I noticed there are a FW or two from or living in Japan. I was wondering if anyone knew about this photographer or if he's any famous at all. He's one of my favourite modern photographers, if anything, because he's such an inspirational dude.
I travel to Japan once or twice every year, usually business but sometimes to visit friends, and I always try to pick up some of the cool photography magazines. In my last trip early this year I picked up a book about the (hope this does not get me banned) GF1 and EP-1 cameras and one called Kimagure Camera 2. The latter is a 150 page glossy magazine type book where the guy gets dozens of cameras, mostly film, shoots with them and writes a review. Even if your Japanese is non-existent this mag is a joy to watch. He shoots with any cool camera you can think of, from Rollei 35's to Rollei TLR's, Hasselblads, the whole Lomography and Superheadz toy cameras, all types of Polaroids and Fuji instant, Leicas/Zeiss Ikon/Bessa, Hasselblads, 70s Japanese SLR's, Soviet cameras and just about anything you can think of. The beauty of the book is that in one page he's shooting with some crappy plastic pinhole and in the next he's reviewing the Fuji GF670. His digital camera choices (5% or less) are mostly novelty cameras (Micky Mouse Club Digital Camera) or ultracompact cameras for aficionados (G11, E-P1, LX3, the Sigmas...)
I loved it so much that I ended up buying Kimagure Camera (1) and another one by him called Camera Days, same style of books, with other cameras. These are a film user's wet dream, hands down.
If anyone wants to google them the book names are: 気まぐれカメラBOOK, 気まぐれカメラBOOK2, Camera Days -カメラデイズ-
[Edit to add links]:
http://www.genkosha.com/sp/2007/07/book_1.htmlhttp://www.genkosha.com/sp/2009/11/book2_1.html
