Graffiti ? in Deptford

I don’t know how to call them Graffiti or Painting.

Anyhow, what-so-ever, They are there as they are.

 

I remember that about 10 years ago, I met artists who got their studio in

the pink building. — They were doing a kind of “community art program”

to paint big garbage bin in the town to black and white “cow like pattern”

= Making the city looks more pastoral and natural !  

—— What an utterly fantastic marvellous idea ! ! !  (I lost a word then. 😀 )

===== Guessing from the pink wall, they seems still there.

(Mind you, I’m writing this without any cynical connotation at all.)   

[]  

Zeiss – 18mm Lens for Nikon

I saw this lens at Camera Cafe —– The test shot in the Cafe showed me

pretty impressive quality. Virtually no Distortion or Chromatic aberration.  

And this lens got the Number 1580xxxx,  the number of my fate. => So,

I decided to buy.  —– Lens itself is well known Distagon 18 mm F3.5 yet

this is for Nikon DSLR = FZ.2 type which has a Microchip built in and works

same as Nikon’s own lens, except auto-focus (still gives Focus-confirmation).

(Lens was designed by Zeiss but actuary made by  Coshina in Japan. ) 

From Camera Cafe, I took the direction south, on foot while shooting

time to time.— I felt the camera (Nikon D810) was working a bit funny.

= taking much longer to show the image though, I didn’t investigate it

on the spot. —– But after I checked the image on the PC, I realized that

D800 had been malfunctioning = gave all the exposure in HDR mode.  

And the photo above was the most severely mal-processed one.  (straight

from CF card)  And the photo below is the normal one. (though, clopped).

For HDR mode, three images in different exposures has to be integrated

= position has to match exactly —– though, the wrong one showed an utter

dislocation of the image and the color has been red-shifted. 

Richard of Camera Cafe explained that the So-called lens-mount adapter

with “Focus Confirmation type = microchip built in” often cause the

camera to malfunction. —– Though, it is too early for me to decide the

cause of this trouble.

(Whether the trouble could be repeated ? — in what condition etc etc. )

South of British Museum = Covent Garden area has many Dance / Ballet shops.  

Royal Opera/ Royal Ballet and the Drury Lane Theatre (which used to

perform “Cats” are there = Mecca of Dance.

And further walk down south => we get to the Waterloo Bridge.  

And the South-bank = Art centre is over the bridge.

It’s a funny installation though, as it was outside of Hayward Gallery,

it must be an art. —– is it ?  —– You got to be serious !    🙂  

—– So, optically superb.  Electronically —– not sure.   

I need to test this 18mm lens further. 

[]

Camera Cafe

They says it’s only one Camera Cafe in the world — may be, but I don’t care.

On the Photo above, end of street is British Museum (This is Museum Street).

Past decade or two, we are seeing less and less camera shops.  Small camera

shop disappeared because of big discount shop such as Jessops.  

And Jessops disappeared because of the internet shopping.

But before, local camera shop was a kind of talking shop and to the regular

faces, shop offering a cup of coffee or two. = So, to have a chat while having

a drink in a camera shop was not unusual sight at all. But digitals changed all.

Unlike a film photography, digital camera gives the result on the spot and

any short-coming become visible at once = anybody can see what’s wrong

and what to do. (if not, try other button = no need to learn, just press it !)

I know Camera Cafe many years —– they even organized a fund-rising

campaign to help Tsunami victims in Japan (gosh, 3 years ago !) = So,

it is a kind of node in the society and a salon to the photographers.  

And as a second-hand camera shop, they got quite a collection of

Zeiss lenses both for Hasselblad and Contax, on top of more familiar

Nikon and Canon. (as far as I’ve looked around, they are cheaper —–

such as Nikon F4 body, they offered for £250 —– only a while ago, I saw

it £350 at Nicolas of Camden = hence I nearly bought it but I got 150mm

lens for Hasselblad in stead (which I sold same one 25 years ago) (I can

test and use the lens on my current 5D Mk3 but to test Nikon F4, I need

to set up a dark-room to deal with B/W film again = a bit too much   :-))

The technical staff, Richard (photo Left) was a film maker before and

having immense depth of knowledge over lenses and the cameras.  

Very nice man to chat with.  🙂  —– and they got an exhibition space as

well (see the details on their website). 

Looking back the shopping list I did in there (such as Nikon’s 35 mm

PC lens,  Olympus 80 mm Life-size Macro etc etc.) —– I realized, that

I’ve been buying a kind of the item rather unusual = hard to sell

—– it’s mean, I’ve been a good customer to them.  😀

(But in the same time shop is keeping it’s own Reson de etre !)

