Since the days of the Meiwa Era, Asakusa’s Senso-ji temple in downtown Tokyo has hosted “Hozuki Ichi” (Ground Cherry Lantern Festival), in the blistering heat of mid-July. According to legend, a young samurai’s apprentice dreamed that the Japanese horse-riding, goblin-slaying, deity of fire, Atago Gongen, revealed to him the medicinal powers of a Houzuki pod (ground cherry plant pod resembling a Chinese paper lantern). The next morning, while cleaning the garden of Shiba-Seishoji Temple he found such a ground cherry plant pod and recalled the dream from the night before. He proclaimed that if one were to eat an unripe ground cherry at Atago Shrine on June 24, the festival day for the Buddhist deity Jizo, they could be cured of any ailments and their children would be cured of distemper. Taking the young Samurai apprentice’s advice, many people promptly tried this on June 24, discovering that it was mysteriously effective, alleviating the fever and discomfort experienced by pregnant women, and thus began calling it a wonder medicine. This was the beginning of the Hozuki-ichi Festival that has continued for over 200 years.

Accordingly, the Atago festival has become quite popular and over the decades, many temples have also adopted their own Hozuki Ichi festivals. The festival in Asakusa at Sensoji has since become larger and more popular than the one in Atago. On July 9th and 10th, the latter of which is also Yonman-rokusennichi (Day of 46,000 Blessings), over 450 vendors arrive to sell Houzuki lantern plants while another 350 come to peddle typical festival fare. Visitors nowadays come in their summer yukata, to buy a Houzuki plant, also said to ward off evil spirits and goblins from their home. Glass furin wind chimes ring across the festival grounds, aiding the laid back attitude, which despite the humidity, makes it one of Tokyo’s more pleasant and peculiar summertime celebrations.

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“Serious sport is war minus the shooting.”

–G. B. Shaw

As one who believes geographical allegiances should be local rather than national and who has only the dilettante’s interest in competitive sports, I find the fanatical devotion characterizing the World Cup as amusing as the tournament itself. The World Cup produces intense feelings, which manifest themselves in a variety of aspects, including facial paint, lucky charms, bizarre costumes, wild inebriation and customized cheering. For most followers of the competition, the World Cup is an opportunity to feel a uniquely communal agony or levity, dependent on the outcome of a match to which the fan has had no part in, but who undergoes the winning or losing as if it were one’s own experience.

In Japan, this loyalty involved some ungodly match times due the time difference East Asia enjoys in relation to South Africa. When Japan advanced to the Round of 16 after defeating Denmark, 3 – 1, thousands of fans erupted into the streets to celebrate the victory. It was just after 5:00 AM on a muggy Friday morning and Hachiko Crossing, the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world, erupted in such pandemonium that the casual non-fan would be forgiven for believing that Japan defeated Brazil to win the tournament itself, rather than just the first of five rounds, a feat accomplished by fifteen other teams. Were such celebrations a spontaneous outburst born from low expectations? Was it a fit of pride, anomalous good news for a nation suffering through two decades of slow growth that has seen their economic cachet dwindling against China and other emerging East Asian markets? Or was it simply inevitable that thousands of young fans staying up all night drinking beer would want to get down and party when their team won?

To say the least, witnessing such an outburst in Japan is highly unusual for a culture famed for its social reticence. The Japanese may open themselves to others, but rarely do they thrust their joys so deliriously upon strangers. The peculiarly Japanese cartoon types— exuberant in blue superhero suits, Yukio Hatoyama gag masks, and bright blue afro wigs (blue being the team color)— worked the fans like deft cheerleaders, gathering crowds and stirring them into a frenzy. Thousands of people streaming from Shibuya’s teeming bars towards the central train station threw off their exhaustion to improvise a jig with strangers, actions they would view with bewilderment in more sober circumstances.

The atmosphere had that rare whiff of danger, as one might expect in an environment compounded by sleeplessness, alcohol, and a sports victory. Yet this danger did not seem so much physical as it did psychological. You could hear it being screamed and sung in wild cacophonous eruptions, “Nippon! Nippon! Nippon!”— a cry as aggressive as any outburst of “USA! USA! USA!” to those not given to national self-mythologizing. They say one man’s meat is another man’s poison; thus the peril, which sometimes requires the competitive energy of a sporting event to make evident, is nationalism.

Like nearly all countries, Japan has its share of right-wingers, nativists, and xenophobes. Though they are ostensibly a minority, their soapboxes and bullhorns, ubiquitous at train stations and embassies, mean they are politically loud. However, they seem to be a dying bunch, grumpy old men with long memories of losing a great war.

I was thus surprised then to witness Japan’s Imperial Flag brandished by a heap of twentysomething soccer fanatics. There it was billowing in the morning wind with all the suggestiveness of history dyed in the bright red rays emanating from a rising sun. You might call it beautiful if you didn’t know better but for those who do, it symbolizes Japan’s catastrophic attempt at empire: colonies in Manchuria and Korea, gory battles in Iwo Jima and Okinawa and of course, the apocalypses of Hiroshima and Nagasaki— the fluttering cloth becoming an object of collective pride for hundreds of young, intoxicated, impressionable young men.

But soccer teams, like governments, do not always succeed in what they set out to do. Promises cannot always be kept. Despite a plucky performance the Japanese team was eliminated from the tournament in a tense, hard-fought finish against Paraguay. Those fans screaming the loudest will have to process the humility in losing with their convictions of national pride. This synthesis can only bring them into the greater fold of humanity, which may be the point of the World Cup after all.

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IN 2009 Arnaud De Grave was commissioned to design a book cover for Labyrint, a Copenhagen-based publishing company translating French crime novels to Danish. Sent to Marseille to walk the path of the book’s protagonist, De Grave photographed the seamy underbelly of the dark city captured in Jean-Claude Izzo’s Total Kheops, a tale of “Lagavulin, jazz and beautiful girls”. Some of his results, which have hung in galleries across Denmark, are selected here.

For their next project, Caryl Férey’s Zulu, the action takes place in South Africa. A timely, but expensive location shoot for the up and coming publishing house was scrapped at De Grave’s insistence that he could recreate the macabre Johannesburg setting, where the value of human life is judged on a quid pro quo basis, simply by renting a studio and hiring a model. As one of the main characters of the novel, if not the heroine, De Grave captures the enigmatic soul of the dancer who performs her zulu war-influenced dances in smoky clubs shrouded in violence and mystery.

