum the picture

need to have — or other words, “Enough” to describe the person.  🙂

In fact, it was the same one = Semi-Fisheye,  Diopt-Pinhole Hybrid,  

Double-density Pinhole. Very very sophisticated Posh system, you know ? 

Ha ha ha   😀

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Wide-angle Pinhole Photo

 In the previous post, I’ve shown you ultra-wide or Semi-fisheye “Diopt-Pinhole

Hybrid Photos” which mean, it used not only pinhole but combined with an

optical lens too. —– The photos here shows you how the device looks like.  

In fact it was a very simple device = Double-density Pinhole was mounted back of

an EOS mount-adapter and a pretty heavy concave lens was mounted on its front.

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If anybody try to do a pinhole photo on a SLR camera, (still, it could be done in

all sorts of the way such as a “Photo-sensitive emulsion was painted on a panel

which was placed inside of a huge Shipping container box and a small pinhole was

made opposite wall = Transportable [Camera Obscura] ) in most of the case,

people places a pinhole panel on the camera front where the lens was removed

and obtained fuzzy image of about standard lens. (If a camera used was Full-frame

DSLR, it would be equivalent 45~50mm lens but with APS size, it would be about

85mm lens image).

Because, such as Canon EOS camera has 44mm flange-back (distance from lens

mount to image-sensor) and the diagonal size of 36x24mm frame was 43.26mm

=> If you draw a Triangle 43.26mm wide, and 44mm high, you will get a spread

of the top-angle 54 degrees.

The shorter the hight of triangle, the wider the spread though, you can’t place a

Pinhole panel closer than 37mm (7mm inside of the Camera) otherwise it

obstructs (or damages) the mirror.   This limitation lead me to resort with an

optical glass to obtain wider view in the pinhole photography.

So, the inside of the device, you can see blue panel of a beer-can (Photo Center)

and the Double-density pinhole of which the outer hole was 1.5mm and the

center hole was about 0.15~0.2mm. (Photo Right).

After a field test, where I found hopeless Halation in this optics, I realized that

I need to give an Anti-reflection covering to the shiny beer-can. 😀

—– (The photos above shows the comparison = with or without Concave lens.

—– Note : Pinhole Photo has NO distortion or any optical aberrations

—– = Since it is not Optics NOR bends the light. (Save a Diffraction. ) 

— (Being Pinhole, there is NO focus or Depth of Field = Fun to make a Close-up !)

It needs further refinement still, at least, I got pretty wide “Pinhole Photo” view.

—– whether it was worthwhile or meaningful was arguable though, it was

what I wanted. (with fun ! )  😀

By the way, the lens I’ve used was cannibalised from a “Fisheye adapter lens”

widely available in the net.  (about £10~£15 but quality is what we paid

= I mean Don’t expect too much.  —– this is a Fun Project.  😀 )   

And about the lens mount-adapter, I’ll talk about it in the next post.

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New year’s First Sunrise — (well, almost)

New year’s First Sunrise —– well, not quite.  It’s the second one.  

Yesterday was a bit cloudy = so, this is in deed, the first opportunity

to take picture though ……… I didn’t even go out of my room,

let alone go-up a hill or a beach to take typical photo.

Worse still, I didn’t even rise a bamboo blind.  Still, with a longer 

lens with its shallow depth of field, bamboo-blind was disappeared.  

And at least, the photo on top is a genuine photo of SUNRISE !

—– but, first of all, why do we bother a day next of 31st of December ?    

or So-called New year’s day.  

It’s not even a Winter Solstice-day = just arbitrarily man-named day

= a products of human imagination.     Nothing absolute !

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We human invented so many rules and the patterns for us

to be bound or even enslaved by it.  

Like, if we use English, we have to follow its strict rules.  

Or some of the people created their own God and follow it.

—– so, to take a special significance of the NEW-YEAR’S DAY

—– IS just depends on our mind-set.  

Mind has created “Special Day” and the mind enforce its belief.

—– still, it is only in our imagination.  It might be fun and

able to have a kind of comfort to feel a part of the larger society

though —– we may better to think “Why do I follow this ?”

There could be the other kind of life “If not follow it”.

Enlightenment is to liberate the mind yet I wouldn’t simply say

brake the convention —– to chose the same convention, same

conclusion could be a feasible choice. 

Still, to see it in different eyes, everyday could be a fresh first day.

Have a peaceful and joyful year.

___/\___

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Yamakake — Delicacy only for Japanese

——– (Soft-yam from Jamaica.  This 2.5″ thick  3″ long (6cm x 7.5 cm)

——— piece will make enough Tororo  for two persons)

What is Yamakake or Tororo ?

It is a kind of cooking with a special source made out of root-vegetable

called Tororo, and Yamakake is a type of Sashimi eaten with this source.

This root vegetable was botanically called Dioscorea, commonly known as 

Soft-Yam or Sweet-Yam which spread most of the hot countries and there

said to be over 600 species, and normally eaten boiled, like a Potato.

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In Japan they are called Naga-imo, Yama-imo, Jinen-jo and in medieval time

they said to be eaten boiled as well (described in a story “Imo-gayu”) though,

now they are cooked only for Tororo and make Yamakake Sashimi.

(Yet in Osaka area, small amount of Tororo was added for Okonomi-yaki and

the Tororo Soba also exists but not very popular.)

Sometime, I cook Sashimi of tuna in Yamakake style, when I got Soft-yam.

What makes Tororo unique is = in the world, only the Japanese eat it raw.

Raw mean just grated it to make slimy juice !   Sound yummy isn’t it !  😀

(In love with such slimy texture, Japanese eat Okura also raw —— just

sliced and mixed with Katsuo-bushi and Soy-source !  = Yummy again.  🙂 )

So that, Japanese has specially designed Grater (Photo left) called

Oroshi-gane (to make Daikon-Oroshi etc. Oroshi of Yama-imo is a Tororo).

