Dale’s Studio

——– (Note: Photo above by Zeiss 18mm lens for Nikon = Virtually no Distortion ! ) 

Yesterday, I went to the studio of Dale in the east London who also run the Cafe,

Small White Elephant to help a documentation, photographing his paintings.

As always, when I go out to take picture, it was a sunny blue-skyed day. = Almost

like the first spring day of this year.

(In fact, I’ve told him “If the weather was like this rainy, it would be a sign of

that the Heaven doesn’t like you” as the day before was rainy.)

As always, the studio was in a disused big industrial building,

some walk from the Bromley by Bow station.  = Real East End ! —– the area

“was” really a derelict, disused industrial land though, in the past few years,

suddenly new development was started. = would become posh town soon ! ? 

Utterly out of my guess, Dale’s paintings were the riot of colors with tons of paint.

— paint was not painted but more likely, deposited on the canvas. (= so that,

even after few years, some paint was still not completely dried yet.)

I only say ” Wao, Amaaaaaaazing”.  and then, I realized the connection, why

he interested in Zen = those process to dripping the paint without having

much of  pattern or figure = almost endless work of Mushin (Mind of No-mind

= Do the task without needing to have the Thinking.)  —– And the result

—– it showed nothing or it is the everything !  (色即是空，空即是色 = like what

Heart Mantra said ) —– He was not trying to copy a style of Zen painting

but “Do the Zen” in action.

And, for the next step, for exhibition and for a publication, he needed

to have his paintings digitized.

When we finished the shooting, his friends came to the studio with cans of beer.  

In most of the case, the studio of the artist never be tidy —– so, looks like this

pile of mess = was not a mess = it was a collage of the doodles or a draft of plan

etc etc. in his past (= said to be.  🙂 )

Therefore, I wouldn’t make any question “What is this ?” to an artist.

(with obvious reason.  🙂 )

So, I even didn’t have an attempt to guess what they are — why the blobs of

the paint was kept and treasured ? ? ?

In some distance, over the Bow Creek, landscape of the East End.

The life is there as usual. (of usual kind.  🙂 )

(Camera used was: Nikon D810 with PC Nikkor 35mm F2.8 and

Carl Zeiss 18mm F3.5 for Nikon)

[]

Fun from a broken Camera

Often when a camera of my friend or a friend of friend has broken down,

that camera was brought to me to have it repaired or for me to have a fun.

But a compact digital camera, Canon Powershot G9 was dropped in the muddy

water and beyond the repair = so,  I had a fun !  (and beyond.  🙂 )

The inside of the camera had, not only a water but also a lots of sand too,

hence like a lens barrel got stuck etc — rather hard to even disassemble

(not mention the rusted and stucked screws) — still, some of the parts were

survived well and still functioning !    The photo above was a 16 MP image sensor

and its left, pale green grass was a filter to remove the effect of Infra-red ray.

I think, this sensor is still usable though, what for ? —– Make yet another

imaging device ? = nothing creative = just buy a security camera would be cheaper. 

This was an interesting device = rather early design (this camera appeared

on the market 2007) of the Image-stabilizer.

As you might know a projected image is upside down.    So that, when the camera

was shaken down, the image would move upward.  Therefore, if a part of the optics

in which carrying the image, which was already upside down was shaken down,

its movement cancelling the shake.  = With this theory, Canon designed an

Image-stabilizing optics with rather heavy magnets and the driving coils.  

—– The whole unit was suspended by 3 springs therefore, it’s bounce with

camera shake to the opposite direction = but as I said, the projected image was

upside down, the camera shake was cancelled.  = It was a clever design though,

as its bounce was affected by the gravity, it wouldn’t be consistent with the different

positioning of the camera (holding the camera vertical or horizontal, or aiming

 up or down may affect to sense the direction and a strength of the movement. ) 

In the device, orange colored mouth (eye ?) shapes were the electric coils to control

the movements of the magnets. (on the photo left, it was heavily rusted ) On the photo 

right, round shaped component was a stepping motor to drive an Iris (F-aperture)

and this motor and Iris was working, I’ll use it somewhere on future.

