Post Title: Exhibition Party Week


Excerpt: 126/365: Nov 17 2008. Such a gorgeous day! Autumn days here can be startlingly magnificent - clear, crisp blue skies and warm sunshine. Every house has their washing and futons hanging outside. 127/365: Nov 18 2008. Busy teaching day. I usually try to walk into Kichijoji through the park for my morning classes, so I can catch the gorgeous light thrown on the trees by the waters reflections. Magical. 128/365: Nov 19 2008. I met up with Guy Perryman, local radio celeb and all-round nice fella. He did an interview with me for his online radio show, That Guy...

November 29, 2008 8:11 PM | Exhibition Party Week | Comments (0)

Post Title: A smutty scrabble champion and so much more....


Excerpt: 119/365: Nov 10 2008. This was a particularly reflective week. Spend a lot of time wandering around the park, taking photos and being alone (in amongst as little-as-possible event planning, English teaching and photography work). Today I made the trek into Ebisu to visit my "manniaku hair-make" hairdresser, Misaki. Seriously the grey thing is just getting out of hand and I'm running out of the energy required to dye your hair every 5 weeks. One day soon I'm just gonna let it go and bust out the grey in all its glory. 120/365: Nov 11 2008. I LOVE these...

November 29, 2008 6:11 PM | A smutty scrabble champion and so much more.... | Comments (1)

Post Title: The week of Yes We Can!


Excerpt: 112/365: Nov 3 2008. Deanne and Masao, the awesome duo who run Tokyomade, have been putting on a quarterly art market, Fragment for the past year. It's been steadily growing and today's event was held at the far more spacious venue Super Deluxe, in Roppongi. It typically features arts and crafts stalls, live painting and DJ's. Always an inspirational hoot and well worth your support. 113/365: Nov 4 2008. Eizo Biz Nite. Event days are always a stressy scramble and I never remember to pick up my camera till well on my way home. This is the lovely little...

November 29, 2008 5:42 PM | The week of Yes We Can! | Comments (0)

Post Title: A bit of this, a bit of that.


Excerpt: 105/365: Oct 27. I often find myself in the local co-op on Mondays. It's a very Japanese grocery store, they stock truckloads of weird little things I've never seen anywhere else. I will miss their tofu section - look at it would you! 4 shelves of it, with 20 different variations! 106/365: Oct 28. I woke up in the Odawara Fuji-Xerox training centre, in a business hotel-like room. Spent the day pretending to be a foreign Fuji-Xerox staff member on a bunch of international communication exercises. Got paid quite well. Then we got to take the romance car back...

November 29, 2008 5:00 PM | A bit of this, a bit of that. | Comments (2)

Post Title: And we reach 100 days in the 365 project...


Excerpt: 99/365: Oct 21. Today was an event day: Hawaiian Flavor Biz Nite. With 0% Hawaiian content. Damn. Cho hazakashi dayo! But it was a nice night with 150 people. This old fella came along as part of a Mah Jong display group, he's also a photographer and when I showed him this picture after I snapped it, he let out a loud laugh and thumped me on the arm real hard. I'm not sure why. He was very cool. 100/365: Oct 22. As a special 100th-day-of-the-365 project marker, I'm going to show 2 pics from today because it was...

November 1, 2008 6:17 PM | And we reach 100 days in the 365 project... | Comments (1)

Post Title: Do it for the joy it brings.


Excerpt: 92/265: Oct 13. Spent the day with Christian and Yuiko, walking at Takao Mountain. Christian made us take the chairlift which I had always studiously avoided in years gone by, but I'm happy to say it was nowhere near as scary as I had heard or imagined. Yuiko and I caught the lift up together and we giggled and wailed in fear when it started getting really high but after a bit we started taking pictures of our feet hanging over the trees and enjoying the views. Once we got up the top we wandered around with the masses...

November 1, 2008 6:03 PM | Do it for the joy it brings. | Comments (2)

Post Title: Meltdown and recovery...


Excerpt: 84/365: Oct 5. Spent the day in the office in Shibuya working on the Japan-i Project that Tiger is working on. We were in the final planning stages of a new free monthly Japan-travel English newspaper for tourists, with the deadline Monday 6th. Incredibly stressful work that I got talked into against my better judgement. Took this picture as I left the office that evening, stressed, uptight and exhausted. Had not much more than 5 hours of sleep a night for a few days now, and almost no chance to exercise either. Working way too hard. 85/365: Oct 6....

October 12, 2008 7:17 PM | Meltdown and recovery... | Comments (8)

Post Title: Perambulations is a delightful word, don't you think?


