Don't Touch My Body

Don't touch my body, because I've got chicken pox.

Three days ago, I went to the doctor because of fever and headache and lethargy. It was rather scary because I don't think I had been lucid since the previous evening. Strange though it may sound, I felt drunk, or should I say, drugged. Everything was inexplicably surrealistic.

Instead of picking up the brush and starting to paint something to the likes of The Scream, I was quickly brought back to my senses. I mean, come on, unless you've just eaten some mushrooms bought from some hippie in the back alley, unexplained light-headedness calls for serious attention. Besides, what worried me more was the red spots on the chest. I might have been stung by some mutant mosquito from outer Mongolia and was now infected with a deadly tropical disease.

Halloween Parade

31 October, Halloween - The ghouls walk the streets of Kawasaki. Not just monsters and ghosts, but witches and mummies, Spiderman and Masked Rider as well. Halloween is perhaps the third most commercialized festivity in Japan, after Christmas and Valentine's Day.

Shoot and Run Street Photography

Of all the different kinds of photography, candid shots are perhaps the most difficult to take. Because unlike shooting still objects, in street photography, your subject is constantly and therefore it is fairly difficult to frame your shots. Besides, most people don't like to be shot. If you're caught secretly snapping away at them, pray you didn't mess up with someone you wouldn't want to. The obvious solution is to get permission before you shoot, but that won't be called a candid shot, will it?

That's where shoot and run street photography comes in. The point is to blend into the surroundings, anticipate your subject's moves, shoot and evacuate. Sometimes, you get cursed. But if you're good enough, you'd be gone by the time they notice.

In street photography, a telephoto lens might be a good option if you don't want to risk getting beaten up by pissed off strangers. But if you've tried this before, you'll know that nothing's better than working with your subjects in proximity. These photos were shot at "point-blank" with a 50mm prime lens.