wheat

I found  a cool old photo from last year that I forgot to post. Rural Japan is rural.

The Holy Land

Mt. Haruna. Known to Initial D fans as Mt. Akina. The most famous mountain known to drift.

Middle-of-nowhere Japan

Hung over, I went out shooting with one of my oldest friends and one of my newest friends in Japan. We had no fancy landmarks, no special events, and nothing really noteworthy for kilometers around us... Which is the best place in Japan to be.

Be sure to follow my friends on Instagram:

Yuki: @mira.l700v
Taka: @takaaa46

And while you're at it, Follow me too:

@darcnoodles
DARC.JP

Kitamoto Matsuri

A tiny local Nebuta matsuri that nobody besides residents and participants know/care about. Those are usually the best kind of matsuri.

Lazy Sunday in Okutama #TokyoStreets

Yoyogi park weekdays, fishing in Nagano and more...#7Days7Minutes (2016-05-16)

A slightly more abstract video than the last, and a bit rushed on the cuts, but I need to make a point of pushing through the backlog, so quality may suffer.

Otherwise, I don't get on camera this week either. For which, you're probably better off.

MUSIC:

Terminus by May
http://bit.ly/mayterminus

Les Toreadores (Bizet)
Youtube Creator's Library

Wounded
by Avius & Kyoot
from Creative Comons on soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/creativecommonsmusicfree/avius-kyoot-wounded-creative-commons

original:
https://soundcloud.com/dubstep/wounded-by-avius-kyoot

More of my stuff here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darcnoodles/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/darcnoodles

More from the Japanese Underground:
web: http://darc.jp
YouTube: http://bit.ly/darcjp666
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darc.jp/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/darcjp666

On patrol - The Sony a7S owns the night #RandomJapan

I know the camera is only a part of the image making  process. Give me a shitty camera and I'll still give you an excellent image. Conversely, give the average Taro a Hasselblad and you'' get a blurry 50 megapixel duck-face selfie. But there are times when the technology becomes more than just a medium with which to create, but actually enables creativity in conditions that other cameras just can't handle. IS0 32000 in the outskirts of town, surrounded by rice fields. Lit only by a single, weak, incandescent streetlight. I have always been a fan of shooting in low light, but with my a7S I no longer shoot at night... I own the night.

Yasukuni Shrine, Zao Onsen and a German #7Days7Minutes 2015-09-14

6 places I've never shown you before, and a German saying "cheers".

Music:
1: Iawkwardlobster - Emergence (Liquidata royalty free pack)
2: texture III http://amachamusic.chagasi.com/music_texture3.html

Obama makes the best fish in the world!

I had work in Obama, Fukui Prefecture so I've hogged this 7 days 7 minutes with some drives, panoramas and a little left over work footage of the town, the surrounding countryside and it's primary delicacy. Fresh grilled fish.

There is a dash of Tokyo in there too for those of you who like the big, boring city.

MUSIC:
"Give it Up (Start Again)" by snowflake (feat. Subliminal)

Licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.

Another shot of Mt. Fuji - Shots #142

Mt. Fuji - Shots #141

7 Days 7 Minutes (2014-08-18) Driving through Akita, Fireworks, Udon and more...

00:00 MONDAY Train Zombies (Shibuya, Tokyo)
01:00 TUESDAY The Boonies (Yuzawa, Akita)
02:00 WEDNESDAY Driving Akita (Akita)
03:35 notTHURSDAY Trippy Noodles (Mitsunashi, Akita)
04:35 FRIDAY Fo Shiga ma Nigga! (Nagahama, Shiga)
05:30 notSATURDAY Akita Shinkansen (Daisen, Akita)
06:00 SUNDAY Fire Flowers (Kawasaki, Kanagawa)

Friday Music: Mama by The Living 

For the full tracklisting of what I was listening to in the car on Wednesday, hit the jump.
Ive stuck the location links in there too.

7 Days 7 Minutes (2014-06-30) Nagano, A Holy Vending Machine, Driving and More...

00:00 notMONDAY Nagano is Beautiful
01:00 TUESDAY Just Driving
02:00 WEDNESDAY First World Problems
03:00 THURSDAY Bird Watching
04:00 FRIDAY Holy Vending Machine
00:00 notSATURDAY Anti-Nuclear Protest
00:00 notSUNDAY Always the best part of the trip.

Tuesday music was all shuffled form my iPod while driving.

Thursday Tune by Manny Marx. Support him and his epic music.