Excerpt: 78/365: Sept 29. This is where my office is. Well, actually, it's kinda around the corner. Love Hotel Hill, Dogenzaka. 79/365: Sept 30. A pretty cool day. I had been working for weeks on an event close to my heart: Photo Nite. It was all pretty frenetic, the day full of the usual stress and running around involved when you have an event on. It was a great night, around 170 people turned out despite pouring rain and everyone seemed to have a fun time. Earlier in the day I successfully jammed my hand in the train doors of...

October 5, 2008 1:23 AM | Perambulations is a delightful word, don't you think? | Comments (2)

Post Title: Chasing dragonflies


Excerpt:

His J-family really wanted a real wedding ceremony here in Tokyo so they went all out and Jane got all dolled up in a traditional kimono and wig and head scarfy thing and we all took taxi's out to a shrine where their union was blessed by the Buddhist priests.... Anyway, I've been stupidly busy so haven't actually gotten around to editing them yet (just this little rush job here for the 365 project) - that's the next task this evening, hope to be finished them in a few days - will share some results on my photography blog...


October 5, 2008 12:29 AM | Chasing dragonflies | Comments (1)

Post Title: End of summer


Excerpt: My week in pictures.

September 22, 2008 2:00 AM | End of summer | Comments (4)

Post Title: 9 days and we're all up to date now.


Excerpt:

Had high hopes that some famous photo agency rep would sweep me off my feet and offer me a lucrative photo job that night but alas, I was sorely disappointed and ended up wading in the fountain with Tracey, Helen and Kirsten.... They stand waiting at the station, run on with their stools and bags of posters and race down the train carriage swapping the train ad posters then jump off at the next station and do it again on the next train....


September 14, 2008 3:25 PM | 9 days and we're all up to date now. | Comments (5)

Post Title: Warships, rain and wedding.


Excerpt: 48/365: Aug 27 2008. Tiger Music partnered the UK Embassy on a big social cocktail party on the UK Warship HMS Kent. Today we had to attend a planning meeting on ship, the day before the event, to finalise the logistics with the ships crew. Surreal doesn't begin to explain it. Sailors in uniforms of all sorts walking around with semi-automatic machine guns hanging from their shoulders. Well, not all of them had guns. But there were enough there to make me feel mighty ew. 49/365: Aug 28 2008. After we finished packing up the event (it poured torrentially...

September 13, 2008 11:52 PM | Warships, rain and wedding. | Comments (1)

Post Title: A week of dreams.


Excerpt: 41/365: Aug 20 2008. Work started on the house behind us today. DEM0-LITION baby. Horrid sounds. Stay tuned for the shot of the vacant land. 42/365: Aug 21 2008. I like this corner of my neighbourhood. A vacant block of land is overgrown with lovely thick grass and sunflowers. 43/365: Aug 22 2008. I met Christian near Yoyogi Koen to partake in some outdoor kombeni beers since I had about 3 coins to rub together and couldn't afford anything more than 210 yen beers. We drank our beers, reassured ourselves that that was definitely an earthquake then got so...

September 13, 2008 11:19 PM | A week of dreams. | Comments (0)

Post Title: Summer fragments


Excerpt: We had 10 presentations including a magic show by David John, a fabulously fun hoop display from the delightful Deanne, as well as some serious presentations from greats like advertising legend Graham Thomas and film maker David Chester, and a great presentation from the Peace Boat to name but half.......

August 20, 2008 1:51 AM | Summer fragments | Comments (2)

Post Title: Some fresh air


Excerpt: 34/365: Aug 8, 2008. While the rest of the rest of the world geared up for the Olympics (or so I'm told), I spent a quiet day working. This picture was taken in a lane near the Tiger Office, in Shibuya's fabulously tacky and exciting Love Hotel Hill district. These girls put their pic's up with phone number and meet up with their clients in a local bar or coffee shop for a date before heading off to ..well, you know. Prostitution is rampant, and even school girls routinely suck/wank cocks so they can buy the latest [insert current...

August 13, 2008 7:32 PM | Some fresh air | Comments (2)

Post Title: It's 35 degrees and I just ate a frozen mango over the kitchen sink.


Excerpt:

Last time she came, she brought her violin down to the park and played wild gypsy songs at midnight for Kat, Darin, Tyler and me as we drank beer and let out souls soar as it should when listening to live wild gypsy songs in a park at midnight.... As part of a concerted mental health push, I spent the day chilling round the local 'hood in Kichijoji with Kat and Jake - lunching, drinking coffee, shopping and hanging out in the park.