Zulu (Caryl Férey, 2008)

The cover shot is a close-up portrait of model Kristina Remne chosen for its austerity. Yet when the polished and reserved monochrome image on the finished cover is contrasted to the outtakes of Kristina dancing in the hellfire flash of the novel’s fiery climax, the viewer/reader begins – through De Grave’s work- to understand the clarity of the author’s vision.

Another selection of black and white imagery can be viewed at the BOP Association Gallery.

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Arnaud De Grave is a gonzo photographer / journalist currently living in Denmark. For information on licensing these and other images please contact Magnesium Photos

It had been ten years since I was last in Berlin and was marveling from the top of the Reichstag’s large viewing terrace at the immense facelift the city has undergone when I heard the collective voices of hundreds chanting screeds alongside the cries of an indecipherable (Ich spreche kein Deutsch) man using a bullhorn coming from the nearby Brandenburg Gate, the border between the old East / West Berlin. Curious, I left the tourists behind me at the refurbished Reichstag and approached the Pariser Platz as the crowd’s chanting crescendoed, erupting into cheers when I passed beneath the gate’s statue of Nike, the Greek Goddess of victory.

Not understanding what they were saying, and despite not having any clear idea what was actually happening, it was quickly clear that a great number of Palestinians, Turks, Syrians (identifiable by their flags) and others were extremely unhappy. I immediately began snapping photos and realized that I was more accepted within the surging Muslim crowd dressed in hijabs and kuffiyehs, felt more at home with the protesters, given free reign to shoot as I pleased by them than the stoic and disapproving police covered head to toe in riot gear lining the perimeter of the square.

Asking a Syrian woman boasting her birth country’s flag, I quickly got the details:

“These hundreds of people are gathered here in Pariser Platz beneath Brandenburg Gate today (Friday, June 4th 2010) to protest the Israeli raid on six ships comprising the the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla, carrying more than 600 hundred passengers. They killed nineteen people and injured hundreds. This is unacceptable. They must be stopped!”

Three Youths Hug the Pariser Platz Sign beneath Brandenburg Gate during the Gaza Protest

The attack, which occurred approximately 65 kilometers of the Gaza coast in international waters, has been condemned worldwide and has brought well-deserved attention to what some call at minimum an illegal blockade, yet one that the Likud government spokesman Mark Regev maintains “was totally within its rights under international law to intercept the ship and to take it to the port of Ashdod”. Much more than just another “incident” within controversial areas many are unwilling to wade into, the use of what the majority of the protesters deem to be unnecessarily deadly force against boatloads of international journalists and writers as well as the death of nine Turkish activists, has gotten the attention of Turkey, Israel’s biggest trading partner and up to now, most trustworthy regional ally.

Turkey, which has seemed to usurp the role of Mideast leader of late, may have the power to apply unseen pressure on their their Mediterranean neighbor, possibly more so than U.S. president Barack Obama’s so far unheeded advice to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lift the blockade against the Palestinians. They meet in Washington on July 6th.

None of the people here were willing to sit down at the nearby Starbucks to discus Israel’s claims to homeland security after the unilateral action by its military, which many of its own citizens condemned as overly harsh.

Just as soon as I had seen a fraction of the new Berlin (without the hundreds of cranes towering above last century’s skyline), where the multi-ethnic citizens use of freedom of speech seemed to equal or greater to anything I had ever experienced, I realized that more than just the usual protest, something massive was being stirred, an immense stand was being taken, with a greater number of countries involved than ever before, one from which we don’t emerge unaffected nor unscathed. I had a train to catch, an article to write and negatives to develop, but more than more of the same supposed unbiased reportage, I had to look deep to see that there was no clear understanding, no simple cut and dried answer, no unaffected people. The problem is growing and more and more people are becoming involved everyday, some violently, even fatally so. I have to ask myself if the answer really lies in more walls, borders and flags.

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Manny Santiago is a photographer / journalist currently circumnavigating the globe. For information on licensing these and other images please contact Magnesium Photos

“I’m an artist. When you tell people that they usually say, what’s your medium? I always say, ‘Extra large.’”

-Jean Michel Basquiat

Nobody as far as I know has written about the cultural significance of walls and too bad, for though their subject may be pedestrian at first glance, their prominence within history and art is undeniable. Jerusalem has a Wailing Wall where wishes are wedged into the stone by faithful worshippers. Israel has another wall built recently, used as a border to filter Palestinian people through security checkpoints in and out of Gaza and the West Bank. Berlin once had a wall utilized for similar reasons and Pink Floyd has a depressing album about one. China’s wall you can see from the moon and Jean-Paul Sartre’s most readable short story is called The Wall.

Walls have been with us ever since man has sought shelter from his environment. They have various necessary and symbolic functions, the most obvious of which is providing structural support for homes and business. While accommodating privacy they also separate us, shutting people away from each other. Walls are boundaries; they suggest limits, establishing private property, telling us where we can and cannot go. They can be white, padded, and locked if one is deemed insane. Should they be covered with squiggly marks done in aerosol paint, they jeopardize real estate values. Walls are intended to protect us yet too often in these terrified times they are adorned with barbed wire, their symbolism taking a ghastly, violent poise. We forget this, but walls are also potential canvases. Huge, inspiring, storytelling space.

While the kingdom of Morocco may be famous for its deserts, bazaars, and couscous, it may be the vividness of color that strikes the visitor on a level that might be described as ecstatic. Psychologists have long pointed out the connection between mood and color and that melancholy can be a consequence of grayness. Throughout the large cities and small towns of Morocco, windows, gates, and doors are gilded with reds, pinks, and orange. Although it can feel slapdash and improvised, if not whimsical, the effect of urban color on the spirit is deliberate and powerful.

Asilah, a small Atlantic seaside town just south of Tangier, annually commissions international artists to create large, painted murals. Some are representational while others are abstract: visible are elements of cave paintings, cubism, and Cy Twombly. Like most inner-city medinas in Morocco, Asilah’s central layout is a complex maze of plazas, streets, and alleys that takes some time to orient oneself. Throughout the medina these huge murals can be found, though the best ones are located by the main elementary school, which hopefully, is an inspiration to the passing children.