To England, Soft-yam comes from Jamaica etc. even from France though,

seemingly it depends on the soil it grows, if it contains such as lots of iron,

it changes the color darker by oxidation and not nice for Yamakake.  😦

(Trouble is, we only discover it after cooked.  :-D)

After grated, concentrated Dashi with Soy-source and a raw egg  was mixed.  

This raw source / Tororo was served on the Sashimi / raw fish =

So that,  it makes a tasty Yamakake.  Wow !

Purist prefer to put pure Tororo for Yamakake though, I mixed it with

Dashi, Soy-source and raw egg to make it like Tororo-jiru for Tororo-gohan.  

And it is advisable to put small fragment of Lime skin (Yuzu or Kunenbo in

an authentic Japanese cooking ) to Tororo, and eat it together with some

Nori ( dried Sea-weed) on top.     Or, some Wasabi is good additive though,

it’s better to chose either Nori or Wasabi to keep a flavour not conflicting. 

Though, eat a fish raw, is a bit

tricky business in the west.  

So, I found a frozen salmon pack

which was made in an automated 

process without having touched by

a man’s hand (or least touched)

seems to be a safer choice.

(it comes from Lidl)

—– though, this was an old story. 

It was the Lidl’s harsh practice when

the item got good publicity kind (like this blog) and started to sell more, Lidl push the price up (in this case to £2 each piece) to suck more profit = soon or later, the fed-up customer dwindled = when Lidl realized that they no longer able to sell, they just stop to sell, instead to put the price back.  So, you can’t see this salmon there any more.

And in the same reason, I used to buy a packed raw tuna from Tesco though, after the price of tuna rocketed, I couldn’t find them any more.

= So, this time I made a Yamakake of Salmon here. The taste and it’s texture, melt in the mouth is an exquisite to us !

—– But, I wouldn’t say “Try” to you at all.  ( You better look away.  ;-)) (So far, no westerner ever touched this = it’s exclusively for Japanese)

Thence, I prepared and stocked-up only for myself for coming new-year.  

Bon appetite to me.   😀

——————————–

PS :  I asked my Chinese friend  Shing Lee  how they eat Yam, as I saw

Chinese shop also selling Soft-yam.

So, he sent me the information and the photos.

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The Yam is called 山药 or 淮山 in Chinese. It both grows in

wild at high mountains and man-grown in the field.

Normally, we have two methods to eat:

First, we peel it, and slit it into thin pieces, and then put it into

the hotpot, boil it with ribs.

Second, peel it and put it into the boiling oil, and fried to make

it looks like golden bullion.

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I have not been able to enjoy a Sashimi or raw egg yet.

It seems your Yamakake sound great though, it is

made with raw soft-yam, raw egg and a Salmon.  🙂

Personally, I like put it into the hotpot, and drink the soup.

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Thank you  Shing Lee for your contribution !

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Party Time

On the London Underground I encountered very very colorful

bunch of the people.  They said they are on the way to “a kind of Party”

—– later, I found, they are in fact the Government officers !

(Do you noticed, they are wearing 007 type very special glove ?

It might be for Golfing Gold finger’s) 

I guess, it may not be a special disguise for a rather elaborated

intelligence operation but more like for a chemical-physiological  

assessment project to find a toxicity of the liquid substance.

—– anyhow, to avoid me to become a hacking subject of GCHQ,

I shouldn’t go into too much details. 

I wish them having had a very GOOD time

and safely returned to their home now.  🙂

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Mouhitsu = Blush Calligraphy

In the Japan-Post New-Year Card design Free Template site,

they are also offering two interesting design tools.  

One is the Blush Calligraphy other is to design Name Stamp.

Calligraphy may seemed similar to other drawing program though,

their one is using the speed of finger movement to the thickness of

the line = hence a bit closer to the real blush touch. 

When you start the program by clicking red button on the bottom,

loading takes minuet and open the screen like this above. 

—– you may have the choice of colors or Black ink, and three sizes

of Blush.  ==> then just try. (as many times you like.  🙂 ) 

Black button right bottom is to re-start, and Red button for finish.

Use the finished Calligraphy into their Design-kit and to upload is

straight forward though, use it as an image, it’s “png” format

has to be converted to “jpg”. 

( To convert “png” to “jpg” is in this process:

—– Bring the Downloaded image to desktop.  and

Double-click this => “Open with” =>[Paint] —– then click and open

left top icon and go to “Save as”=>”jpeg” (Yes, to asking small window)

—–> The saved image in “jpg” is on the Desktop ! —– or somewhere.)

(I found a fun without having a mess of Blush and INK ! —– but,

write on touch-pad is very different from real blush writing, of cause.)

To design Stamp (they says Hanko) needs Japanese character input.

(To do this you can Google and download Microsoft, IME Japanese, or

you may pick up letters in the Net and Copy-paste as a design input)

—– So, these are the samples of the Name Stamp (Hanko) I made.

—– Left = the Seal of Yoshizen (良禅之印)   Center = Kinetorori (キネ瀞裏)  

—– Right = James (じえむす) in Hiragana  🙂

Japan Post is providing those service only till January —– so, if you like to

design your own Stamp, better do rather soon than later.

Anyhow, enjoy if those program / Design Tools are useful to you.

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Halloween ? —– Yah, it’s coming !

Nothing special, I just came across the girls who seemed to have a rehearsal kind

for a tomorrow’s event.  (I guess  🙂 )

The color has been a bit over saturated. —– It wouldn’t harm anyone.  🙂  

Have a funful Halloween.

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