August 8, 2008 4:58 PM | It's 35 degrees and I just ate a frozen mango over the kitchen sink. | Comments (5)

Post Title: The past week in pics...


Excerpt:

After dinner, we moseyed on down to the 300 yen bar and met with Dr Dave, Frederik (moving to Singapore to live the same day as Sandi & Jeff leave) and Nordine (who had tried to straight perm his hair that day with disastrous consequences and was forced to wear a black kit cap, turning him into a dodgy stevedore) and pretended we were in a seedy underground Parisienne basement bar rather than a seedy Tokyo bar, as the Frenchmen at our table bantered in French, English and Japanese.... I was left by myself on the platform at Yokohama to head far far north after the final final final last night sayonara dinner for Sandi, Jeff, Max and Dexter in Yokohama .


August 2, 2008 12:35 AM | The past week in pics... | Comments (2)

Post Title: 22/365: July 27 2008


Excerpt:

But it is nice to have a kind of regular journal thing going, so I'm going to make a serious effort to keep up with it. I'm looking forward to day 365 and being able to look back on the year that passed.


July 27, 2008 9:15 PM | 22/365: July 27 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 21/365: July 26 2008


Excerpt:

Awesome band, Golden, playing at Club Lizard in Motomachi Chukagai (Yokohama Chinatown) for Sandi & Jeff's official sayonara party (organised by Mackey Ramone and the Buzz Buzz gang).... I crawled into Jeff & Sandi's bed to pass out in peace at about 3 am (the house party went all night) and woke up the next morning to find Sandi on one side and a little Japanese girl I'd never seen before curled up next to my feet - I had to do a triple take to make sure it wasn't Jeff wearing a dress...


July 27, 2008 9:15 PM | 21/365: July 26 2008 | Comments (1)

Post Title: 20/365: July 25 2008


Excerpt:

Yet another stupid drunk shot of me and Christian.... This night we had some lively company who kept the beers coming at a steady pace but their photos are a little trashy so I shan't share them here.


July 27, 2008 8:57 PM | 20/365: July 25 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 19/365: July 24 2008


Excerpt:

This little matsuri (festival) is a very small, local affair, with a small stage for the taiko drums and dancers to do their thang. Some of the more popular dances saw spontaneous rings of people dancing in a circle around the outside of the stage.


July 27, 2008 8:50 PM | 19/365: July 24 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 18/365: July 23 2008


Excerpt:

Burlesque dance star Cherry Typhoon plays up for the audience at the July Dr Sketchy's Anti Art School life-drawing party.... She performs regularly around town, do yourself a favour and check out one of her shows: she's a doll with a great sense of humour and a fabulous dance style - she shimmies like nobody's business!


July 24, 2008 2:43 PM | 18/365: July 23 2008 | Comments (2)

Post Title: 17/365: July 22 2008


Excerpt:

It's summer holidays and there are kids everywhere. I took this while walking in to to Kichijoji to teach a class.


July 24, 2008 2:31 PM | 17/365: July 22 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 16/365: July 21 2008


Excerpt:

Jeff drove us from the park to the Blue Corn so we could continue the party, dropped us off then took the kids home.... In this pic (taken by the german, Kevin, in the car en route to Blue Corn) clockwise from top left: Max, Sandi, Helen, Cynthia, me, Felicity.


July 24, 2008 2:31 PM | 16/365: July 21 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 15/36: July 20 2008


Excerpt:

Felicity and I went into softbank in Shibuya to check out the iphone - this is what it looks like when it has cool websites displaying....


July 24, 2008 2:23 PM | 15/36: July 20 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 14/365: July 19 2008


Excerpt:

Anyway, Felicity's parents were among my parents oldest and best friends - and the night her parents got engaged, wayyyy back in - oh, I'd guess around 1966 or so, they came back to my parents apartment in Brisbane (where they had been staying) and jumped around excitedly on their bed as mum & dad cracked open the bottle of champagne they had readied earlier....... I haven't seen Felicity since we were kids - there are cute photos of her and her 2 brothers and me and my brother all squished into a bath as littlie's.


July 24, 2008 2:22 PM | 14/365: July 19 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 13/365: July 18 2008


Excerpt:

Kazuki & DJ James working at the Tiger office in Shibuya.


July 24, 2008 2:10 PM | 13/365: July 18 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 12/365: July 17 2008


Excerpt:

this photo was taken as Jeff was chanting "I will make this happen" after being unable to get the desk functioning properly during Mikio's set. I shot through the first set then had to leave for a meeting in Shibuya - as I left things got decidedly worse for poor Jeff when he realised the hard disk was full of someone else's music.... Andrea & Beck leave tomorrow and an old family friend, Felicity Jenkins is coming to stay for the weekend - we haven't see each other since we were kids but our parents were best friends right up till the end, and they attended both their funerals as well as Decembers ashes ceremony.