This is a wonderful thing. To keep art in museums– as opposed to the streets– is to suggest that art is ‘historical’, and thus has little relevance to contemporary culture. Worse, secluding its appreciation to privileged circles within the museum complex, society withholds art’s everyday effect from the ordinary citizen. To do this in Morocco, a country with double-digit unemployment, would be spiteful and absurd. The streets of Moroccan towns are never silent. In cafes men smoke and talk. Women converge to gossip on doorways and park benches. Home for many is a cramped dark place, so it makes sense the street would be a viable contrast in brightness.

Chefchaouen is another city remarkable for its color. Most of the town center has been painted a rich knockout blue since the 15th century. This bold use of a uniform color has a tremendous effect. It gives the city a visible personality. Moreover, it welcomes the visitor into its space effortlessly, so that old men in djellaba cloaks, children playing with water guns, cats lazy from the sun and you, yourself, have all become characters within this rich and beautiful canvas.

If one walks long enough (and in such surroundings one is inclined to walk all day), a person will eventually witness cracks in the walls, exposed brick and wood, childishly scrawled graffiti. Rather than imperfections, these marks seem to define character and age: not all dilapidation is bad, just as not all shiny surfaces are beautiful. In fact, the flaws insinuate the aura of collaboration between time, nature and human creativity as on evidence is the work of the stonemason, the carpenter, the journeyman laborer, and the eleven-year-old boy.

As the world moves closer in globalized sameness it becomes imperative that we adopt the flair for color so appreciable within the towns of Asilah and Chefchaouen. Doing so would bring people out of their techno-cocoons and into the street for games, talk, and friendship. There is no excuse. After all, we have plenty of wall space to fill.

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Tokyo’s Metropolitan Expressway — Shuto Kōsoku Dōro — is Tokyo’s answer to handling large volumes of traffic traversing the megalopolis.

The first sections were opened in time to showcase Tokyo for the 1962 Olympics. Not designed as an unlimited speed road, its main purpose was to ferry cars around at moderate speeds, unhindered by the non-car friendly Tokyo streets.

While some sections snake alongside rivers, or behind buildings at ground level, most of the road sections are elevated above ground, or tunnel under major areas such as the Imperial Palace or other surface roads.

Many sections of road deck are multilevel, often consisting of four or more layers. Because of limitations of the landscape, buildings, subterranean infrastructure (other roads and train lines), the often convoluted elevated sections, tunnels, dividers, ramps, interchanges, and tollbooths all conspire to enhance the legend of the Shuto as being a challenging road to drive, at any speed.

The Shuto also includes the Tokyo Wan Aqualine, a 15km straight-line blast under, and then over, Tokyo Bay (wan) to Chiba. The Aqualine used to be a ‘private’ road, built by private interests and with a toll value set at the wish of the operator. Like many private roads in Japan (such as the Atsugi Toll Road to Fuji-san), they used to be un-policed for speed limits. This open status promoted street racing gangs, sometimes badging themselves with ’250′ or ’300′ patches – representing their supposed topped-out kilometer-per-hour speed achievements on public roads.

Sadly, or perhaps for the better, speed limits on private toll roads are now policed — not before I was able to enjoy nailing the throttle on a Ferrari V8, roof down, in a vain attempt to chase down some hairdresser in his RX-7. I am not sure what sounded better: the five-valve V8 from Modena, or the Hiroshima rotary cracking and spitting fire on the over-run as we screamed through the tunnel section. At some ridiculous speed, I chickened out, and watched the RX-7 disappear into the distance.

While street racers have used sections for racing, notably the Wangan (Bayshore) sections, the Shuto gained global exposure with the 1998 release of Shutoku Battle, a Dreamcast console game known as Tokyo Extreme Racer for export markets, accurate for its representation of the Shuto’s layout and surrounding features of Tokyo; down to being able to see my old apartment as you raced past at high speed. I still wake in the middle of the night when hearing a loud exhaust, thinking perhaps I am still in my bed next to the Akasaka-Roppongi-Knot (‘ARK’), a particularly notorious set of bends known to claim the unwary.

Working nearby to the Shuto too, and while enjoying car talk at work one day, one of the senior managers — perhaps sixty years of age — commented that he too enjoyed fast cars, driving a Legacy Turbo. As a joke I asked, “So Tanaka-san, do you get up at 02:00 and go racing around the Shuto?”

“Of course!” he blurted out rapidly, looking at me as if I was mad to even ask such a question.

One notable site for all car types to congregate is the Shuto’s Daikoku Futo – halfway between Yokohama and Tokyo on the Wangan route.

With no other facilities except a gas station and some fast food sellers, it is perhaps a natural place to congregate, talk about rides, and enjoy the sounds of fast cars screaming overhead on the elevated sections.

The Parking Area (‘PA’), on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays is often full of interesting rides. Not only for legendary Japanese cars like GT-Rs, twin-cammed Toyota and fast rotaries, but bikes too, the Porsche, Ferrari & Lamborghini clubs sometimes show up, as do a regular smattering of bozosoku and general shakotan style aficionados.

On the access roads outside the PA, in front of the local koban, less responsible drivers have been known to practice their mountain drifting skills. The massive tire marks, rubber-marbles in the gutter, and the sometimes dinged guard-rail, are all obvious signs of some serious drift work.

YouTube has numerous postings, including bemused police in their koban, and their attempts to shut the drifters down.

The new Yamate Tunnel adds another 10.9km of fun to the run from Ikebukero to Meguro. It features some remarkable engineering, including a twelve-level climb from the subterranean run to nine levels above ground to join the Chuo Expressway at Hatsudai – this up-and-down roller coaster ride alone is worth the ¥700 entrance fee.

While I ride the Shuto two or three times per week, commuting on my barge-like Maxam scooter, the best time of course is as recommended by Tanaka-san in his Subaru: late evenings, or early mornings. Chasing the fire-breathing RX-7s and GT-Rs is a lot more pleasurable when I can forget the camera, and enjoy the wail of an Audi V8, a Nissan inline six, or a high-revving Mazda rotary next to me as we scream through the tunnels and wind through the many routes around Tokyo.

All at the recommended speed limit of course.

