Kabukicho HDR Photos

Kabukicho HDR photoset

HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is a process of taking a set of underexposed, properly exposed, and overexposed images and blending them together into one incredibly detailed photo.

I took these last night, and frankly, I’m not as wowed as I expected to be. One thing for sure though is they show Kabukicho exactly as I picture it in my mind. My self-assignment was to take ordinary scenes and compose them in a way that makes people want to stop and look at them like artwork in a gallery, but at the same time make them feel as though they’re experiencing the location itself, not just a photo of it. I haven’t found what I was looking for yet, but I’m still going through the shots, and I intend to go back there and try again and again until I’m satisfied. I also want to do the same thing in Ginza.

Come to think of it, I should really go to Yoshiwara. Only thing is, I wonder if I’d be as left alone as I was in Kabukicho. Yoshiwara seems like a more close-knit place, and they might not appreciate an outsider who doesn’t follow the rules. The clientele there expects privacy and anonymity, not some foreigner with a camera and tripod tromping around like he owns the place.

If you like the photos in the set, keep checking back. I’ll be posting more. My new header image is also HDR. I like it!

To learn more about HDR photography, this tutorial is a good place to start.

Being Rich Pavovitch

Hitch a ride inside my head while I roam the streets of Kabukicho in search of…well, audio. My favorite part is when I buy a bottle of green tea from a vending machine and you can hear the sound of me drinking it as if you were there inside my head. The hawkers who try to temp me into their tittie bars, nightclubs and whorehouses won’t take no for an answer until I practically beat them over the head with it. There are a few craptacular camera phone pics in the gallery. I also updated the gallery for last week’s show.

Please don’t announce this podcast to tens of thousands of people. I don’t want to incur the wrath of the bandwidth gods. Let’s leave it as a well-kept secret for now.

The tour was so long that I didn’t get to cover some things I wanted to, like my meeting with Scott Lockman of Tokyo Calling. He came to my company’s office on Thursday evening to discuss a teaching gig. It’s funny how radio guys never look the way you imagine them. Matching the face with the voice for the first time is like watching a movie that’s been dubbed–only difference is the mouth moves in perfect sync with the voice.

My apologies to those of you on dial-up connections–this one’s also a bigun’. Also, sorry for the audio levels being set way too high, but unless you’re an audiophile you probably won’t notice. Just turn the volume down a bit.

Thanks to everyone who left comments. What a nice bunch of people you all are.