Finding the perfect shot in this city is all about angles and light; the flat, grey sky over Tokyo is tough on photos, and we tried and tried to grab some decent shots. Halle and Natascha took hundreds of photos of everything they saw. I will post selections of their photos today and tomorrow.
I used my iPhone and my film camera, a Hasselblad 500 C/M. I shot mostly black and white with a couple of color rolls thrown in for good measure. As I develop the film, I will upload what I have.
The other thing we noticed in Tokyo was that the frenetic pace is hard to adapt to in street shooting. It took a day or so to get into a rhythm. That experience is probably true for most folks and we experienced the movement of people especially when we were trying to take a photo…in that moment you deliberately stop, pause, and compose. In my case, the composition part of the process included setting aperture and speed, and focus each time I took a picture. I became much more choosey, as well, because of the number of photos I could shoot. (12 per roll)
If you are looking for 120MM film in Tokyo, really you have few choices. I tracked down a decent selection at BIC Camera in Shibuya….only some of their stores have anything. For B/W, you can find Ilford HP5. For color, Fuji Velvia 100 (that’s it!) Tokyo has quite a few film labs around the city; many locals are still shooting 35mm film and I saw many older folks (me included) shooting film cameras.
Of course, the tide turned years ago. I will have to send my color film off for development to San Diego when I get home. They process and scan for one price. For B/W, I’m developing my film at Prep.
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