It's been an interesting time trying to juggle my work commitments with exhibition preparation and trying to get some down time in as well....

Technorati Tags: B&WPhotography, blackandwhite, events, holga, japan, kichijoji, life, photography, tokyo, travelphotography

Went out to Ikea in Chiba on Friday with Machiko - man, that was a heady experience! The place is M.A.S.S.I.V.E(ly draining)!! Bought a bunch of cool frames and stuff to help with the hanging since mikorins is not really set up to be an exhibition space. Been madly printing invitations and trying to locate decent archival paper and ink which is proving to be a little more difficult than I had first anticipated. This afternoon I'm heading over to Jeremy's, a professional photographer friend, to get some more transparency scans done and to pick his brain about where to get decent paper from in Tokyo and so on. And no doubt hear a lot of stupid Scottish linguistic jokes. (That's a good thing, in case you're wondering)

Anyway, it's all costing way more than I budgeted for but I figure you gotta spend money to make it, and presentation is important when trying to showcase your work. And in my excitement to set a date for the opening, I completely forgot that I am teaching a class on Saturday night, so I won't get to my own opening till 9.30 p.m.! Ha. I'm such a moron sometimes! Anyway, if you are planning to come down on Saturday night for the opening, I'll be there from 9.30. The exhibition will hang for 2.5 weeks so don't worry if you can't make it this weekend, there's a bit of time there.

My Japanese friends have been asking me what my photography theme is for the exhibition, beyond “B&W”, and I've had a hard time trying to answer that. One guy suggested “live a slow life in nature”, but I dunno about that.... anyway, gonna keep pondering that idea and see if I can decide on a common theme. I hadn't really considered doing an artist statement but it seems to be the done thing here and my J-friends are pushing me to come up with something. Bah, it's all so much work! But it's fun and quite a cool learning experience.

In other news, I was digging around in the back end of my site and found a heap of comments that hadn't reached my email inbox and hence hadn't been made live (all fixed now, of course), so I must apologize to commenters who thought I had deleted their comments. I wonder why those emails didn't come through, and I wonder how many other emails I haven't seen - I've been using Gmail since just before Christmas and I'm starting not to trust the service. Too many emails going astray - and actually, some going missing after they've been read once. If anyone has emailed me and I haven't replied and they think it's odd, please re-send your email because there is a chance I haven't seen it... Sorry! Why have I been having so many recurring issues with email? Grrrrrrr.

Hope to see you all at the exhibition: a reminder, from this Saturday - Feb 10th, to Feb 28th, at mikorins (little nomiya/bar) in Kichijoji - 1-25-2 Kichijoji-Honcho, Musashino-shi, Tokyo 180-0004. Open 6 pm - 12 pm, closed Thursdays.