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Skorj is a photographer/journalist living in Japan. For information on licensing these and other images please contact Magnesium Photos

In the film Messengers (Yasuo Baba, 1999) one of the protagonists says to our Lycra-clad heroine, ‘You look like a race queen.’ Parochially translated for American audiences as, ‘You look like a slut‘, this missive unintentionally sums up the role of race queens in the modern world.

A variation of the Formula 1 car racing European pit lane girls (who are supposedly present to hold umbrellas over drivers), race queens – or ‘campaign girls’ – are frowned upon in many Western countries as examples of sexism, and of cynical marketing for an otherwise male-dominated industry.

Contrary to the fall-off of sexist advertising campaigns for cars and the automotive industry globally, the race queen still survives in Japan. Major trade shows and industry events in Japan might have seen a reduction in their race queen populations recently, but this is more a sign of economic austerity over any update to sexual perspectives in Japan.

Buoyed by their high status in the modeling industry in Japan, super race queens continue to generate large fan-bases in their own right, commanding high appearance monies, and often driving their own careers accordingly.

The 2010 Formula 1 season opened in Melbourne recently, with a series of very mildly dressed pit lane girls (‘more modern’ was the statement). The same weekend held the annual Tokyo Motorcycle Show at Tokyo’s Big Sight in Odaiba. Present in a bewildering array of skimpy clothes the race queens continued to pout, pose and preen for the cameras as they do countless times a year across Japan.

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If any threat exists to race queens in Japan, it will not be from a waning popularity in their hardcore otaku fan base, nor will it likely come from ‘safety concerns’ associated with their skimpy clothing, and it will certainly not come from any change in perception of the role of women in Japan. Any further demise in race queen populations will surely be a result of purely economic motives.

As for our Lycra-clad heroine in ‘Messengers’, in Japan at least, she triumphs, beats her derisive competitor and wins the heart of the leading man, making a lot of money along the way…

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Text & Photography © Alan Dejecacion / Magnesium

For centuries the Mekong river and its tributaries have been the lifeline to the southeast Asian nation of Laos with its life-sustaining role as trade and communication route. Carving a 900 kilometer border between Laos and northeast Thailand, the Mekong continues to be the main highway for many where paved roads are virtually non-existent. Cut off from major markets by a lack of reliable surface transport (the Mekong is not all that navigable year-round), the provinces and nearby villages along the river banks have developed a small, fragile and largely insular economy of local production and services resting on a foundation of traditional subsistence.

The Mekong swells during the monsoon, bringing silt deposit and nutrients, thus allowing the area to thrive via rich soil for agriculture and great numbers of fish. The richest soils of the country are on the river banks and inland as far as the river silt is carried. For landlocked Laos, the Mekong and its tributaries are the all-important source of fish. In mountain streams, in rivers small and large, in flooded rice fields, people cast their nets and set their traps.

China’s ravenous appetite for hydroelectric power at home and its thrust southward into southeast Asia in search of trade is changing the very character of the river. This is true not only in China itself, but also for the livelihoods of people living downstream in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

This complex ecosystem, and the livelihoods of millions who depend on it, is threatened by China’s plans to build eight large dams on the upper reaches of Mekong in Yunnan Province. The plan will drastically alter the river’s natural flood-drought cycle and block the transport of sediment. Despite these serious potential impacts, construction of the upper Mekong dams has proceeded without any real assessment of the likely impacts to the river and its people.

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There is a universal drive for gambling that I am at loss for understanding. Some people bet on horses, dogs, on anything that is able to run more or less straight in a suitably controlled environment. Ostriches, even! However, these arrangements are really elaborate random number generators. Actually each different type of betting service that exists is basically a way of crafting “exciting” random number generators. If, for example, you go to a cock fight (as in Magnesium Photographer Alan Dejecacion’s Sunday at the Cockfight), you get a binary-based random number generator. On the other side of the scale, the odds of you winning the French Lotto is seriously against you: 7 balls within a set of 49. My mind turned into goo when I tried to calculate the probabilities. I soon found out on my trip to a little known town in India that there is no stupid way to buy and sell dreams.

Waiting for the shooting to happen

Shillong lies in the province of Meghalaya in northeast India. There the local people bet on random numbers using an original and unique random number generator: one group of old men shoot arrows at a target made out of straw tied against a wooden pole, then another group of men count the arrows. The bets are made on the last two digits, i.e. if you place your bet on 42, and the shooter manages to stick 442 arrows in the target, you win. If the shooters are having a bad day or drinking too much tea and miss, you can go drown your sorrow in booze. Simple. Fascinating idea.

Being in the vicinity, I felt the urge to investigate and have a look for myself. I was very excited about trying and find out about the whole thing. Not that the prospect of seeing old men play with archery equipment is not an exciting one, but I am more into people’s reactions than in the thing which causes the reaction. After some misguided directions from random strangers, I found the spot. Indeed, the place is fairly small and easy to miss, a patch of not very well tended grass, really. When I got there people were mostly busy trying to catch glimpses of some sort of action happening in the stadium on the other side of the river, where the clamour crowd was clapping and giving hints that some sort of important sport event was developing. My guess was cricket. Cricket is huge in that part of the world.

Shooting!

I wasn’t totally blown away by what I discovered. Indeed, the action was far from frenetic. There was the preparation phase when everybody carefully laid arrows in front of him, readied their bows and smoked. Then one of the men cried something incomprehensible, and everybody started shooting. Relentlessly yet calmly, and almost without pause, they sat or crouched behind some invisible line and shot arrow after arrow. Some didn’t even blink. When they ran out of arrows, everybody gathered around the target and started removing the arrows mingling within the bundle which were not properly stuck into the target. While the judges counted and sorted them by fitting them ten by ten into what resembles a barbecue grill, the archers took care of finding back their own misdirected arrows. Though I suspect that at some point they would also go retrieve their good ones, I have to admit that I didn’t stick around long enough to witness this.

Now the sorting begins ...

All this takes place without excitement, calmly, while drinking tea and commenting on the weather. At some point, while taking pictures, I found myself in front of one of the archer. He had stopped shooting and was waiting patiently until I got out of the way. He could have offered me a cup of the aforementioned tea! Where was all the fever of gambling? Where were the shaky hands, the screaming ladies waiting for some blood to be shed, waiting for that target to eat dust? Where is the damn arrow I should have had piercing my hat, à la John Ford?