The photo left, this is the back of the Image-stabilizer,  and it’s showing

two drive unit for the shutter and the built-in ND filter.

And the center and right photos, they shows the last (4th) optical group before

the image sensor and this optics might be a focusing unit which was driven by

a stepping motor with a screw movement.  

(I’m planing to make something with its fine and precise movement.)

The photo left, this was the first group of the optics or the front lens, and as a convex

lens, it would be used as a simple single glass lens. (Somewhat, 55 mm F2 lens.  🙂 )

The center photo was the second group of the optics which is acting as a concave lens,

creating zoom effect though, it seemed, those 2nd and the 3rd groups move together

with very complexed movement, it was not easy to say how zooming was done.  

The photo right shows the grooves on the barrel, by which how each group of

the lens moves.   (Small pin on the plastic barrel moves in those grooves = you see,

how those lenses were flimsy and fragile = one drop would destroy the camera and

it is cheaper to buy another camera than to repair (by replace the lens all together.)

[]

One broken camera provide quite useful components and the opportunity to

think  “What could be designed and made out of those components” —– the game

of the creativity.  So, it is a fun. ( —– without the cost !)

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Jazz at the Cafe

Every last Thursday evening of the month, at Small White Elephant Cafe

in Peckham, South London has a Jazz Night.

The music starts 8:00 o’clock evening till 10:00, and this night had Tris Harris,

the Drummer Trigger Finger with Les Booth the Bassist and a guest

Saxophone player, Adrian Northover. = naturally, it’s a collection of

Horne Musics — even down to Take Five ! 

——— The Drummer Tris Harris —– Bassist Les Booth —– and Adrian Northover

Taking the opportunity of the evening people having a party as well,

bringing their own party food and the drinks.

I like this kind of rather casual (not a snobby “Jazz club like” ) atmosphere.

To the owner, Dale, it’s a once in a month occasion — a bit of pressure though,  

Don’t worry you can manage.

It’s an occasion for his friends coming down too. —– and it’s turned out to be

a small world. = The lady here happen to have her studio next door of Dale.

And I met her in the Immersive Cult party when she told me about this Cafe !

—– indeed, our world is pretty small. ( still, your world may be big   🙂 )

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Hoben (方便) / Upaya — (2)

Most of the books I refer to, are I brought from Japan and unless I need to find

the English word, I do not look into Wiki kind. —– So, I tell you the truth,

until few days ago, I didn’t know that there a Sanskrit word for Hoben (方便), Upaya

existed.   In Japan Hoben is a widely used word spread out of the Buddhism,

which has an extended meaning of “convenient mean” or “easy alternative” kind,

and the original Buddhist context was masked by those common usage.

Lord Buddha’s witty teachings, which was timely and suit to the occasion, or to

the person speaking to, is a well known stories, hence those witty talk style has

been adapted by the Zen talk, or even by the children’s comic book “Ikkyu-san”.

As its casual use became so common, we almost forgotten it had a Buddhism origin.

—– So that, to find this word, “Upaya” really surprised me, not because of its

meaning but the attitude, the ancient monk did created a dedicated nickname for 

Lord Buddha’s talking style, yet still, they couldn’t find the meaning of

Lord Buddha’s silence.

[]

Do you talk about the prostitute or prostitution in public ? I don’t think you do.

It’s a dirty talk and officially, it’s not exist in your life.  And if it’s not in the society,

neither a word prostitution exists.   It’s mean, even if anybody asked about it, you

can not understand what it mean nor able to answer.

To Lord Buddha, talking about Atman or Self never happened, because no such things

of the Self exists and to talk about a thing which is not exists was nothing but a 

delusion and it is a dirty talk.   Because of it is not exists and as he doesn’t have, it was 

no use to make a question about the Self or its reincarnation to him, because 

he wouldn’t answer anyway, since even no word, no notion was there.

= This was the reason why, to those questions, there was no answer from

Lord Buddha at all.

[]

And when the teaching was related to the Self, there was no explanatory words

but to show the practice which would lead to the “Selfless State of the mind” —–

or just to give a smile, otherwise (if you can’t get it), the excommunication.

