Zōkyō

When Tokyo Photographer, John Sypal isn’t literally eating, sleeping, and breathing photography, he is out serendipitously stumbling upon an exquisite little ism in Tokyo that piques as much curiosity as does a two-headed prairie dog. Its called “Tokyo Camera Style,” the notion that cameras are as much as personalized style accessories as they are “tools with which [their wearers] can express their personal taste and private sensibilities”…[and that]…”the relationship one has with their cameras affects their approach to making a picture.”

I was always eh, kinda like consider myself kind of a pioneer of the pentaprism, a camerateur if you will. I’ve wined, dined, sipped and shopped in some of the most demonstrably beamer epitomable camera shops in the Tokyo metropolitan region. Yeah, I’ve bought strange looking Fujipets at Alta. I’ve had dangerous pinholes from the the Camera Box. Well what you get is a gaffer-taped Holga in a UFO catcher loaded with a provocative roll of expired Velvia, and uh, rust. Processed with Campbell’s tomato soup. See I have kinda of a uh…well I ordered my Leica Titan, Christ it was so tough it left the box and it walked down to the end of the counter, camera gal wearing those rhinestone glasses with the little pearl thing clipped on the sweater. My Leica come down, tried to beat the shit out of my digital camera battery. Battery just wasn’t strong enough to defend itself…

Anyway… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love a good gadget. I managed to acquire a whole used car of of ‘em and drive a different one (or three) everyday depending on how I feel. And inasmuch, I’ve managed to elbow my way on to John’s site a couple of times. Here, here, here, and a few other places. Go check out Tokyo Camera Style to see what the rest of Tokyo is sporting. I guarantee you it aint your mama’s rainbow banana pudding…

Tags: 105mm, 28mm, Atom Boy, Cosina, Daido Moriyama, Elliot Erwitt, f1.9, f2.8, Fuji, G617, GR1, John Sypal, Leica, M6, Nobuyoshi Araki, Panorama, Panoramic, Please Repost, Ricoh, Tokyo, Tokyo Camera Style, Ultron, Voightlander

This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 11:11 am and is filed under Tales from the Toke. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.