I had some tea and on my way back I climbed on top of a building under construction to see what was happening in the stadium. It was a football match, not cricket. Luckily I hadn’t bet on that…

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Thessaloniki: this is where I was born. This is my hometown, a place loaded with memories which feed from nostalgia of all things passed.

Something inside makes me reluctant to talk about this city, as if I am afraid to ruin a deeper bond by using inadequate, crippled words. And so I walk around taking photographs of its surfaces as if throwing beacons, points to recognise my moments in time.

I saw the city ruined and changed, literally building itself anew on the ruins of its history. I remember the icy winds of winter nights, the dead empty streets of summer, the smell of the sea mixed with gasoline, all the houses my family moved. I saw the light disappearing from the streets as the buildings rose in height, the rivers of cars emerging, radios playing foreign stations on rainy days, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, the policeman ringing our doorbell asking why we didn’t hang the Greek flag on national holidays. Everyday things always in the early afternoon light, neighbourhood movie theaters with two features daily, music everywhere in the streets, strange music, brought by immigrants to this Balkan junction. A city with the ruins of three religions, staircases full of the smells of homemade cooking. So many first times, all the first times, my departures, my homecomings and then the night, terrifying at first only to become the only real thing, the essential fascination bare of everything unimportant.

But then again, this memory carpet often dwells on cliches, so let’s forget about them. I am still around, after all, and the city is changing once more. When I walk alone on its streets, trying to be a foreigner and a native at the same time before I press the shutter, I often wonder what the future memories for the new generations will be. The city persistently remains a colossal museum of accidents as every big city by definition is, and I think of what Walter Benjamin said “Not to find one’s way in a city doesn’t mean a thing actually. To lose oneself in a city — as one loses oneself in a forest — that calls for a quite different schooling”.

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Photography Curated by Sean Bonner

What is the mystery of photography? Why do we love the static image? What is it that these fragments of reality, frozen in time tell us? What is it about the photograph’s ability to transcend commonplace existence that has taken it from an unrecognized set of chemical reactions to the most popular and life-changing art-form the history of the world has ever seen?

Are we seeking knowledge of our place within the greater universal complexity? Or could it be that we are a conceited bunch of heretic animals in love with posing for and fawning over our own graven image? Is it not rather that we just love to command machines, fiddle with knobs, push brightly colored buttons and play with toys?

Ahh, toys. Ask most people when they started to fall in love with photography and many, if not most will hark back to the golden days of their childhood, when life was simpler, the sun shone brighter and film was, as the only option available, still cheap. Most photographers of today who were raised in the odd limbo generation of the 70s and 80s grew up on one or more of the futuristic Polaroid instant cameras kicking around the house. Or maybe you had the cartridge-based 110 film and disc cameras, invented by Kodak and popularized with the Kodacolor VR, or any number of short-lived point and shoot cameras, that weren’t toy cameras per se, but today can be found lining the discount bins of used camera resellers and garage sales alike, the world over.

When Fuji Camera introduced the Fujipet camera, marketed to a solely Japanese audience, this plastic camera would go on to introduce the hitherto western concept of leisure combined with the snapshot, for use by the whole family. From the instruction manual, “With the Fujipet Camera you can the pictures very easily just as you manipulate your knife and fork…The Fujipet Camera enjoys great popularity among children, mothers and all the members of the family and affords happiness in all homes.”

What about the Hong Kong novelty manufacturer Great Wall Plastic Factory, in first producing the Diana, which in turn spawned tens of hundreds of clones, that unwittingly launched the modern day toy camera revolution. They were just trying to make a fast buck. In doing so, they made history.

Thanks in large part to Mr. T.M. Lee – inventor of the Holga – is it true that anyone can be a photographer?

Despite all signs to the contrary, it was not the original goal of Mr. Lee, nor any of the other manufacturers, to make toys, but rather to ensure that people were fascinated and interested in creative film photography. As the Chinese middle class grew due to economic reform of the 80s – and with it buying power and hunger for better technology – many cheaper products, like Holga, lost ground and were nearly completely lost in the shuffle toward the new paradigm of the 90s tech boom.

As artists, amateur photographers and institutions of higher learning got in on the ground floor of the Holga Revolution, business boomed for Mr. Lee and Universal Electronic- largely in part to the Austrian-based Lomographic Society licensing and repackaging the Holga (as done with the glass-lensed Lomo LC-A – often thought of as a “toy” as well) in marketable and highly profitable kits. He was amazed at the resurgence of his twenty year-old baby, remarking it was “out of my imagination!” and smartly thought to capitalize on this newfound “Toy Camera” popularity by diversifying into a wider range of products. Add-ons for the Holga or completely new cameras (the Micro 110, 6×9/6×12 Pinhole, 3D Stereo, Twin Lens Reflex, a whole range of 135mm cameras, fish-eye lenses, color flashes, etc.) became profitable ways to expand into areas previously unimagined. The future was very bright indeed.

To ask what is the future of photography is too big for anyone to take on except in bite-size chunks. One might be well served to look back to the origins of capturing images for answers to why images- and especially those taken with shoddily-crafted plastic parts which often “leak” light, vignette uncontrollably, and capture images so randomly that the photographer would have no guarantee that any exposure will come out at all- have transfixed us deer-like in the headlights of a tsunami of cause and effect. Many of which have such wide ranging societal repercussions that we would be smart to admit no one really has any idea of what’s happening, let alone what’s on the horizon.

To extrapolate digital photography as a direct result of the Toy Camera boom, to say that Holga created the digital point and shoot in your mobile phone, to credit Hong Konger novelty and flash manufacturers with the digital paradigm as well as their own eventual decline, is not too far a stretch. What will emerge from the next few digital decades, after the Hipstamatic iPhone filter fad has worn off? A perpetual backlash against time-tested, though also time-consuming, archival methods or as Mr. Lee experienced when the unpredictable wave of economic tide turned the middle class Chinese off his product and hipsters on – a rebirth of interest in film and more importantly, sales?

Read the continued Interview with Holga Limited’s Christine So here.

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Please contact licensing@magnesiumphotos.com if you have any questions or comments on these photos.

Being in a church for a funeral service and thinking about a clown might be weird. Looking around and seeing actual clowns would be surreal.