They are open till 7:00 evening —– the best of the things there IS

they don’t have the restless tourist like customers.  😀

[]

Does Meditation helps ?

There was an interesting report which studied the benefit of Meditation.

After a medical report about the effect of Meditation was published in JAMA

Internal Medicine, numerous articles which quotes this report has been

published. = This is the one of them (Wall Street Journal)

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304887104579304691799314468

Meditation Has Limited Benefits,

Study Finds

Mindfulness meditation can ease stress but

won’t curb problems like being overweight

Certain types of meditation may provide some modest relief from anxiety,

depression and pain, a new study found.

But the study found little evidence for other reported benefits of meditation,

including help in curbing substance abuse, poor eating habits,

sleep disorders and weight problems.

The report, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine,

reviewed the findings from 47 previous studies, all randomized clinical

trials, with 3,515 adult participants in total.

Many people use meditation to ease stress and promote general health.

The purpose of the report was to examine the accumulated evidence to help

doctors determine how best to counsel patients on the possible benefits and

limitations of meditation, said Madhav Goyal, assistant professor of

general internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore

and the report’s lead researcher.

In each of the underlying studies, participants received professional

instruction in one of two types of meditation: mantra meditation or

mindfulness meditation. A popular form of mantra meditation is

transcendental meditation, which involves repetition of a phrase

“in such a way that it transcends one to an effortless state where focused

attention is absent,” the study said.

By contrast, mindfulness meditation emphasizes training in “present-focused

awareness,” or mindfulness. The study noted that the distinctions between

the meditation types aren’t always clear.

Researchers found that only mindfulness meditation produced some benefits.

For example, the improvement in patients with mild symptoms of depression

was similar in magnitude to what might be expected from the use of

an antidepressant, the study said.     It also noted that there were few

mantra-meditation studies to include in the JAMA review, which could help

account for the lack of evidence of benefits from this type of meditation.

The study didn’t find any evidence meditation was harmful.

Researchers culled through nearly 19,000 previous studies on meditation to

select the most scientific. Dr. Goyal said his team used rigorous inclusion

criteria. Each of the 47 included studies was a controlled trial in which

at least one group received either a therapy with known psychological

benefits, such as exercise, or a placebo instructional or educational session,

he said. Studies that looked only at children or adolescents, or those without

a control group, were excluded.

“Although uncontrolled studies have usually found a benefit of meditation,

very few controlled studies have found a similar benefit for the effects of

meditation programs on health-related behaviors affected by stress,”

the JAMA report said.

The report’s findings show that meditation is perhaps less effective in

alleviating stress-related symptoms than is widely believed, said

Allan H. Goroll, professor of medicine at

Harvard Medical School-Massachusetts General Hospital, in invited

commentary also published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

“The studies overall failed to show much benefit from meditation with

regard to relief of suffering or improvement in overall health, with the

important exception that mindfulness meditation provided a small but

possibly meaningful degree of relief from psychological distress,” he wrote.

Still, Dr. Goroll noted that participants only received 30 to 40 hours of

training in meditation, which could indicate that “meditation is a skill that

takes time to master.” He also said more evidence is needed to draw

more robust conclusions about any benefits to meditation.

“People come to a meditation class because they’re suffering in some way,”

said Jon Aaron, an instructor at New York Insight Meditation Center, which

promotes mindfulness meditation. Through meditation, they learn to relate

to their stress in a way that is more productive, he said.

Lindsay Gellman

[]

Something took my attention was that the way the other articles were

created while quoting the original JAMA report.

= Despite the original JAMA report gave only limited “prose” to “Mindfulness

Meditation” and found no positive effect in “Mantra Meditation” a lots of

subsequent article has been using this report as if it was the positive proof of

the effect in Meditation. <= this was a fraud !

See the real situation by Googling this = type [ JAMA report, meditation ]

—– This fact highlighting a situation = simply, people doesn’t actuary read

the line in detail but easily deflected by a misleading head-line = and this

tendency was exploited by those organisation who is making money

selling the Meditation practice.

[]

In reality, it is same as any religion, Meditation may work, may not work.

= It depends on the person’s Karma. (Everybody got own different Karma.)

And even worse, the effect of Meditation depends much more on a person’s

mentality. —– A person who got addiction, dependency, depression kind of

mental problem, it needs long term treatment = not few months medical trial.