(This was the reason why no explanation of “No Self” was in the scripture.

—– either it was omitted because of the conflict with the Hinduism or it couldn’t

be written down because, no such things like a Self exists.)

(In Buddhism, especially in Zen, there is nothing between Yes and No.

Yes mean 200% commitment but if it was No, even a word No itself is no longer exist.

= it is not a denial or even an argument but a total erasure = the subject, the matter

is completely disappeared. = hence no psychological conflict.

When no-self, there is even no subject, who is thinking the matter.)

___/\___

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Fake Lens ? ? ?

While looking for the items in the ebay, I found a small article “How to spot 

the fake Nikon lens” by gmek111  in which, they says 7 points to check — but 

in fact, it was try to sell their App. —– Think about the “Fake camera lens”

—– on the market, there are thousands of the cheap camera lens though,

I never heard of such as Fake Nikon or Canon lens kind.

[]

In the world, one particular county is notorious for their fake products —– in fact

80% of counterfeits in the world found to be coming from there.  And in there,

such as cooking oil made out of fat from the sewage has been sold and so on, the list

of the scandals were endless.  And their cheap products such as the netphone of

Shaomi sold very well and eating away Samsong’s share. —– Yet still, its  screen

was made by Japan Display, camera sensor was made by Sony etc etc = more than

60% of the component inside were imported from Japan = they can copy the product

using the same components imported from Japan = but they don’t have the

technology to produce those components by themselves.

[]

 

You might have seen a cheaper Memory Card from that country —– half price for

128 GB kind = do you know, only 5 companies in the world having such nano

technology and non in china.  —– So, where those cheap memory came from ?

When those electronic component were produced, there always defective reject

found on the test, which goes to the bin — somebody pick-up those from the dump

and sorting them for such as the one, 90% of memory is still usable —> make a package

and the label then export. The device jump the address of dead memory = still usable.

It may have only 127GB, and due to register dead address and jump = a bit slow for

industrial use though, the amateur on the street wouldn’t notice on their camera.  😀  

—– the reason of defect might be caused by the mis-process and the memory would 

deteriorate further by its heat,  then the photo would be disappeared next by next !

= on the market, you will get what you paid.  There is no such things of good bargain. 

[]

When Contax camera was produced in Japan, their “Carl Zeiss Lens” was said to 

be made by Tomioka-kogaku — though, after the production of Contax camera was 

ended, the rumor said that the Zeiss lens for other DSLR were made by Samyan.

(under license of Zeiss, using their design and microchip — in fact I have one, but

that one says “Made in Japan” and the other rumor says, it was made by Cosina.)

(But I couldn’t find where “Zeiss lens” for Sony camera was produced now.

—- of course, optical part of Sony was former Minolta, they got own production line.

And Minolta was the inventor of the Auto-focus system, = they got top technology.)

[]

To make a fake Rolex watch is easy = it’s a matter of making a copy of its outer case and

put a cheap moving-unit inside. = it shows the time, therefore not much trouble to sell.

Similar situation was such as a fake computer HDD — inside may have just a SD card.   

Though, to make “Convincing, working copy” of the Nikon, Canon lens is very difficult.

Those lenses are as sophisticated as the camera body itself.  In fact, having a Zooming,

auto-focusing drive mechanism, let alone the tricky optical design =

It wouldn’t pay for making counterfeit.    And to defraud the buyer, it doesn’t need to

make a counterfeit —– just show a real photo, then grab the money and disappear.

If the company has such technology and capable production line, the company would

do much more profitable business, instead of taking a risk to commit a police matter.

[]

So, the article in the ebay, “How to spot the fake” is just a scaremongering

only to sell their App.    This article or advertisement itself is the fraud !

I buy small adapter, filter-ring kind, from ebay, but about £2~£7 of cheap products.  

Because, I prepared to lose money = I never trust them.   In fact, I never be successful

with the internet shopping when it was more than £50 price. — Ebay is having useless

“Claim system” — we need to report the transaction-code kind — Type-in — they says

“Code is wrong” — Type again “Code is wrong” repeating for ever.    😦     😀 😀

On the End, sake of security, pay a bit more in the shop would bring more peaceful life.  

