It wouldn’t be too much to say that ramen is one of Japan’s most famous staples. In 2009, JUNTO (the Japanese government’s tourism agency) conducted a survey of overseas travelers entitled “Japanese cuisine that particularly satisfied (more…)
October, 2010:
Far East
We originally planned to review Far East as a bar, but it’s actually more of a restaurant with a hearty, well-seasoned food menu. Dinner in their romantically lit interior is, in our opinion, their biggest draw. (more…)
Dolls: Mirrors of Culture
Dolls have a legacy like no other material object in world culture. Perhaps every civilization known to archeologists has produced dolls. They are older than all the world’s modern religions and were in fact originally religious objects. (more…)
Photo Feature
by Kondo Hiromitsu
When the Dark Room launched in 1999, the director of our NPO visited some prototype rental dark rooms in L.A. and New York and actually used the facilities to get a better feel for them himself. In addition to being a rental dark room, we are also a space for the exchange of information among professional photographers; here, individual work moves from the subjective to the objective. This is an extremely important component in what makes our community so special.
I used a rental dark room as well when I was in London, and before heading back to school, I would often spend a lot of time at The Photographers’ Gallery (which is now located near Oxford St.). I remember that older women with grocery bags from Tesco and Sainsbury’s still hanging from their arms would sometimes come to make prints at the dark room. In the Photographer’s Gallery on the 2nd floor, photographers could sell their original prints, and everyone looking for prints reminded me of weekend market areas where people flipped through LPs and CDs. I began to understand the difference between having contact with photography and the depths of that culture which was made possible by ‘routine work.’
By coincidence, a certain culture information magazine is doing a special photography feature this month and The Photographers’ Gallery was in it. It also brushes on looking at photography and purchasing prints. Quite honestly, framing any understanding of photography by diametrically opposing the photosensitive aspects of dark room technology with that of digital is just worn out, and to suggest that a culture of purchasing prints is just never going to go anywhere in Japan is rash, too.
Right now, the Dark Room International is preparing for the pre-events of the Yokohama Photo Festival 2011, to be held again in January at the Red Brick Warehouse (Akarenga). We do plan to include programs that are conscious of “the photograph” itself and “routine work.”