Jack of all trades…

So you’re planning to buy a second-hand Hasselblad in Tokyo? I will tell you my experience that you might find useful. I recently bought a Hasselblad 503cx with an A-12 back and a Zeiss 80mm/2.8 lens (the so called “basic kit”).
My hunt for a ‘Blad started a month ago after I had used one several [...]

Since today, Tomy is selling in Japan it’s XIAO digital camera that features an embedded Zink ink printer for producing instant photos. The concept is similar to the Fuji Instax Mini instant cameras (which themselves derived more or less directly from Polaroid insant film) with the huge difference that the Xiao (which means “small” in [...]

I don’t try to be an eco-hero but to test on myself if it is possible to severely minimize the use of certain disposable products. I live in Tokyo, a city which has a lot of eco-friendly habits but also some very nasty ones regarding the use of disposable materials like: chopsticks, plastic beverage bottles [...]

When I was first proposed to do a photoshoot of a Hula Hula performer I was a bit skeptical. But after I met Deanne from Tokyo’s Hooplovers my idea of what Hula Hula means changed and it was a lot of fun actually. Deanne dances with 3 rings with colored LEDs that make mind-blogging effects [...]

I love stationary in all its forms, specially portable stuff, and I have recently got a notebook that could be renamed “the notebook of notebooks”.  It is produced by Powershovel, which I have learned to love through their great toy cameras like the Blackbird, fly, Ikimono and Golden Half (all under the Superheadz brand), but [...]

Tokyo is a big city. Tokyo is full of huge malls. Tokyo has plenty of small shops. I love the latter. I like to discover them and get lost amongst crazy and original products.
During my sabbatical, I’m dedicating a lot of time to one of my passions: photography. I’m a gadget geek too, so I [...]

I get this question very often, and that is: which guidebooks do I use during my sabbatical in Japan? (I also get a lot of inquiries about the online resources, but I’ll talk about that in a future post).
I have so far used several books, but the main ones are:

Lonely Planet Japan (ed. October 2007)

Time [...]

As I posted before (read here and here), I keep finding abandoned photos around Japan. Well, I must confess that each time I go to a shop where they have those self-printing machines I look around to see if someone has lost, forgotten or just abandoned a photo. This last time I found a pack [...]

Modern warfare was definitely changed in August 6th 1945, at about 8.15am local time. The Enola Gay B-52 bomber dropped the “little boy” on Hiroshima. The city was destroyed. A new era had begun.
It is difficult to see modern Japanese people, a peaceful society, as one of the instigators and fighting parties during WW2, though [...]

I was about to publish a serious post on Hiroshima’s A-bomb dome and have a draft guide on Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish market since the beginning of the month, but tonight’s dinner has changed my mood for good so I’ll post about it.
I arrived to Hiroshima today, after a short Shinkansen trip from Osaka. It was [...]