Saturday, December 12, 2009

Inveterate Recorders


Looking at the border of many of the blogs on Japan, one cannot help but notice it: many who write on Japan tend to also try to capture its physical image. There seems to be a strong correlation between blogging and photography, as if the two activities are of a kind. Both seek to record a moment as it "really" (and yes, the quotation marks are necessary here) happened, frame it in an own idiosyncratic way, heighten the details, label the result and then set it out where all the world can see.

Some notable examples of the tendency:

- Writing from the point of view of a technologist and a lover of finely engineered things (and well-lit food) is Janne Morén of Janne in Osaka. His paired Flickr site is
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/.

- Vincent of Achikochi shares the full range of his life between Yokohama and Holland Belgium at http://www.flickr.com/photos/14591708@N00/.

- Gen Kanai of the eponymous
Gen Kanai blog
and
Mozilla in Asia provides visual documentation of the life of the peripatetic internet proselytizer at http://www.flickr.com/photos/gen/.

Someone at Mutantfrog Travelogue maintains the Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/. Perhaps all of the co-authors share their images.

- Phaedrus/CJW of the luminous Climbing and Hiking in Japan provides more jaw-dropping imagery of Japan's peaks, cliffs and alpine bowls at http://www.flickr.com/photos/phaedrusredux/.

- Simply beyond category is D of Japan Without the Sugar.
whose smashing photo blog http://kanagawaphoto.blogspot.com/ and Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/7280851@N08/ fill me with despair and awe.

Worthy of dishonorable mention is the current reigning court jester Our Man In Abiko who offers a typically bent vision of this blessed land at .
his You Tube channel
.

The exception to the rule seems to be Tobias Harris of Observing Japan.

Then again, that Mr. Harris is not fiddling about with cameras is perhaps the reason for his heretofore amazing prolixity.

Photo image: Mass model shoot at the beach in Hota, Chiba Prefecture on July 19, 2009. Image credit: MTC.

5 comments:

Our Man in Abiko said...

Who you calling bent? But seriously, Our Man is dishonourably discharged to be included on this list. Merry Giftmas to you.

vincent said...

Oh, my traffic increased suddenly. From 2 to... an awful lot. One small correction however, in my case it is not between Japan and Holland but Japan and Belgium. You know how sensitive things can be between neighboring countries. Nothing personal against Holland, of course...

Jan Moren said...

And let's not forget MTC himself, who on occasion has been known to showcase Japanese natural scenery. For an appropriate value of "natural" of course, as the top image shows.

D said...

"And lets not forget MTC himself"

...who also has a Flickr account with many fine photos..

Roy Berman said...

"Someone at Mutantfrog Travelogue maintains the Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/mutantfrog/. Perhaps all of the co-authors share their images."

That's my Flicker feed. I was using "Mutantfrog" as an online handle before starting the blog, which was briefly an uninteresting solo thing before other people joined.