Ha ha ha. 

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Soft Effect by Camera Shake

While experimenting the effect of the camera shake, I got the idea to use the old

images on the PC screen as a subject. (Give a shake to a screenshot.)

Shaking photography become an industrial scale —– and it’s much easier to give

a different way of shake in the room = hand-held or a tap on the camera, mounted

on a flimsy shaky tripod. —> It created pretty nice soft blurr. (Photo above )

On the screen, this was the original image taken by Zeiss 85mm F1.4 Lens.

The photo above, the soft effect was made by a free program Picasa. = It’s obvious,  

a mechanical shake gives much more interesting effects. — and a fun !

Though, the screenshot having an inherent trouble to show the grid of the screen.

(If you enlarge this and next image, the grid would be seen.)

If there wasn’t a trouble of the visible grid, this was a rather pretty image.  Pity.

(When right amount of the shake was given, the soft effect dissolve the line of grid. 

Too much shake spoil the image but too little leaves sharpness and the grid too.)

There is a possibility to use the Image Stabilizer for an opposite effect =

make an image blurred !   (Though, it needs to hack-in to the control program

otherwise the lens has to be modified !)

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Camera shake

(This image above was shot by tri-color pinhole and 10 second exposure. )

Among the photographers in the net-sphere,  Karen McRae of “Draw and Shoot” 

must be the master shaker of the camera.   Not only incredibly precise macro

photography, she covers fantastic landscape, some of them were mixed with

subtle camera shake, multiple-exposure, layard images etc.

(I strongly recommend you to visit her site and see them by yourself !)

Her effective use of camera movement for the sake of creative imaging, such

subtle blur of the image, showed not only the movement but also a

flow of the time, depth in our time and space =

even a feeling being in the spiritual infinity.

(I’ve been trying to learn and simulate her movement of the camera,

while calling them “Karenisque Photography” — I succeeded very little. )

(The trace of the light while camera has been shaken = 10 second exposure here)

( While try to copy the movement of her photo, I realised that she must have

exposed the camera even minutes long — with 10s of test shots if not hundreds.)

—– On her photo of ” lingeringlights 1.jpg ” = camera might be held and exposed

even 30 second long.

But, the use camera shake to the everyday objects, = it become clear, not only 

the choice of the subject but also the lighting (weather / cloud) overall darkness

become crucial. —– otherwise, the photo become just a mess.  🙂

Karen’s use of camera movement was very complexed = not only the overall movement,

but also a combination of a follow-shoot (such as to keep aiming to one subject while

moving in a car) the background would be totally blurred  but the aimed subject would

maintain less blurred image. = still, it’s just a technique.  

The matter is the end result. = and she’s been creating utterly puzzling images. =

I couldn’t guess what she did it —– So, I described it a “Magic”.   🙂

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Winter Cherry for New Year

 

First Post for this New Year, I was thinking to put photo of Sunrise or

yet another New Year’s cooking ? —– but I’ve got bored with Sunrise, seen  

from my window,  and the cooking doesn’t necessary to be for the first day.  

( though, I’m not such keen, travel to a beach just to see sunrise. —– Do you 

know some people travel as far as an island in the south Pacific, just next to

 the International Date Line, to see the earliest sunrise in the World ! —– so,

 the Japanese TV goes there as well.    And Air Companies in Japan operating

handful flights to see the first sunrise above the clouds !

Such as this one. — but what a shoddy video. )  

So, I decided to put sweet images of the (That !) Winter Cherry Flowers.

Beautiful soft Bokeh was created by Zeiss Planar 50mm F1.4 T* with and

without Ultra heavy Proxer out of a TV zoom lens.  (In this instance, instead

of 85mm lens like before, I used 50mm lens, because I wanted to have a bit

wider view though, 50mm lens has not as smooth Bokeh like 85mm lens.)

 

 

Those flowers were the other tree standing next — a bit narrower flower petals,

still flowers in the winter = it’s mean, the gardener in charge with those trees

did intentionally planted those Winter Cherry here.

