Month: January 2014

Yanaka cemetery

Yanaka Cemetery

Just outside Ueno subway station you will find the Yanaka cemetery. I have already published a photo from here but I thought that the place deserves some more photos since it is so beautiful.

The cemetery itself takes up around 100000m2 and has over 7000 graves so it is quite big so if you want to see it all, it takes a day or two… The cemetery is mostly famous for the main road in the middle that has large cherry trees on both sides that completely cover the sky and ground in white and pink flower if you time the season right.

This is the temple area that is located in the beginning of the cemetery, if you arrive here by the subway. On this photo it looks quite empty, believe me it was not. Hundreds of people walking around or sitting down reading or just relaxing everywhere… except when I took this photo. I somehow manage to capture a photo with no one in it.

Yellow leaves covered the ground and gave everything a warm golden shine. Just perfect for this place!

A small guardian was sitting in the sun just looking at all the people wandering by.
I only spent an hour or so at the cemetery but if I have had more time I would have bought a lunch box and parked myself at a bench.

Perhaps next time I´ll bring more company then just my Leica.

/Thomas Tanisawa

January 22, 2014
Gotland at it´s best

Vacation on Gotland

During the summer of 2013 we rented a house for a week to get away from the city and to be able to spend some time near the ocean (the Baltic sea may not count as ocean but you get the point…)

The house was located on the northern part of Gotland in the small town of Fårösund. This is also the place where the ferry over to Fårö is located. Every morning hundreds of cars lined up to wait for the ferry over and there where signed beside the road that gave you a rough estimate of the total queuing time. On the one furthers away from the ferry it stood “Two hours to the ferry”. Since I´m a person with a quite small patience I got gray hair by just reading the sign…
Anyway, when you have taken the time to travel to Gotland, Fårö can´t be missed. We aimed to be the first in line for the ferry so we had a quite early start that morning. But better to be up early then to spend the day in the car, queuing.

The scenery here at Fårö is dramatic. It is located quite a bit out in the Baltic Sea so the wind is always present and it rips over the land and can sometime make it hard to just stand still. Especially if you are just five years old…

The whole island is made of chalk so there is a thin layer of white chalk powder over everything. The car slowly turns gray and so does your clothes and everything not already stone colored.

There are some very nice and windsurf friendly beaches here at Fårö, but I like the ones with a little more drama. This not so surf friendly beach really shows how the wind and sea carves it way in to the chalk and forms the some of the coolest formations. The larges rock formations is called raukar and can be as high as +20 meter or so.

These are small fishing huts called Helgumannens fishing station and must be one of the most photographed object here at Fårö.

One could really get use to sit on the dock, looking out over the water and just enjoy the amazing sunset, just wow!

/Thomas Tanisawa

January 21, 2014
Malcolm taking a leap of faith

Flying balloon with Malcolm B

So this is a series of photos from a movie shoot with the Swedish rap artist Malcolm B. This is one part that is going to end up in a coming music video starring Malcolm B.

Today’s mission is to climb to 9000 feet and that altitude, Malcolm will be doing a parachute tandem jump from the balloon. Quite spectacular and not that many persons have made jumps from a hot air balloon, especially at 9000 feet. On top of that, this will be Malcolms first jump ever…

All photos are taken with Canon 5d II and EF 24-70 f/2.8L

First balloon takes to the sky. This one is filled with helium and is only used to see the wind direction and speed as the balloon takes to the sky. It is quite often great difference in both wind speed and direction depending on the altitude. It´s like the wind exists in different layers on top of each other and not as on big block of air above the ground.

Some of the film crew inside the balloon to take some photos before the air inside gets too hot.

And here comes the heat that will make everything fly. I think this balloon produces aprox 3.000.000 watt of heat and my stove at home 3000…

Maceo is al set for the ride of his life although he looked a little bit too calm to me. He will be dangling his feet strapped in this harness to take stills and video shoots from outside the balloon… at 9000 feet…

Here is a better picture of the world’s highest swing. The ropes is attached to the top of the balloon and then goes down on the side to the harness. Once we leave the ground there is nothing in the way between him and the basket. Everything for a clear shot and no way to get him to the basket until we are on the ground again.

Malcolm is trying to keep the demons away from the head… “look cool, I can do this!”. Aint no wifey doesn’t look that convinced… but he was cool!

This is the face of a man thinking, “Oh my god, this is it…”

Take off. We started first and the other team is following close behind. In just a minute or so everything get so small so fast!

