Mitama Matsuri

 

Given my interest in military history and memorabilia it was only natural that my trip to Japan would include a visit to the controversial Yushukan, a military museum established in 1882 and dedicated to Japan’s war dead. Located within the grounds of the Yasukuni Jinja shrine, I planned to visit on a Sunday to take advantage of the flea market that was also held within the temple complex. 

When we arrived, just before lunch, the shrine was already filling up with people and it was obvious that something else was happening. Coincidentally, we had arrived on the first day of the annual Mitama Matsuri festival and there would be no flea market scavenging today, so after spending a few hours exploring the museum and contemplating it’s revisionist version of Japanese war history we ventured back out onto the grounds of Yasakuni to check out the spectacle. 

Yasakuni Jinja whose name means “for the peace of the country” was founded in 1869 to worship supporters of the emperor killed in the lead up to the Meji Restoration. Since then it has expanded to become a memorial to Japan’s 2.5million war dead. Every July around 300,000 people flock to the shrine during its annual Mitama Matsuri, one of Tokyo's biggest Obon festivals commemorating the dead. The paths leading to the shrine are lined with 300 000 lanterns and the whole area takes on a carnival like atmosphere complete with food and drink pavilions and a sideshow alley full of games and entertainment. 

The Khmer Legacy

The Khmer Legacy - Polaroid Spectra instant prints
(click on image to see a larger view)

A small body of work that I shot in Cambodia with my Minolta Pro camera which uses the, now defunct, Polaroid Spectra film. I really like the imperfections and color casts that Polaroid Spectra produced. Generally I prefered using it for night shots but for some reason the film I was using when I was at Angkor (and then in Phnom Penh) had a bit of a green cast. Probably due to it being expired and  then fried at several airport x-ray machines.


These images were all taken either at Angkor, home of the mighty Khmer empire , which at its peak stretched across Laos, Thailand, Burma, Southern Vietnam and Malaysia. Others were taken in the notorious Khmer Rouge interrogation centre housed in what was once Tuol Sleng Prey High School, but is better known as S-21. Of the between 17 000 to 20 000 suspects that went into S-21 between 1975 and 1979, only a dozen are known to have survived.

Pic of the week

                             Wat Po, Bangkok - Polaroid triptych

This week, another polaroid triptych from the edit for my upcoming Polaroid book. 

Pic of the week

Angkor Wat, Cambodia - Polaroid triptych (click to see enlarged version)

OK, so it has been a while and many things have happened, photographically speaking, since my last post. Time to take this blog more seriously and be more active here, particularly whilst I rebuild my website. I'm using a Lightroom plug-in called the Turning Gate, which seemed like a good idea at the time. But after running into problems editing content in pages that are added to the provided template and getting no support or help from the creator/distributor despite having paid for their product, I wonder whether I made the right choice.

Pic of the week

           

                                Big Buddha - Little Buddha

Not been near my computer much this past week and so haven't had time to prepare anything for the blog. So here is my pic of the week, taken on Koh Samui, Thailand with my Hasselblad Xpan panorama camera and shot on Fuji Neopan 400 film. It's part of an ongoing series that I am doing on Buddhist art and architecture.