Many people tend to equate clowns with the circus, but there was one man who took clowning around from its origins in the Commedia dell’Arte- with which he shared his Italian origins- and into the world of the Pantomine, eventually culminating into the modern clown seen all over the world today. That man was Joseph Grimaldi, born in London in 1779, the son of a ballet master. An invalid from the years of intense physical effort his act required, he was introduced to the stage before he was two and retired at forty-five years-old. The rest of his life was spent in poverty, yet comedians – and particularly clowns – are, perhaps surprisingly, a group of serious folks and many came together to finance their inspirational father’s remaining years. “Like vaulting audition, I have overleaped myself and pay the penalty in advanced old age. It is four years since I jumped my last jump, filched my last oyster, boiled my last sausage and set in for retirement,” Joseph Grimaldi would say in 1828 at Covent Garden, London, during a show meant to raise money for his benefit. He passed away some years later, after being carried home by his friend George Cook from his spot close by the chimney of a pub he frequented daily.

Nearly two hundred years later, clowns still memorialize him on the first Sunday of February. It is indeed a surreal experience attending a church service for a pantomime clown. Stranger still when, as hinted, many of the congregation are themselves clowns, in full costume and make-up, drawn to this service from all over the world. Young and old, though mainly old, gather at the All Saints’ Church in Dalston, East London, to remember and celebrate the life of Joseph Grimaldi, the clown Joey.

Though it might surprise most people to hear that this still rolls on, Grimaldi’s legacy continues to live.

“A little old woman,
her living she got by selling hot codlins,
hot, hot, hot.
And this little old woman,
who codlins sold,
tho’ her codlins were hot,
she felt herself cold.
So to keep herself warm she thought it no sin to fetch for herself a quartern of ……..”

“Gin” the crowd shouted.

“Oh, for shame!” the clown answered mockingly.

Famous routine song of JOSEPH GRIMALDI (1779-1837)

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Please contact licensing@magnesiumphotos.com for more information on licensing these photographs and others on this issue.

The major problems facing the human race are massive as ever and show no sign of abating anytime soon. Resource wars are becoming the norm. The environment needs a breath of fresh air. American obesity is getting serious (picture a muumuu-clad Homer Simpson when his fingers were too fat to dial the phone). Despite the overwhelming negativity slowing most forward-thinking legislative bodies, there seems to be a palpable worldwide trend toward cleaner living. Maybe it’s the economic recession talking or perhaps people are finally getting the idea that spending and consumption can be controlled to the gain of everyone, even those invisible third-worlders starting to demand their fair share of the world’s resources over in…wherever they are.

Smoking too appears to be declining. Even in Asia, where cigarettes are cheap- ¥300~¥350 or about €2.50 / $3.50 per pack. Yet despite all efforts to the contrary, the culture of cigarettes persists. Cigarettes have an attitude about them. Smoking is (still) cool. Smokers have a swagger. We see this in movies, on television and in advertisements that target youth. Just watch Jon Hamm’s implacable Don Draper chain-smoke at his ad agency in AMC’s historically correct Mad Men for examples of mid-1960s societal mores amid the peak of doctor-endorsed smoking and compare to now. What America was in the Madison Avenue 60s, Japan was in the opulent 80s. A commonly heard phrase of the time being, “65% of men smoke and 35% of women smoke, which means 100% of Japan smokes.”

Slowly but surely times have changed. Unless the boss says otherwise, smoking in the office is basically a no-no. The same goes for almost any enclosed indoor space, at least in California, New York, Hawaii, (despite the U.S. leading the charge against the tobacco lobby, no national legislation has been enacted, leaving the decision up to state and local governments), most of Europe and elsewhere where the government has moved to reduce health risks caused by second-hand smoke. More than two-thirds of the German population does not smoke. Less than one-third smokes regularly. Men smoke more (32% of the total sum of men smoke while only 22% of women puff). Consumption of cigarettes among youth is declining not due to smoking bans, but rather information campaigns alongside a shift in the characteristic affectations of role models.

In Denmark, the small popular bars called bodegas packed nightly with patrons would die- especially the ones with names on little brass plates in front of stools at the bar: ‘You cannot sit there, this is Lars’ chair.’- if these regulars stopped showing up to get their daily dose of booze simply because they can’t top it off with a share of nicotine.

And that is where it all goes wrong. If the bar is under forty square metres, then you can smoke inside. The sane man in all of us says, “The smaller the room the more prone it would be to become really smoky and dangerous.” But talking to the man in the street about these places was surprising. “It’s fair that smoking is prohibited, so I can bring my wife and kids without stinking afterwards,” iterated a few patrons while lighting stick after stick and discoursing on the matter. None of them was very concerned about the health of the bartender. ”Who cares about him? It’s his choice to be here…”

Please contact licensing@magnesiumphotos.com for more information on licensing these photographs and others on this issue.

In a show of defiance against the gray economy, southern Florida continues to attract millions of visitors for fun in the winter sun.

In the 1980s it was the destination of choice for underage binge drinking, recreational drug use, and casual sex.

These days Florida attracts nearly one in four US retirees.

Due to its year-round warm climate, low tax burden, and glut of golf courses, Florida now leads the country in percentage of residents over the age of 65.

The health of Florida’s economy is now more than ever reliant on the wealthier retiree until the real estate market can recover, a likely distant reality.

Warning! The following may contain images that are disturbing or graphic.

Please contact licensing@magnesiumphotos.com for more information on licensing these photographs and others on this issue.

Photos by Derek Arnwine / Magnesium Photos
Text by Jim O’Connell / Magnesium Photos

Today, we’re featuring a set of photos by Magnesium photographer Derek Arnwine.
Derek’s been living in Tokyo for as long as anyone can remember. He lives in one of the suburbs outside Central Tokyo, in one of the places “where people actually live and work” around Tokyo and has for many years.

Derek is a talented photographer in all of the ways you’d expect, but with a twist; He knows how to operate his camera of course, knows how to compose a shot, but what sets him apart is the amazing effect he has upon his subjects—they all smile.

It’s not just the practiced smile that people summon when being photographed, but real, joyful smiles with a glint in their eyes. Derek brings out a sense of delight that is infectious. He doesn’t sneak his shots to capture candor or try to blend in, not that he could as a six-foot-one foreign man with a hearty laugh. He simply has a way with people.