Naturally, if anybody who is possessing a strong will and able to keep a strict

regime, the person wouldn’t get a trouble in the first place.

It’s mean, in case of opposite tendency, neither Meditation which is not a

Magic Bullet works.

[]

So, here is a funny but fundamental question. = Buddhism / Zen is

stands on the Selflessness, not a strong will or mind, because mind itself

shouldn’t be existing there. — But, “Strong will” wasn’t it a part of the Self ? 

Well, this is the most fundamental question = I’ll write about in another post.

___/\___

[]

Cooking KINTON in easiest way !

Kinton, in here Kuri-Kinton is a kind of cooking especially aiming

to a New-year’s celebration in Japan.  —– it is in fact a kind of Anko,

made out of white bean and some time it got sweet chest-nuts too.

Though, to cook Adzuki-bean and make Anko is a long laborious work

= use any bean, the work is more or less the same though, there is

always an escape —– if you can sacrifice some authenticity.

—– And this time I’ve took an easiest way which was non of the

corner left intact.  = (in other words, everything was cheated = Still,

end-result wasn’t too bad.  :-D)

It’s a long work to cook dry bean soft from scratch —— If so,

why not utilize the most popular readily cooked bean.  😀

I separated a tin of baked bean from its source (Left Photo) and

rinsed them to reduce the saltiness and boiled them with sugar.  

( Though, as it was a Baked bean with Tomato source, the residue

of red colour was a bit too much, I added a baked potato to

whiten it.) ( Centre Photo   🙂 )

[] 

And after cooking, I got the idea to add Sweet-horse-chest-nut to

elaborate it to Kuri-Kinton. (But it took few days to find a pack of sweet

“Ferrero Rocher” —– as, I thought it was a Marron Grasse =

Sweet-horse-chest-nuts cooked in sugar.  But it was an utterly ignorant

mistake = it turned out to be just another Chocolate. (Right Photo)  😀    

I think I ate Marron Grasse 30 years ago which was lapped in Gold, like

Ferrero Rocher.  😀   Anyhow, as I don’t buy or eat sweets, I didn’t know.

—– So, I needed to go to a Japanese Shop to buy Amaguri (ready to eat

sweet Sweet-horse-chest-nuts to mix with Kinton.  🙂 ) 

—– So, at last, here the typical New-year’s cooking Kuri-Kinton.   🙂

It’s color a bit darker still it looks like genuine Kuri-Kinton, and taste

really like Kuri-Kinton = I don’t think there could be any doubt.

Far from it, I’m sure we can enjoy this.  —– Yet, some one might

say, it’s not genuine though, such complaint is only in the mind.

[]

Dedicates one’s whole life to make the best Kinton, while seeking the

best possible genuine beans etc etc IS a kind of the LIFE. —– Wearing

silly mask and costume to dance for a Carnival or Halloween can be

yet another LIFE = neither LIFE could be seen to be better or anything

closer to the Enlightenment.   BUT, at least, arguing like this is definitely

the waste of the time.  Zen only say, if you got to do, do the best.  (I mean,

it include good cheat as well. —– for a sake of good cooking.   😀 ) 

___/\___

[]

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 !

[]

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.

___/\___

[]

Facebook Bug

What I supposed to download was a map showing the different cooking

styles of O-Zouni (celebrative cooking for  new-year) all over  in Japan.

In stead, what I got was a hacked-in fraud from Facebook. —– on the face

it looks like a notice from Google Chrome though, in fact it was a disguised

mail which tricks us to give Email address and its Password to Facebook

= as the sender’s ID was shown on the top-left corner.    

—– In order to deceive, it is showing the big G-Chrome Logo but their

“Facebook Logo” was not shown. (my be excusing with “Technical hitch”)  

And saying “You’re using a web browser that isn’t supported by Facebook”

while showing Net-Explorer, Mozilla-Firefox etc etc —– despite I’m using

latest Firefox. = it was just a sheer pretext to steal Password. (Anyhow, as

I don’t use SNS, neither need to have Facebook convenient Browser.  🙂 )

[]

Why they have to take like this desperate measure. = Now hundreds of

thousands of people leaving Facebook everyday.  It is an out-of-dated

old fashioned SNS, and only old users (30~40s) are still keep using it.

(Young and more active user has moved to LINE or SNAPCHAT etc.)

= So, they are desperate to fill-up the lost numbers and hack-into

the address book to trick the friends to join —– by sending false mails

which says “Yoshi is asking you to join Facebook”  😀 😀

How Pathetic. —– I’ve been wondering why people need to have such

kind of FALSE feeling of being ” CONNECTED” = now everybody

knows that such superficial number of “So-called FRIENDS” or

number of LIKE is nothing to do with “Real Human Relation”.