Locations:

Chikuma City, Nagano


Zenko-ji, Nagano City, Nagano (fri & sat)

7 Days 7 minutes 2014-04-21 Boat Taxi, Cat Park, Mountain Roads and more...

00:00 MONDAY RAINbow Bridge from the Tokyo Monorail
01:00 TUESDAY Yokohama - Tokyo Bay Taxi
02:00 WEDNESDAY Cat Park (Ikebukuro)
03:00 notTHURSDAY The good life
04:00 notFRIDAY Mountain Roads
05:00 SATURDAY Butthurt
06:00 notSUNDAY Burning up the Dancefloor

GET MANNY MARX'S TUNES HERE!!!! 

Shots#112 Spring Peach Blossom Festival in Nagano.

While the Sakura had come and were starting to go in Tokyo, further north, in Chikuma City, Nagano, The apricot blossoms had just started to bloom. The city is known for it's apricots and as a result Spring is heralded in by the apricot, rather than the Cherry blossom (which comes a bit later). There is also a small event at a local shrine to commemorate the blooming of the apricot trees and the coming of spring... But the weather decided that spring can wait. It must be said though, that these ladies deserve som emad props for continuing to dance even as biting cold winds stirred a blizzard around them.

Japan How It Is - Yuasa, Wakayama.

Yuasa town in Wakayama Prefecture is time machine 2 hours outside Osaka. It's the town where Soy Sauce was first made in Japan. I got lost there and ended up finding out about a truly amazing town.

Related Yuasa post. HERE>

Yuasa town home page (Japanese): HERE>

Manny Marx bandcamnp: HERE>

Woot, I'm in Nagano.

In The Cat's hometown shooting for a video project thats due in September. It's good to be away from Tokyo till the morrow, but I wish the cat were here... probably not as much as she wishes she was home though...

An Unmistakable Aroma - 750 years of soy sauce tradition takes to the tables of Europe’s finest restaurants (Highlighting Japan)

The new issue of highlighting Japan is out and the the piece I did when I went to Wakayama (after I snapped that Dotonbori video and Osaka street shots) is up.

An Unmistakable Aroma

750 years of soy sauce tradition takes to the tables of Europe’s finest restaurants

Soy sauce, or shoyu, is almost indispensable to the Japanese dining experience. There are over 1,000 large and small soy sauce companies throughout the country, each with its own unique recipe and flavor. Out of this large field of competitors, how does a small brand from the quaint town of Yuasa in Wakayama Prefecture find its way into the kitchens of not one but nine Michelin-starred restaurants across Europe? And how has a company that makes up an estimated 0.01 percent of Japan’s soy sauce supply won Belgium’s prestigious Monde Selection Gold Quality Award every year since 2006?

According to Toshio Shinko, the warm-hearted and down-to-earth president of Yuasa Soy Sauce Co., Ltd., it comes down to a combination of history, tradition, dedication and passion. 

Read the rest On Highlighting Japan.

This is probably the best assignment I've had. In truth through the Highlighting Japan project and the JETRO project (not yet published) Ive had the opportunity to visit some amazing places and meet some truly inspirational people, but I would say that Toshio Shinko, the president of the Yuasa Soy Sauce company is at the top of that list.

His passion for his work aside, it's his passion for his home town, it's traditions and the younger generations growing up there that I liked best about him. His vision and goal have nothing to do with expanding his business (and being that they make the best soy sauce on the planet, there is plenty of potential for expansion). Rather he wants to educate the children in his community and instil a sense of pride in them that he hopes will inspire them to continue to live and work in Yuasa instead of migrating to the urban centres to work for the faceless corporations that built them.

He is especially critical of the way the leaders are removed from the realities of life on the ground in Japan and as a result they are unable to truly deal with the actual problems the country is facing.
as you may have guessed.. this scheduled 1 hour interview became a much longer conversation between he and I about some very deep and meaningful topics that we pretty much agree wholeheartedly on.

He was also very generous. he gave me a bottle of his fine soy sauce, 2 bags of the local, exquisitely delicious mandarin oranges, and a tub of unique miso that they make there.

It's assignments like this that make the stresses worthwhile. To get paid to meet and talk to interesting people and share their stories with the world... It brings me many feels.

Now to find more work like this... and hopefully get paid for it too!

7 Days 7 Minutes (2013-09-02)

0:00:00 MONDAY RatRace
0:01:00 TUESDAY UENO
0:02:00 notWEDNESDAY Flashback to 2009 Tokyo Auto Salon
0:03:00 THURSDAY Fukuroda Station Ibaraki Prefecture
0:04:00 FRIDAY Fukuroda Falls Ibaraki Prefecture
0:05:00 SATURDAY METAL!!!!
0:06:00 notSUNDAY I miss my car