(so, the tree was not a fleak, but the established winter variety.)

(It seems, the best bloom was about a week ago)

Still, it’s a view to make our mouth shut — it’s mean, either you follow

or you were rejected by them.  (Nothing between.  No argument with the Nature.)

___/\___

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Report—Firework ? ? ?

I suppose, everybody blogging on the WordPress platform saw own annual report.

—– m m m, nothing new or surprising though, — ? ? ?   How that firework fired ?

I mean, who selected the day, with what criteria ? —– it was nothing to do with the

day’s access or number of comment received.  

It seems the posts selected were somewhat interesting and slightly funny. Still ? ? ?

[] 

The post on 4th Feb’ about a Pinhole combined with optical lens might be the first

ever attempt on the history. (Notice me if I were wrong.)

Post on 31st March which showed the way how to make electronic circuit to control 

F-aperture in a dismantled junk lens might be a very unique practice.   But a post

on 13th June, about the dried orange peel —– was a funny selection but I like it.

And the Post 8th Sept’ was talking about how the oldest Buddhist Scripture was  

NOT faithfully written down according to the original teachings —– was the very 

important post to me though, I didn’t expect others would share the same view.  

The post 19th Oct’ was showing the photo of the morning sky = taken by the

Tri-color Pinholes = pseudo Turner’s paintings = WordPress liked my joke.  Good ! 

[]

I thought, WP’s Stats were operated purely by automatic counting program, still the 

design of Annual Report seemed to be overseen by a human (who got a wit — but

how many manpower they got to deal with million of Blogs ) —– or

their “Automatic program” got human-like AI now ? !   (It’s horrifying)   😀

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Rimbaud and Zen Mind

There was yet another funny coincidence.   At my friend’s party, I met a designer/

planner who happen to know an artist friend who also run a café called

Small White Elephant, which happen to be in my area.

As she suggested, I paid a visit to the café and met a guy, Dale who run it.

Dale was a painter, we got a common talk in the art. — so, while showing my work

in Youtube and the photos in this blog, I talked about what and who influenced me.

As I mentioned my taste of the Surrealism art and the Symbolist poet Arthur

Rimbaud, Dale jumped up, went to his jacket’s pocket to fetch a small book.

It was a Rimbaud’s Poem, [A season in Hell].

[]

When I use the words “funny coincidence” it’s implying “Karmic encounter” =

no rational connection or likely happening situation still, from the hidden history

or life’s context, the pathway got to cross, of which only the heaven knows it.

And my life is having so many of them.  

If not, I’m not in here, or even this blog didn’t exist. —– looking back, have I ever

chased anybody and met ? (I mean, from a reputation, I sought to meet the person.)

NONE. I am completely passive. (of course, it exclude the case on the business =

like interview and photograph somebody = it was for the editor’s needs,

not necessary my interest)

[]

In my teens, I started to read Osamu Dazai = rather popular choice of  “ a kind of

young people then” and I read all of his work include the letters.

In the same time, I also read the books written by the opposing group of Dazai,

critiques, poets etc.   A critic, Hideo Kobayashi and the friend poets were all

influenced by a French Poet Arthur Rimbaud. —– then, I end up with this Poet.

—– I’ve talked about this story in a post. [My starting point (2) ] (I might be the first person

in the history to connect Rimbaud to the Psychological mechanism of Zen mind.   🙂 )

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—– (Quote of the post)

< What makes reading of Rimbaud Poems somewhat common with Buddhists Pathway

was, that his approach to be a Boyant (Seer / Watcher) in Alchemy of Life was,

to examine the own mind again and again, deeper and deeper, exposing everything

like a dissected dead body = effectively made his own mind (and the life) a completely

detached dried object.  Detachment while having cut-off the Emotion, will lose 

the tag of the SELF, hence creating a state of mind, similar to the Buddhists’ Selflessness.

