tim rudder

Just some links I’ve found and have been using in my Japanese learning which might be helpful to others.

- read the kanji
Flash cards based on the JLPT exams. I like that it forces you to type in the hiragana, rather than being multiple choice like many other similar card sites.
- anki
Good for building up your own library of cards. All the cards are shown depending on your strength with that particular word/kanji.
- lang-8
Great idea. You post a diary entry in Japanese. Japanese people will go through and mark their corrections. You do the same for those writing in English. I posted a short entry before going to grab dinner tonight and had 4 people go through and correct it by the time I got back.
- iknow
Actually worked on this site very briefly back in my web days, though doubt anything I did has made to what you see now. I haven’t used it yet, but will be setting up an account tonight and giving it a go. I know there’s a fair sized team who’ve been working a long time on it, so I expect it to be better than a lot of the ‘home brew’ learning apps.
- rikaichan
Easiest way I’ve found to get around unknown kanji on the net.

Had my mid term exam for Japanese school today. After my last exam I bought a lens, today I developed my first roll at home. I had to pick up some neg sleeves from Yodobashi so decided to purposely shoot a roll while walking there to be my test dummy. Probably should’ve prepared more before jumping into it, I’m sure I got my dilutions wrong and also managed to drop the roll on my shower floor while trying to hang them up to dry. The negs feel quite thin and contrasty shots didn’t turn out so well. But they can only get better. Quite keen to do another roll.

These were just with the Canonet, pushed Neopan 400 to 800ASA.

nice intro

yet to read all of it, but figured there’d be some visitors to this blog who’d be interested.

Been talking about doing this for a long time, but I finally walked the city. Original plan was to start in Shibuya and end up in Ueno, but actually ended up going beyond that after meeting up with John. Was a great day, something happening all along the way, festival at Aoyama daigaku, a traditional wedding near Akasaka, wine festival in Hibiya, closed off street in Ginza then beer and ramen with John in Nippori. Would’ve been about 7 hours of walking and shot 8 rolls of film.

The tally is currently up to 44 rolls waiting to be developed. I’m still not sure when I’m going to start, I’m enjoying holding onto them. In a sense there’s no expectation to take good photos, there’s only the enjoyment of taking them and I like being in that zone at the moment.  Anyway I think I’m going to sit on them a while longer, possibly until school finishes in mid-December. We’ll see. I don’t think I want it to get to a ridiculous amount though.

Thanks to John earlier in the week I’m now set up to start developing my own film. I learnt how to do it back at uni, hated it at the time, but all this time I never actually realised how cheap it was. Wasn’t long before I realised we were talking in cents per roll.. rather than the $5 I pay for a colour roll to be developed at the local photo store. Not sure when I’ll start, will leave the New York rolls for a while longer I think. It’s quite a strange feeling that I don’t have a burning desire to see how they turned out, in some ways I feel like that project is already complete and satisfactory. The process may have been more valuable than the outcome, I’m not sure.
Also picked up 20 rolls of Neopan 400 which I’m keen to start shooting a project with. Doing a bit of research before I start that though.

Incidentally John’s been keeping a side project going, documenting the camera/photography culture here in Tokyo. 2 of my babies managed to creep their way into it.

btw, chicks with film cameras are the definition of hotness.

One of the things my trip to NY opened my eyes to was painting. Obviously going through a fine art/design college I received a fairly solid introduction on art history and seeing a lot of these paintings is nothing new. But what is new is seeing them through different eyes, having built up a greater sense of what I like and don’t like helps to appreciate these much more than before. But I think an equally interesting point is how they relate to photography. It’s always interesting talking to other amateur photographers about inspiration and other people’s work. It’s only natural that tends to be a photography based discussion, but as broad as photography is I think in some ways it’s quite limiting in the way you see and think to only look at what other photographers produce.

Here’s a few paintings/painters that I find interesting. I figure if people like my taste in photos then they’re probably going to like something posted here. No surprises that most are realist/impressionist based, but what really opened my eyes a lot more was Kirchner, a German expressionist who painted the streets of Berlin. I’d be interested to see how this list reforms, changes and influences over the years. Right now it’s only a straight forward aesthetic appreciation of work you would find in an art history 101 text book.
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The roll of XP2 I shot. It’s actually the first roll I’ve seen produced my new lens and am more than happy. Definitely my new favourite lens.

dating back a couple months.
still have one roll of colour film to develop and shooting a roll of XP2 now. have to stock up on film again.

Some pics from the holiday side of the trip. They’re from Tomoe’s point + shoot camera. She has another SD card with pics on it but looks like she’s taken it to work with her. Click the link below the pic to see more.

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Got back to Tokyo a few hours ago, want to sleep but trying to force myself to stay awake (7pm now). Tomo flies in tomorrow so will grab a few photos off her point + shoot and post them up.

I enjoyed the trip. Had 4 days to myself which I spent shooting, rest of the trip was with Tomo or cousins. It was interesting going back to New York and seeing it again through a slightly different set of eyes. It’s not a city I’m head over heals in love with, but it’s one I definitely don’t mind being in either.  The food was continually great, a lot of areas to explore, the streets are very much alive and obviously nice to spend time with relatives too. Was hoping to shoot more, but oh well.

Not sure when I’ll develop these. Think I might actually switch to Neopan seeing it’s more convenient to buy in bulk here.
It’s quite strange though catching up on blogs, etc and seeing everyone post photos over the week or so but have nothing to show myself after almost 2 weeks away. I have a couple colour rolls lying around which I might get developed. Not sure what they’re from though..