Nobody feel confident with the empty person who couldn’t even

stand alone but seek numbers in So-called Friends or Followers.  

————–

PS ;      The further trouble I discovered about the aforesaid

Facebook Bug was, —— it was very difficult to delete that file,

as I didn’t obey and sign-up for them to finish their task. 

So that, I needed to find the file and delete it. ==> But, later

I discovered that the Facebook Hacker left a virus in my PC

which blocks the function of “Copy and Paste”.   So, when I try

to Copy and Paste = what appeared on the screen was not what

I copied but the logo of G-Chrome and the Hyperlink.

Hyperlink to go back to the same Facebook page.

= which is harassing us to give-up and sign-up to them ! 

—– Can you believe, this is what Facebook is actually doing.

Are they such desperate in this extent ? 

[]  

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.

[] 

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.

[]

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.

[]

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.

[]

Thank you  Shing Lee for your contribution !

[]

[]

Kan-zakura = Winter-cherry

Cherry blossom in this time of year ? —– you might say.  

But this is not fake or old photo.  This is real though —— 

In reality, actual looks of the cherry is far from Photogenic isn’t it.

= Whitish cherry flower has to stand out under the deep blue sky.

When the flower was under the bright sun-light, the pupil of

our eyes close, hence the sky behind became looks darker.

(It is the same situation of the bright snow-scape, sun and the sky is 

the same though, if the foreground is bright, the sky looks darker)

But when bright sun-light is not available —– why not make one.  😀

So, this is a photography,  completely opposite of the previous post

[What’s there ?] and the recent post such as [Fort’Mason’s —] where

I talked about “What is real or looked as it is” —– instead, here I tried

to create or falsify “Ideal image” with intentional manipulation.   🙂

So, I used a flash-light to brighten-up the flowers = F-aperture was

set for correct exposure for the flowers,  but the shutter speed was

set to make under-exposure for the sky. (make it looks darker)

Took advantage of flash-light,  I took the same flower’s photo

with Double-Density Pinhole.

Pinhole photography sound natural though, in reality, as it needs to give

rather long exposure, it is not necessary good for flower photography.  

( with wind, they move too much.  😀 )  

Use flush-light would be one of the answer. = So, this is an artificial 

creation of an artificial silk flower by Double-Density Pinhole photography

which satisfy my stereotypical idea of “What fluffy flowers should be” 🙂

[]

What’s there ?

Here the question is ” Is there or not there”  ” What’s there” in

a photo or behind the photography.

This is an obvious subject,  nobody would give any argument

what it is.   And even without photograph, it still exists = photo is

mere secondly image of the existence.  Photo didn’t make it exists.

This image has no significance = It’s just there, like a subject.

But you may puzzle what this is ?  

What photographed here is the whole possession of a homeless person.  

Still some would say “So, what” —– OR others may see the meaning in

social issue or even philosophical aspects “What’s the human existence”

yet, visually they are just a lots of plastic bags on a bicycle. Nothing else.

More than that is all in your mind.

It’s all depends on, whether you make a mountain out of this heap.

Some might be good deep insights otherwise just the delusions.

Before one photographic image,  we have to see what a person

who is photographing has seen or conceived,  let alone aimed.

But who can see it clear —– and, who knows how real what we’ve seen.   

What I’m seeing might be there —– is it ?  Where ? Here or there or behind. 

We may not able to define what we are seeing unless we intentionally

impose a preconception, what I want to see, and reconstruct

the image OR story.

And it depend what we can see or what we know. —– or believe to know.

And if we know, —– can we be any wiser ?   Really ? ? ?

Is there any use,  if I told you what it was ?

In reality, we may not seeing any, let alone knowing, are they

really there.  So, this is the real situation, and how and what they are.

(If you want to see the VOIDNESS in much more symbolic

elaborated image, it is your pretence and the arrogance !)

—– truth might be just empty space.

= Don’t struggle.  Let it be and see just as it is.  Don’t make-up the order.

(F&M’s Cherubs were in a mess of reflection = that was how they were.  :-D)

By nature, as it is empty from the beginning, see as it is, be with it, is Ichijo.

Be with emptiness mean the mind is not there = Mushin.

Don’t impose own order mean = no complaint. What’s wrong with it ?  😀

—– So, it’s nice to be in PEACE.

___/\___

[]