
PingMag interviews Ken Oyama about his passion for housing complexes. Oyama is behind the new photo book DANCHI NO KENKYU (AN ASSESSMENT OF HOUSING COMPLEXES).
Comments (3) Category: Architecture • Books • Photography
PingMag interviews Ken Oyama about his passion for housing complexes. Oyama is behind the new photo book DANCHI NO KENKYU (AN ASSESSMENT OF HOUSING COMPLEXES).
Comments (3) Category: Architecture • Books • Photography
JAPANESE ROOMS is a new photo book by artist and graphic designer Sven Ingmar Thies that takes a look at how the Japanese live, with photo spreads of their rooms taken in five cities (Berlin, New York, Shanghai, Vienna, and Tokyo). The book can be purchased from the Kaitenart website, or through Amazon Japan.
Comments (6) Category: Books • Photography
Zoren Gold & Minori have done a major update to their site. Quite the striking image on the front page!
Comments (2) Category: Photography • Web
Yuki has put up a big blog post on her recent photo exhibition that took place at Cafe Pause. Lots of photos to see, in case you couldn’t make it in person.
Comments (0) Category: Events • Photography
Stephen Lebovits is a Tokyo-based freelance photographer who has just launched the Photos 4 Food project. As he explains:
I have started posting a variety of my photos on a sister sight (please see Photos 4 Food link). If you like any of my shots, for $5 USD I will email you a high-resolution (A4 size/300 dpi) digital file, alternately, for $25 USD, I will snail-mail you a basic-framed, A4/300 dpi (roughly 8×10) print anywhere in the world. All proceeds from every digital transfer, and any proceeds left after printing, framing and mailing of prints, will be accumulated and donated monthly to deserving charity of my choice - the first being Starting Point School located in India and run by Stephen Young, a local entrepreneur, and his wife, who I’ve recently met while living here in Tokyo (please see Starting Point School link).
I chose Starting Point for a variety of reasons, but primarily because it will also be my starting point. I am aware that there are many people in many locations that can benefit from an initiative such as this, but since this is a 1-person operation at the moment, I decided to focus my energy on helping out someone I already know, and who himself, has taken the initiative to help others.
If this takes off, as I hope it will, then I will do my very best to make your contributions count in the most efficient manner possible. But CAVEAT EMPTOR - I am NOT a registered charity. This is my attempt to test the waters and see if the seeds of this endeavor will bear some fruits, therefore I cannot issue any tax deductions or offer any other guarantee other than my word and a regular report of the photos sold and monies donated. You are all free to contact me, at your leisure, and I promise I will answer every message with brutal honesty.

Here’s a reminder that Yuki Nakano’s photo exhibition is now on at Cafe Pause, running until April 6. Following that, it will be the Speakerdog show.
Comments (0) Category: Events • Photography
Want to take a peek inside some art/design/photo books coming out of Japan? Then head to BCCKS, a site that offers digital books (and you can make your own) through a very beautiful interface. It was photographer Ani Watanabe who sent me the link — have a look at his books SAIGON and LONG EYES.
Comments (3) Category: Books • Photography • Web
Flyer for Yuki Nakano’s upcoming show at Cafe Pause (March 24 to April 6). Love this private dialogue between her and her companion Lindsay, at this week’s PauseTalk.
Comments (3) Category: Events • Photography
PingMag interviews Hideki Omori of POWERSHOVEL, maker of Lomo/Holga-like toy cameras.
Comments (0) Category: Photography
Me and Max were roaming the streets of Kubukicho yesterday, and Max took this great shot of two police officers patrolling in front of a giant ad for SEGA’s new RYU GA GOTOKU KENZAN! game, the third release in their YAKUZA series.
Comments (6) Category: Games • Photography
PingMag has a profile on Tomoko Sawada, a Kobe-based artist/photographer whose work I’ve been a fan of for a few years now. I absolutely love her photo booth series, part of which is pictured above.
Comments (3) Category: Art • Photography
This past Friday night saw the opening of Alin Huma’s new gallery space, Ginza the Edge. The inaugural show, “Photography,” runs until February 29.

It was a great turnout, and we pretty much filled up the relatively small space. The gallery actually takes up Alin’s apartment, and so every piece of “daily living” got removed to make space for the show.

Digiki was there — he helped out in the conceptualizing of the show and space. Busy man indeed, what with the 101TOKYO art fair fast approaching.

The desk of the man behind the show. That MBP has certainly seen better days!
Comments (0) Category: Art • Events • Photography • TB.Grafico
What goes on at Shinjuku station, stays at Shinjuku station. Photo by Max Hodges.
Comments (0) Category: Photography
I’ve been wanting to get a decent hat for a while now — something with a bit more class than the knit cap I often wear. I don’t know if I could ever really pull off wearing a fedora, but I don’t mind trying them on when I’m in shops. The photo above was taken by Max in a shop in Koenji a few weeks ago. Yeah, I know, the North Face down jacket would certainly not be part of the ensemble.
Comments (2) Category: Meta • Photography
A few months back I met up with the travel editor of FOOD & WINE magazine, who was in town doing a piece on Tokyo. Salma’s article appeared in the February 2008 issue, and she writes a bit about what we did on that day in this part.

After we had lunch at Maisen, we were walking down Omostesando, and got stopped by an editor and photographer from TOKYO GRAFFITI magazine. If you’ve never seen it, each issue is mostly made up of shots of people holding up whiteboards in which they’ve written an answer to something. The question they asked us was something in the lines of “what do you contribute to society,” and I honestly can’t remember what I wrote. They said that we would appear in a future issue, maybe the December one, but I completely forgot to check.



I write a monthly column covering Japanese product design for The Japan Times, called "On Design." It appears on the fourth Tuesday of every month, in both the print edition and online.
I contribute a weekly round-up covering the latest product and interior design happenings from Tokyo and Japan for MoCo Loco. It gets posted on Wednesdays, and you can find links to previous posts here.
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