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Hidden in Plain Sight. A Japanese Journey
It’s been about three years since I wrote this pre-foreword to this book. Although I have a lot of pictures from my various trips to Japan, organising them into a book is a challenge. The photos themselves are good enough to deserve publication. However, most of them are affected by a ‘déjà-vu’ effect. People on the subway, crowded crossroads, striking contrasts between modernity and the past, or between rural areas and highly urbanised ones, pop culture vs. business culture… no matter how hard I try, every single photo gives the feeling that someone has already done it. I am neither an anthropologist nor an expert on Japanese society, so I…
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The Compelling Power of Photography
The sandstorm came fast — the kind that scours your skin raw, leaves grit between your teeth, and makes you regret every bit of exposed flesh. I had the Pentax K-3 II with the DA* 50–135mm f/2.8 mounted and ready, but even the gear felt fragile in that wind. Eighty kilometres per hour doesn’t sound like much until it becomes horizontal. In the middle of that chaos, he walked in. No jacket, no hood, no camera gear — just shorts, sunglasses, and a phone. He stopped, planted his feet in the shifting sand, and took a photo. Not staged, not dramatic. Just a gesture. In the middle of discomfort, maybe…
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Three Lamps
I made this photograph on a breezy afternoon, when the light fell just right across the row of straw-shaded lamps. The alignment was irresistible — three distinct forms in sequence, receding gently into the frame. I wanted the rhythm to pull the viewer’s eye through the image, from the sharp texture of the foreground shade to the softly blurred suggestion of the background structure. The Pentax K-3 II paired with the DA* 50-135 rendered the detail crisply; every strand of straw stands out against the muted backdrop. The lens’s rendering at f/2.8 helped create a shallow depth of field without obliterating context. The light bulbs, faintly glowing even in daylight,…
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Not AI-made…
The colour rendition of a photo taken with a Pentax (camera and lens) is unique. Taste is personal, and so is this opinion. One thing, however, is sure: the pictorial look of this photography is not made by an ‘AI’.
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A Gull, Posing
A gull sits perched on a bollard by the water, its body angled just enough to suggest awareness of being seen. The rust-stained base, heavy and industrial, contrasts sharply with the lightness of the bird resting on top. It is a moment where function and chance converge, turning a docking post into a stage. Composition is centred and deliberate. The bollard fills the frame vertically, anchoring the image, while the gull becomes both subject and ornament. The blurred surface of the water behind isolates the scene, stripping away distraction so the viewer confronts the simple pairing of steel and feathers. Technically, exposure is well handled. The whites of the gull’s…
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Three Tires
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So Long, and Thank You for the Fish
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Beach Party
Shot just after dawn, this image came together in seconds but tells a layered story of rivalry and instinct. The beach, in its usual emptiness, became a stage for the coarsely choreographed interaction between gulls and crows. I didn’t plan for a composition — I reacted to it. And yet, the result balances tension, motion, and rhythm better than many calculated frames. Technically, I leaned into softness rather than clarity. The overcast light pushed the colours into a muted palette, verging on monochrome. I let the flatness be, resisting contrast boosts in post, allowing the wet sand to mirror just enough detail without pulling the eye from the birds. Their…
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Gliding Away
I caught this shot as the gull moved past me, wings stretched in an elegant curve, pulling away from the frame almost as quickly as I brought the camera to my eye. Tracking birds in flight with the DA* 50-135 on the K-3 II is always a test of reflexes and technique, especially when the background is a shifting plane of textured water. The lens handled the contrast well, keeping the bird distinct enough from the muted greens and greys of the sea, though the fine detail in the wingtips fell just short of crisp — a reminder that a fractionally faster shutter speed might have been the better choice.…
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Waiting for the Fish
There’s a particular kind of pleasure in using the Pentax K-3 II paired with the DA* 50-135mm f/2.8—a combination that rewards patience much like the fisherman in this frame. The lens’s rendering and microcontrast gave me exactly what I wanted here: a clean separation between subject and background without the look feeling forced. The weather was brooding, the horizon hazy, and the colours naturally muted, so the camera’s sensor, with its well-known dynamic range, had plenty of tonal nuance to work with. The man in the red hoodie became my obvious focal point—a striking colour contrast against the cooler palette of sea and sky. His posture, hands clasped behind his…
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Should I Seat?
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Landing
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Man in Trenchcoat
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After Heat, Structure
I made this photograph handheld, late afternoon. The car was still warm. Fire had done what fire does: reduced all function to form, all value to surface. What remained was metal, glass, ash—and light. I chose a shallow angle, head-on through the front windscreen, to confront the wreckage as directly as possible. The lens was at roughly 60mm, allowing a slight compression of space. I focused on the mid-depth—the charred dashboard—so the frame reads in layers: foreground (rust and blistered bonnet), middle (molten plastic and exposed seat frames), background (burned upholstery, collapsed interior geometry). Each plane tells a different part of the story. The light was flat, which helped. No…
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Fancy a beer?
I caught this Peroni bottle resting on a worn wooden post at the marina, the kind of accidental still life you don’t stage — you simply recognise and frame. The Pentax K-5, paired with the DA* 50-135 f/2.8, made the job effortless. That lens has a way of pulling a subject into sharp relief while letting the world behind it dissolve into painterly abstraction. Here, the background of masts, ropes, and blurred hulls becomes more a wash of colour than a setting, yet it still whispers the story of where we are. I shot wide open, wanting the bokeh to take the harsh edges off the busy scene. The glass…
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In the Rain, A Helping Hand
The rain hit fast and hard. Streets turned to rivers in minutes. I was sheltering under a bus stop roof, camera still strapped around my shoulder, when I saw the man go down. Not dramatically—just a slow, heavy fall as he misjudged the kerb under the surge of water. Then came the officer. No hesitation. No fuss. Just a clean, instinctive move to lift him. The Leica didn’t leave my eye. I shot quickly—no time to compose in a traditional sense, but sometimes the moment doesn’t wait for your geometry. The turquoise pole on the left anchors the frame almost by accident. The crossing lines in the background help balance…
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When the Tide Recedes
This scene struck me as more than just a visual curiosity—it posed a question. What doesn’t belong here: the boat or the car? The early evening light had just enough character to lift detail off the flat grey of the pavement and tease texture from the bark of the bare trees. The DA 50-135* handled the compression beautifully, allowing me to frame the boat prominently while holding the background activity—a fire truck, scattered people, and that lone parked car—in a shallow but still informative focus plane. I appreciated the restrained dynamic range of the K-5’s APS-C sensor here. The muted palette lends the image an autumnal melancholy, without needing the…