July 18, 2008 12:38 PM | 12/365: July 17 2008 | Comments (1)

Post Title: 11/365: July 16 2008


Excerpt:

She has been studying the art of the tea ceremony for decades, and regularly participates in major tea ceremony events in Kamakura, Asakusa and Takadanababa wearing a pretty kimono. She finds each summer harder and harder with age and I suspect she may be forced to take a break form our lessons over August.


July 16, 2008 11:33 PM | 11/365: July 16 2008 | Comments (3)

Post Title: 10/365: July 15 2008


Excerpt:

Andrea, Beck, Arare (erm, the doll holding hands with Andrea and Beck above) and I strolled in to Kichijoji for a coffee before they headed out to Chiba for a few days with some old friends of Andrea's.... I took the whole day off today - watched a lot of cool TV like The Wire, and Jekyll and drank white russians with my roomie and tried really hard to stay away from my computer, which was kinda hard because today was the day my new photobook got launched at its online shop.


July 16, 2008 11:33 PM | 10/365: July 15 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 9/365: July 14 2008


Excerpt:

The 7/14 French Flavour BiZ NITE went pretty well considering it was the first night at a new venue: the fabulous Daikanyama Tableaux (gawd, what a lovely place!), and my first night as the organiser.... But alas, so busy I didn't get a chance to get my camera out of my bag till we were on our way home, and well- technically it was kinda the next day since it was after midnight.


July 16, 2008 11:27 PM | 9/365: July 14 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 8/365: July 13 2008


Excerpt:

Slumber party! 4 am Sunday morning.


July 16, 2008 11:19 PM | 8/365: July 13 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 7/365: July 12 2008


Excerpt:

Had an awesome photo shoot with the fabulous Akiko Otao (Tokyo based soprano) today, in collaboration with my lovely friends (and students) Misaki and Nana from Mint Salon.... Then went back to Kichijoji for a night of rabble rousing with Christian, Sandi, Andrea, Beck, Dr Dave and Darin drinking park beers, eating Thai dinner, karaoke-ing for a couple hours then an hilarious stopover at Mikorins before heading home for a slumber party.....


July 16, 2008 11:16 PM | 7/365: July 12 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 6/365: July 11 2008


Excerpt:

Actually, I cheated on this one - I actually took this on July 12th because I worked all day at Tiger and by the time I got home my newly arrived houseguests had collapsed with exhaustion after their flight from NY.... Champion illustrators (and my old dear friend) Andrea Innocent and (her buddy) Beck Wheeler, on their way back from ICON5, the New York Illustration Conference.


July 16, 2008 11:09 PM | 6/365: July 11 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 5/365: July 10 2008


Excerpt:

My old room mate Haruna introduced us back in 2004.... She dropped out for a while because her schedule was so busy she kept cancelling lessons at the last minute, but she found me again through a mutual friend, and we're back in weekly classes again.


July 16, 2008 11:05 PM | 5/365: July 10 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 4/365: July 9 2008


Excerpt:

Can you believe this woman is 60?... She was introduced to me by Sarah Arkell - an old friend now living in Melbourne, completing her acupuncture course.


July 16, 2008 10:59 PM | 4/365: July 9 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 3/365: July 8 2008


Excerpt:

Yummy homecooked dinner of garlic and butter fried asparagus with fresh tofu and a delicious salad. Tofu in Japan is far superior to any tofu anywhere else in the world.


July 16, 2008 10:56 PM | 3/365: July 8 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 2/365: July 7 2008


Excerpt:

The building is in love hotel hill, Shibuya, and it's always fun to walk around and see the local colourful characters in this red light district . I took this picture of Jon in the hallway as we headed out for some cheap, nasty pasta dinner and a beer in the middle of an incredibly long day at the office, a week before the 7/14 BiZ NITE event.


July 16, 2008 10:52 PM | 2/365: July 7 2008 | Comments (0)

Post Title: 1/365: the beginning of the photo a day project


Excerpt:

Anyway, this particular day has already been mentioned briefly below: I took Sandi, Jeff and their kids to Differ Ariake for the Muay Thai championships on Sunday July 6th.... In this shot, he had just punched the guy to the ground - I got a shot of the poor fella flying through the air but I preferred the look on blondie's face in this one.


July 16, 2008 7:44 PM | 1/365: the beginning of the photo a day project | Comments (2)