Yep, you said something wrong to her

[stevecim]

I'm told by my medical friends, that the masks are supposed to stop "spit" from leaving your month. i.e the ones that have the cold should wear the mask, to slow down the spread of it. It's of little use to people who don't have a cold.

[bakubo]

Thanks for the info, David. Good stuff.

I am back in the States now and trying to get over the terrible jet lag (finally get to sleep about 4:00 AM). It is always worse flying east from Japan.

I'm told by my medical friends, that the masks are supposed to stop "spit" from leaving your month. i.e the ones that have the cold should wear the mask, to slow down the spread of it. It's of little use to people who don't have a cold.

I think the masks are ideally used by both sick people and people who hope not to get sick. Unfortunately, sick people seem to rarely wear masks according to Japanese friends -- who are often a bit peeved about that. I suppose the thinking by sick people who don't wear masks is that they have already caught a cold so a mask doesn't help them any longer -- not giving much consideration to other people around them though. At hospitals in Japan most of the workers there wear masks.

[Greg Beetham]

I can understand why those who have the flu don't wear a mask when you have to blow your nose every five minutes, plus the involuntary coughing, it'd be a menace to navigation. Probably the only solution is isolation, businesses should pay people who have it to stay home until they are well, if every business had to do it by law then there would be no unfair advantage to those who didn't do it. In any case it's debatable if it's an advantage to have sick people attending work anyway...coughing into phones, going into the toilet, lunch room touching surfaces that other people come into contact with etc.
Greg

[bakubo]

Greg, of course, it is clear that people who are sick with something that is contagious should stay home for the sake of their co-workers/classmates and themselves, but in Japan that doesn't happen much. The culture is that you go to work even when sick even though that is self-defeating and worse for the company than to have one employee out for a day or two.

Anyway, to get this back to a photo thread here are a couple more.

Singer performing and trying to sell her CDs on the sidewalk in Ikebukuro, Tokyo at night:



Self-portrait with unwitting accomplices in Shinjuku, Tokyo:

[Greg Beetham]

Busking on the street with an electric organ speakers and mike? I wonder where the power is coming from? ...something you don't see often that's for sure.
That girl passing behind as you shot has that 'watch out for the nutty gaijin' look on her face. Actually it turned out rather well I think, has that tenacious journo quality. Everyone in the photo seems to be in in black, or really dark clothes, except for you Henry...
Greg

[Dusty]

Henry, you look a little too thin in the picture. Have you not been getting enough food while traveling or are you just taking "Lean, Mean and Green" a bit too far?

Dusty

[bakubo]

Busking on the street with an electric organ speakers and mike? I wonder where the power is coming from? ...something you don't see often that's for sure.

I didn't notice where the power was coming from. Maybe a battery or a very quiet portable generator, I suppose. Not that uncommon in Tokyo though. Here's another woman in a different place on a different evening performing and selling CDs (her sign said it was her 5th CD):

That girl passing behind as you shot has that 'watch out for the nutty gaijin' look on her face. Actually it turned out rather well I think, has that tenacious journo quality. Everyone in the photo seems to be in in black, or really dark clothes, except for you Henry...

This was in an office building in Shinjuku that had some curved, mirror-like metal columns. I was having a bit of fun taking a few photos there. It was a workday so mostly people in business clothes. By the way, in this building up on the 28th floor there is the Nikon Salon. Of course, lots of Nikon products out on display, a service center, and also a couple of photo galleries. When I am in Shinjuku I stop by from time to time to see what the exhibitions are. Also, the Konica Minolta gallery (often a bit better) and the Epson gallery. Unfortunately, the Pentax gallery that I have visited for the last 20 years or so disappeared sometime ago. By the way, here is a late afternoon photo of Shinjuku Station from the big windows by the elevators outside the Nikon Salon:

[bakubo]

Henry, you look a little too thin in the picture. Have you not been getting enough food while traveling or are you just taking "Lean, Mean and Green" a bit too far?

I may look a bit too lean in that photo, but that is with my clothes on. Without clothes I look much more "healthy," I think.

[Greg Beetham]

That sounds fascinating Henry, the building with the galleries that is, they must be subsidised by the manufacturers to some extent I would imagine, (rent for floor space wouldn't be cheap there), it's a wonder that the Pentax one disappeared before the Konica Minolta one has, one would think it would be the other way round, if anything...what was the admittance charge? Any pix of the gallery area?
Greg

[bakubo]

That sounds fascinating Henry, the building with the galleries that is, they must be subsidised by the manufacturers to some extent I would imagine, (rent for floor space wouldn't be cheap there), it's a wonder that the Pentax one disappeared before the Konica Minolta one has, one would think it would be the other way round, if anything...what was the admittance charge? Any pix of the gallery area?

All of them are always free with new exhibitions every 2 weeks or so. The KM gallery is the largest with 3 rooms for separate exhibitions, but 2 of the rooms have a section of wall that separates them that can be opened to make one much larger room. Sometimes that is done so that one particularly large exhibition can be held there while the third room still has a normal sized exhibition. The Nikon gallery has 2 connected rooms and the total size is just a bit less than the KM place. The old Pentax gallery was one large room so only had one exhibition going at a time. The Epson gallery is also one room and in the same building as the old Pentax place, but across the corridor. For a few years they both were there and then about 3-4 years ago I stopped by and the Pentax gallery had disappeared. It may very well have just moved though. I haven't investigated. There is a Canon gallery in Ginza that I went to once, but that is inconvenient for me. The others are/were all in Shinjuku so it was easy to stop by any of them when I had a few spare minutes.

Although I first discovered them 20 years ago and have visited them countless times over the years, often with a camera with me, I have never thought to take a photo of them.

[Ewannawe]

I'm told by my medical friends, that the masks are supposed to stop "spit" from leaving your month. i.e the ones that have the cold should wear the mask, to slow down the spread of it. It's of little use to people who don't have a cold.

I'm quite sure, from a medical perspective, that this would be right. Someone with a cold reduces the chance of spreading germs by wearing such a mask. However, I'm quite convinced that the vast majority who wear one are hoping to avoid contamination.

At the risk of offending, and it is something I can do with almost monotonous regularity once I get started... I thought the lady in the first picture may have been saying 'Which way to the sperm bank, please?'

[bakubo]

At the risk of offending, and it is something I can do with almost monotonous regularity once I get started... I thought the lady in the first picture may have been saying 'Which way to the sperm bank, please?'

Doesn't offend me. Is she asking because you don't think she can find someone to donate and deposit it in the normal way? Although I caught her in this short moment with an amusing expression on her face that, at least to me, says a lot, she was an attractive young woman. I don't post stuff meant to be embarrassing to the subject (and I don't think these photos are embarrassing), but street photography means you will see and sometimes photograph people acting naturally. In public, especially when alone, in a city most of us sort of put a neutral expression on our face and walk, wait at crosswalks, etc. Sometimes a person shows their emotions on their face and/or body language. Occasionally, even a person alone will also. At the risk of sounding weird, I have from time to time realized while walking along I had a big smile on my face or even chuckling because I had suddenly thought of some funny incident, or something a friend had said, and so on.

From time to time I have noticed that I am the subject of someone's photography. I don't mind. Sometimes I pretend like I haven't noticed and try to continue acting naturally and sometimes I acknowledge them and indicate with body language that I don't mind. For example, I noticed this little girl in Cairo taking photos of me. While she was looking at one of her photos of me I took this photo:



After she looked up she saw that I saw her. I smiled and motioned that I wanted a photo of her too. Here is her big smile: