Inspired...

On Friday we only had one casting in the late afternoon so I made use of my day and walked over to Yebisu Garden Place, about a 20 min walk from the apartment. There's shops, cafes, and a garden area I didn't even make it to (gonna have to make a 2nd trip). But what I did see, a priority on my list, was the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. I bought tickets to see the two exhibits they have going on, for a student price (one of the only perks of going to Miami-Dade), but the experience itself was priceless. It was so refreshing to have the alone time to get in touch with my thoughts, be meditative, deliberative, and completely conscious of my surroundings.

The first exhibit had photographs by a Japanese photographer who unfortunately had just passed away in February. His were mostly landscape-type photos of New York City and Japan in the 1970s as well as some recent works from Japan. Some of them were very interesting with the effects and perspectives, giving you a new way to look at things. Others were some-what ordinary and made me think to myself about how I could produce something just as "good" if not better. It really is all in the eye of the beholder. I am adding to my Goals in Life to have a gallery of my photographs someday.

The second exhibit was more people-focused and had portraits of people from NYC, Japan, and the USSR in the 60s-70s-80s. They depicted times of disturbance and liberation. Some showed the Japanese in a new light to me- drinking and being sexy and vulgar as it was a time right after a revolution. The NYC pictures were also very in-your-face with most subjects being of the nightlife: women in vulgar poses, transvestites, homosexuals, and the poor. I'm pretty sure I saw one of Mick Jagger too though. The USSR portraits were more somber, serious, and demonstrative of the political and social unrest that was occuring at the time.

All in all, it left me in a pensive mood and further inspired me to continue using photography as my artistic outlet- as a means of documentation of my journeys as well as to show the beauty as I see it in this world. Below is a large, blown-up photo outside the museum that struck me as a moment in time captured perfectly. It's so large that you get lost in it's romantic essence and feel almost transported there among the crowd.