(This process is very similar to the Hinayana Buddhists practice  = Process of  Self-denial )

And as Rimbaud’s subject, include his own life became a detached object without the 

emotional attachment, it was described as a metaphorical object or the Symbol =

thence his poetry was called Symbolism.  (This detachment was the self-alienation too, so that

Rimbaud called the state of mind before, as a slumber of the animal

—– he missed it with tears, but it was too late) > 

[]

The modern trend of the art then, Symbolism, Surrealism and Dadaism were all try 

to find the way to express “True reality” of the existence or the human mind.

So that, all of them created uniquely formed style, since they thought that to express

straight as perceived, couldn’t show the reality or truth. —– with the idea of Freud,

they thought, since there was something behind of our mind, there couldn’t be the

straight raw expression (so, they tried autonomous writing “Automatism” etc with

futile results.)   What common in those attempt was that they tried to replace the 

subjects with something related or not so related.  =

Symbolism used the objects somewhat related or looks like, as a metaphor.  

Surrealism tried with unexpected one and Dadaism denied any connection. 

[]

Though, there was an inherent trouble departing with raw expression = as it was

a two-step conversion, first, it needed to observe the feeling, then to find a symbol to

replace it = When the original mind, perception was “observed”, its Subject became

an OBJECT = It mean, he is no longer the innocent author. —– Even if it was the

own mind/perception, it was now the separate entity = OBJECT.

(For instance, even a hot love, when it was observed as an OBJECT and written down

like a stage act, down to the every movements of sexual act, it is no longer the love but

the words in the pages of DOCUMENT. =

That was how Rimbaud’s poem “A season in Hell” was created.  And Rimbaud

described it “Je me vois me voir” = I see myself seeing myself.)

In this process, not only the own mind/perception became separate object, but crucially,

the Mind lost the connection to its “Emotion” therefore, the own mind is no longer

connected to the SELF.   His life became a Puppet show remotely played.

(Self couldn’t define the own place without having tethered to the own Emotion !)

(When Alzheimer sufferer lost the connection to the emotional region of the brain,

his/her identity, the recognition of the family also gone.)

[]

Unlike most of the Surrealists, Dadaists who has been a part-timer = “Pretender” for

the sake of their art,  Rimbaud was a full-time Symbolist, he lost the raw feeling of the

“Live-view”, hence the sizzling excitement of the life.  So, he try to sex-up the life, such

as with absinthe, heroin or to play homo-sexuality etc which didn’t bring any solution.

—– on the end, lured by a false excitement, he left to the Abyssinia.

———- (And the other trouble of the Rimbaud’s poems to a reader was, —– as they

were written as narrations, after a while, his words became the reader’s words and

gradually they seeped into the bottom of the subconscious, then “who I am” would be

slowly eroded. = in the end, we will be left in the middle of nowhere alone, without

identity = it would be our Abyssinia.)

[] * * * * * * *

Fundamental difference of Selflessness and the Detachment of Rimbaud against

the Buddhist was, —– to Rimbaud, it was the unexpected by-product.

But to the Buddhist, it was the requisite way to reach peace of life and ultimately

the Enlightenment.    In contrast, Rimbaud wanted to have a true reality of the life

which should enhance the excitement though, to became Voyant (seer / watcher) 

gave him the opposite effect.

—– ? ? ? to give a thought,  ISN’T IT strange, nobody did gave him an advice or after

100.000 years history of human culture, why such wisdom haven’t been established ?

—– then think more, ? ? ? ? ? —– Have we got a wisdom in the first place at all ?

What is the wisdom ?

—– Very basic morality ? Such as that, DON’T do wrong or bad otherwise the society,

and ultimately you will get a repercussion and suffer. —– And the way to see what is

wrong or bad. —– In reality, the burst majority of the practical detail on the

“life’s how to do” is open to the person to experiment on the spot, and find the answer

by themselves. = It’s mean that existing / ready-made “Wisdom” is not more than an

Opinion, since even the people, so-called “Burst majority”, among them, non of two

Karma is the same, and operating strictly individual base.   This was the reason why,

Lord Buddha ordered to his disciples “Don’t believe what others said. Think yourself”=

Simply because, the answer will be different, person to person.

—– (This was originally intended to be the 700th post —– though, it gone to banana.   😀 )

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