Derek’s been shooting a project for some time that I’ve enjoyed watching develop, a project he calls “Gokurousama“.

The word may be a mouthful, but the meaning is simple, so simple that it’s too often forgotten these days—it means, basically, “I appreciate what you are doing. Thank you.” It’s what you say to the people who do their jobs, especially the times they might go out of their way, outside their job descriptions, to make their service a little bit more accommodating.

That’s what Derek captures with alacrity. Nowhere to be found are the stereotypes of slacking temp workers or overwrought salary men. He seeks out the people at work and captures the pride with which they go about it, be it train conductors, garbage truck drivers, locksmiths or the girls who serve his bagels and coffee. (He does seem to take particular delight in his bagels and coffee, or perhaps it’s the girls?)

There’s another thing worth noting about his work: He’s licensed it as Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial, which means that if you are working on a project that you won’t be making money from, such as your personal blog, you are welcome to use his work and even remix it into a new creation. Just don’t forget to credit him and perhaps offer your own gokurousama, in hopes that he keeps up the splendid work.

If you are interested in using these in a commercial work, these photos are a small selection from a much larger body of work that is all available for licensing. Please contact licensing@magnesiumphotos.com for more information.

Mr. Arnwine is also available for commissioned editorial, travel, corporate and portraiture photography.

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This piece has been produced with content from the following Magnesium members:
Japan by Jim O’Connell / Magnesium
Denmark by Arnaud De Grave / Magnesium
Holland by Nathalie Farigu / Magnesium
Additional photographs by:
Pete Barr-Watson / Magnesium
David Teter / Magnesium

On July 3rd in 1916, Lawrence “Chubby” Woodman, dropped a few battered clams into the fryer he normally used for French fries at his roadside stand in Essex, Massachusetts, not having any idea that almost a hundred years later, I’d be sitting here in Tokyo, craving a hot dog roll filled with his creation.

My ex-wife introduced me to clam rolls in Plymouth, Massachusetts, a short drive from her family’s summer cottage. “Ooh, clam rolls,” she said, and a short time later, we were sitting outside a shack near the water digging into a couple of them. It’s been more than fifteen years since that day, but the memory of those clams rolls has my mouth watering and stomach rumbling in anticipation of something too far away to procure.

Another legendary guilty pleasure, one that has been lost to history, was the Little Tavern “Slider,” a small hamburger that was best bought a dozen at a time. “Buy ‘em by the bag…” their signs proclaimed and yes, we did. For me, the place to grab a bag of sliders was the Little Tavern in Georgetown. In mid1980′s in the wee hours of the morning, after clubbing or before hopping to another club, we’d head up Wisconsin Avenue to the familiar little chateau-styled building clad in green and white tile. The preferred way to eat sliders was with mustard — somehow, ketchup never tasted right on them. Founded in 1927, Little Taverns were a familiar sight all over the DC / Baltimore area, with around 70 shops at their peak. But their numbers declined at the end of the century; they limped along for another decade or so, until the last Little Tavern closed in 2008.

The delights from these food emporiums aren’t the sort of meals you serve up on a first date, nor are they the sort of places you eat at every day (unless you have a very good cardiologist). They’re guilty pleasures to be savored, food shared amongst trusted friends and select initiates in a ritual of indiscretion and indulgence; saying “let’s go grab a bag of sliders” is much the same as saying “let’s be bad” with a devilish glint in your eye.

Customer samples "kaki fry" or fried oysters at a fish shop in Tokyo

Every culture has food like this. In Japan, there’s ramen, of course, considered by many to be the quintessential Japanese fast food. Ramen, while universally inexpensive, can vary widely in its quality. Avoiding mediocre ramen is key—the reward for finding a good bowl is a meal that is sublime. It’s worth the effort.

N.B.: Be forewarned that you should never mention “ramen noodles,” the plastic-wrapped staple of college kids in discussions of “ramen” (occasionally Romanized as “lamen”) as you will be branded a fool. As the Oshima Ramen chain of shops proclaim, “Ramen is a gift from God.” They may be saying that with tongue planted firmly in cheek, but it’s best to play it safe and just agree.

If you see a line of more than a couple of people waiting to get in to a ramen shop in Tokyo, you might as well cancel your plans and join the queue, because it’s likely to be an amazing experience. “Ramen Jiro” in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho district is a place like this, where for under ten dollars, you get a legendarily huge bowl, but true ramen connoisseurs will scoff, saying that Ramen Jiro’s main appeal is the immense size of the portions, not the quality of the ramen. Listing the top ramen-ya (ramen shops) here would likely invite an un-winnable battle of opinions, so I’ll refrain from trying, but they’re easy to find—either look for the queue, or ask a trusted friend.

Then there’s Okonomiyaki, a kind of savory pancake, rich with varied ingredients and topped with seaweed flakes, dried bonito, Kewpie mayonnaise and/or a thick brown sweet sauce akin to A1 steak sauce. Monjyayaki is a thinner variant, said to originate not far from Tsukiji’s famous fish market, best had in the little shops of Tsukushima, where each table is equipped with a griddle from which it’s directly eaten with little metal scrapers.

Takoyaki is a similar batter, but made into spheres on a special griddle, each with a piece or two of tough octopus meat. It’s best had when bought at a roadside stand or summer festival, especially when prepared by the sort of guy you would not want to meet in a dark alley. “The secret ingredient to good takoyaki is fear,” a friend is fond of saying.

To be honest, though, it’s hard to feel the same level of guilt eating this sort of food in Japan, as on the whole, the dishes are fresh, the ingredients are the same as you might buy for your own kitchen and, well, it’s Japanese and as a people, they just seem so healthy. Not so in other places:

First of all I’d like to state that, as a French man, there is no such thing as junk food in my diet (at least that I’d confess if no torture is involved). There is plenty of junk food to be found in the streets of Copenhagen; as everywhere else in the world we get our share of McDonald and that sort of things. In certain areas of the city the shawarma is ruling as the King of Junk, in other places it is called kebab but it is basically the same thing. And there is the pølsevogn (literally “sausage wagon”) which is the local version of the hot-dog stand so dear to the heart of new-yorkers. A complete sociological study would be necessary to understand that thing, what with old guys blocking traffic while going from wherever those mighty beasts sleep to the spot where they’ll deliver the greasy goods to customers of all ages… And the fact that they sell French hot-dog is not enough to have me try it!

