Index
To start off the project, a recap of seven of my favorite photos from the first 91 Days project, which ran from July through September, 2005.
5 July 2005 - “Bird on a Wire” - Music seeps into everything I do; with photography, it’s a two-way street: sometimes I come upon a scene and a correlating song pops into my head. Other times, it’s only after reviewing the photo that I think of a song to pair it with. The songs of Leonard Cohen are never far from mind and when I saw this, well, it just seemed to fit.
30 July 2005 - “Down In a Hole” - Tokyo’s trains and subways are endlessly fascinating to me. They are equal parts convenient transportation and nightmarish labyrinth. I don’t think I’ll ever figure them out completely.
31 July 2005 - “Passenger” - If the trains are the most ever-present part of Japanese urban life, then the rice fields are the rural equivalent. They are so empty and isolated, and yet every once in a while something or someone pops up to remind you that life is happening everywhere all the time.
11 August 2005 - “Dreaming Pachinko” - I don’t know how to play Pachinko and I’ve never bothered going inside one of the ubiquitous pachinko parlors. If I’m being very honest, most of the time they irritate me as their signs are so bright they cause a hazard when driving at night. But the signs are fun.
13 August 2005 - “Drinking Alone” - One of the things that gets left out of the tourist brochures is that Japan loves its insects. Kids catch them and raise them, every summer there’s a cacophony from the woods as the little boys and girls go chasing down the beetles. Personally, I like the dragonflies just a bit more than the beetles.
25 August 2005 - “Moving Day” - I grew up in the desert. Trees are still somewhat alien to me, much less trees in such numbers that they need to be sorted and stacked to await pick up. Driving by the lumber yard still fascinates me.
1 September 2005 - “Trifold” - During my old commute, this one spot captured my attention because of the way it would change throughout the year. Not so much the colors as much as the way it becomes a completely barren scene in winter - no rice in the ground, no leaves on the trees, a lowered sky - only to surge back throughout the spring until it is returned to full life by late summer.