Maceo is preparing. This around 2500 feet so we are quite close to the ground. I can imagine that he felt kind a small sitting there with nothing to hold on to.

We are now getting close to our jump altitude so now it is time for the jumpers to get the right mind set.

“Are you sure about this?” It was a little bit hard to make contact with Malcolm. He was so “concentrated” (not scared to death at all…)

We got clearance to make the jump so this is it!
Since I didn´t have a parachute, there is no pictures from the actual jump…

Landed safely on the ground. Everyone was releaved and happy after another great flight with a lot of great photo and video material for the film crew.
It was late and it was cold. We did however decided to move the balloon after landing to on with the heat again!

Malmcol B and Peter from the team Peak Experience.
This was a great day with a lot of great people doing what they love to do!

/Thomas Tanisawa

January 7, 2014
The lake by Ueno zoo

Spending the day with the camera near the small lake by Ueno Zoo

So this is how December starts in Tokyo. Coming from Sweden it feels like a small taste of spring 2014. Before this trip to Japan I have googled what the weather would be like so I knew that it would be +15 Celsius, but I still got a little bit surprised by the warm weather. Thin jacket and t-shirt was quite enough. Equipped with the Leica M9 and the 50mm I head out in the sun. These photos are taken around the small lake near Ueno Zoo. It´s a nice place to get some green touch on your visit to Tokyo.

If you can sit by yourself for a minute and not packed on the subway you better take that chance. So make sure that it is at least 5 meter of free space on both sides when finding the perfect spot by the walk path.

This part of the lake is usually covered with large green leaves and beautiful pink lotus flowers. At this time of the season its hard to imagine how perfect this will be in just a couple of months.

“Not another photographer, lets take of boys!”

Relaxing to the right. Looking for food to the left.

Just trying to get by.

Just trying to get high score.

/Thomas Tanisawa

January 6, 2014
Looking ahead

Looking ahead through the lens of my Leica

Apparently I have a thing for taking photos looking like the ones bellow. Symmetrical with a fixed point or direction towards the horizon. I have never thought of it before and I do not intentionally go out and look for this type of motive. But I have tons of pictures looking like this so I apparently like the angle and the symmetrical element.

These photos are takes with my Leica M9 and 50 summicron.

In this the line towards the horizon is broken up but one could with ease imagine where all the lines would end up.

Like in this one. Shadows, forms, colors and the lines.

In a perfect world I would have waited 0,3 sec so he and his shadow would line up a little more even…

The national museum of modern art in Tokyo has a perfectly designed entrance, and on top of that some really cool exhibits!

Check it out

On the narrow streets underneath the subway lines going from Akihabara there are a countless number of shops and restaurants.

Even this small fish market in Sapporo I managed to capture a frame looking like this. Thins to the left that lines up with thing to he right…

And in this shopping mall, the same photo again.

Ok, this one deviates a little bit from the norm but its quite similar.

On my way to Yanaka. I was told that It should represent the “old” Tokyo. How it looked 50 years ago. I make a post later with some more photos, but I was a little bit disappointed. I do not now if I was told wrong or if I just had the wrong image in my mined of how it should look…

This is taken from Sapporo Tower. Again the same lineup, apart from the high point.

Yanaka cemetery. Beautiful place. Quiet, calm and millions of miles away from Tokyo’s neon and noise. Great escape only a couple of stations away from it all (and this perfect lineup!)

Now when I have noticed that I usually take these type of motive I need to figure out how to take better ones, or how to change my direction…

/Thomas Tanisawa

January 4, 2014
Tokyo metro

Spending some time in the subway net

Subway in Tokyo. Almost 9 million commuters every day… The central nerve that is divided between two companies, Tokyo Metro and JR-Line. Luckily you can use the same tickets on both line, but you need to “check in” when changing form one to the other. This is easy done just by swiping your ticket, but if you somehow miss it you will have to explain to a Japanese speaking ticket officer. This can obviously be a challenge if you don´t speak Japanese…

Photos takes with Leica M9 and 50 summicron, the perfect travel companion.

Warning signed everywhere and marking on the ground showing where the doors of respective subway car will be. Everyone stands in line after the markings and they all look funny at you when you stand somewhere else when waiting for the train.

Someone has done an excellent job polishing the floor…

Micronap. Don´t know if it is to be alone for a minute or if they are really tied, but most of them looks like they fall asleep…

They all stand in line at the markings, everyone.

DJ.Taro on the taking the sub.

/Thomas Tanisawa

January 1, 2014