A customer gluttonying down a sausage at a pølsevogn in the deep winter of Copenhagen...

So I don’t like, let alone love, junk food. So why then contribute?
Because there is that thing called smørrebrød which has a weird status around here. One can find smørrebrød in many variations but also in many caste, matter of speaking. There are smørrebrød of the junk kind, of the home made kind (of course) and of the gourmet kind, found in restaurants. Many Danes eat smørrebrød everyday for lunch, either they bring it in a little lunch box or they buy it from a smørrebrød-to-go shop. It is a common sight to see people in the streets with white little boxes around lunchtime. Although, it beats me how they can eat them properly as it becomes quite rapidly a mess as there is nothing to top them. The exact same concept can be found in restaurants, specialized restaurants of high standards. And that is why I found it fascinating, it would be like having three stars restaurants making hot-dogs.

Lunch box, the Danish style.

Technically it is an “open-ended sandwich”, meaning a sandwich with only one piece of bread. Smøre means butter, brod means bread. So that’s what you get, bread of the dark/black kind (more a compaction of cereals if you ask me), butter and then stuff on top, a lot of stuff. You have from one up to three items piled up on top of that ridiculously small piece of bread. Usually one major and two minors. Major can be fried fish, liver paste, ham, eggs, etc. Minor is usually some kind of vegetable in various state of conditioning: coleslaw salad, beetroot, cucumber, you name it… Then a sauce of some sort: mayonnaise, etc. and sometimes an additional topping: fried bacon, crumbles of bread, fried onions, shrimps and what have you. I have always suspected that a very strict code was ruling this as a state affair, the Danes being quite close to traditionalists. Surely one cannot mix some of the major with some of the minors as one pleases. I remember the first time I went to the cantina of the university where I work. One cantina was for everybody (mainly students) and the other one was for staff. In the first one smørebrod were aligned and prepared beforehand for one to shovel in one’s plate whereas in the latter one had to make them oneself being presented with a buffet of many ingredients. For at least one year I didn’t dare doing it, picturing myself trying to go through the cashier toll. I was sweating profusely imagining the girl in the white outfit looking at me sadly and doing a shy negative sign of the head, sending me back to the buffet for the choice of a bad combination of ingredients.

Smørrebrød(s) lined up and ready to be consumed.

A regular customer shovelling his prey to his plate at lunch break.

But all in all, at the end of it, what they do love here is their café cold-feet as they say: the dreaded “pølsevogn”…

(by Nathalie Farigu / Magnesium)

Snacking is not a modern phenomenon. As a matter of fact, for centuries people have satisfied their cravings for sugar, fat and cholesterol with little in between meals. When the snack attack struck the ancient Romans, they would rush to the thermopolium, which was a little shop selling warm wine and the ancient equivalent of what we now know as fast food. And apparently, the author Pliny was a big fan of eggs marinated in vinegar, which were subsequently deep fried. Other Roman snacks included boiled eggs with pine nut sauce, and libum, a sweet cheesecake.

Those dishes seem to require an awful lot of preparation. Luckily,  the Dutch alternative only requires a Euro or two and a visit to the automatiek, a special kind of vending machine. An almost exclusively Dutch phenomenon, it’s made up of rows of little heated boxes designed to keep the delicacies warm. Behind little glass doors you’ll find enough fat and cholesterol to eat your heart out, literally. Word is that the automatiek originated in Germany at the beginning of  the 20th century. However, its popularity waned after the sixties and the automatiek disappeared everywhere but the Netherlands, where it remains popular til this day.

One of the most popular items you’ll find at the automatiek is the kroket, which is a meat (mostly beef) ragout covered in breadcrumbs, then deep fried beyond recognition. Though it might not win any prizes for looks, it sure does for taste. Especially on a cold winter day, it’s very comforting to bite into a freshly deep fried kroket, perfectly crunchy on the outside, hot, gooey and salty on the inside. It’s the perfect snack in between meals, or after a night of debauchery and libations on the town.

When asked what food they’d miss the most while abroad, the majority of the Dutch population will tell you it’s the kroket. Luckily, the Dutch kroket has found its way onto a few menus of restaurants abroad as well. I found, and consequently enjoyed a kroket in places such as Lovina, Bali and Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. You just don’t get to pull it from the ‘muur’ (Dutch word for ‘wall’).

The kroket isn’t exactly a Dutch invention. It originated in France and can be found in many countries all over the world with a filling of cheese, shrimp, potatoes and/or vegetables. However, the beef kroket is a typically Dutch snack.

Most automatieken are not stand-alone walls of greasy goodness, there’s usually a counter available where you can order drinks and French fries called ‘patat’, which are often served with mayonnaise (‘patat met’). Other popular choices are ‘patat speciaal’ which are fries served with mayo, ketchup and raw onions, or the extremely delicious ‘patatje oorlog’ (war-style French fries) which will make your cholesterol levels soar beyond your wildest dreams and your fat cells scream with orgasmic delight, with its serving of mayo and fatty peanut sauce.

So, what kind of people commit these dietary crimes? According to a recent survey 75% of the Dutch population admits to eating a kroket every once in a while. I bet the other 25% hasn’t come out of the kroket closet yet.

I know that I, as a ‘vegetarian’, whenever I’m in Holland enjoy a ‘vette bek’ (which translates into ‘a greasy mouth’) on a regular basis. As my sister said: ‘It’s oh so bad, but so so good.’

Every Sunday since 1872  people of all faiths and of every political persuasion have gathered at Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park to debate, or just preach, their views in public. Karl Marx, Lenin, Marcus Garvey and George Orwell have all spoken here through the years. Some groups, for example the Socialist party of Great Britain, have held regular meetings on this spot for over a hundred years. The area also attracts a multitude of faith groups  from Orthodox Jews to Fundamentalist Muslims, all of whom manage to share the space in a mainly peaceful co-existence.

In this ongoing project John Gladdy is attempting to capture the diversity and energy that continues to make Speakers’ Corner so unique.

Prominent Marxist activist Heiko Khoo holds his weekly meeting.

A Christian evangelist airs his view of Islam to a mainly Muslim crowd

Anthony Hervey- American Author and political activist entertains the crowd.