kent-media.com is dedicated to the crafting of words, sound, and/or images in the service of communication, for commercial purposes as well as good old entertainment and philosophical enrichment. Much of that communication occurs across the cultural boundary between Japan and English-speaking countries.
People do the craziest things for attention! This lady was doing a handstand on a chair balanced precariously on five others, on top of a stand that was barely large enough to accommodate the first chair. Other than the fancy reflective tape, all of the chairs are perfectly ordinary, with no special fittings or grooves to ensure that they stay where they're put. This was all directly on the pavement without a net or even so much as a comfy cushion.
Admittedly this was her job, and she was one of many performers at the recent Zao street performance festival, but it left me with serious doubts about her sanity nonetheless. Other performers included musicians, magicians, jugglers, a very spooky fellow on stilts, and comedy acts.
The town of Togatta, in the Zao mountains, is normally a quiet little hot-spring resort that is geared primarily toward relaxation rather than excitement, but every spring the street performance festival transforms the town into a thrill-a-minute circus that draws enormous crowds and undoubtedly contributes to the local economy in a big way, which is obviously the point. The inns and hotels are full, and the shops and street vendors probably do more business over the two days of the festival than they do in an average month. Can't argue with that, because it is a beautiful little town that serves as sort of a hub for many of Zao's resort and sightseeing spots. Keeping it economically viable is a worthy goal.
Although not shown in the photo (there were very few places to stand), the Zao alps loom large at the end of the road where the performances take place, providing a stunning natural backdrop. Apparently the idea for the festival was borrowed from the long-running and famous Noge street performance festival that takes place each year in Yokohama, but the bucolic surroundings and delicious mountain air give the Zao version a totally different vibe.
The photo itself is actually a panorama composite of four separate images shot hand-held from top to bottom. This approach was necessary because I was shooting with a fixed focal length (a 50mm Zeiss lens on a Leica M8) and there was no way I could back up to get the entire scene from sky to pavement. The Photomerge function in Adobe Photoshop did a pretty good job of compositing the images and, (full disclosure) allowing me to remove some distracting power lines that were immediately behind the inverted woman. Other than that and a bit of a sharpness and saturation tweak, everything is scarily "au naturel."
Now that the weather has warmed up, the urge to head for the scenic spots at every possible opportunity is irresistable. It's as though energy accumulated over the cold winter months has suddenly been released in a joyous avalanche of outdoor activity. And it's not just us humans. Plant life seems to be celebrating as well, as foliage and flowers appear in places that were vacant just a few days before. Of course the weeds have come to the party as well, and the garden is clearly going to need some devoted attention very soon. The pace of growth is insane, but it's wonderful to see. With so much stagnation in the economy and society, it's uplifting to see that nature carries on relatively unperturbed by the artificial trappings of a consumptive civilization ... as long as she is left to her own devices, which isn't always the case. Give her some breathing room, however, and she clearly demonstrates where the word "abundance" came from.
A couple of photos from recent outings:
Rather than simply send past posts into the void, I am working on an "archive" where they can reside and be accessed after they fall off the top page. This will be done ... um ... whenever I get around to it. Shouldn't be long.