This time I've set my alarm clock to 8am...
And ... I woke up at 12am, hearing the cleaning team working outside my capsule. "Housekeeping, housekeeping ...." A cleaner is singing.
It's seem that here in Okinawa everything is related to music.
Every morning there is a very organise team cleaning and changing the sheets of every cabins/capsules. We are suppose to be out by 10am to let them work peacefully... Well, I'll try again tomorrow...
The jetlag is there and it was really difficult to sleep last night. I've forgot that sometime it can be noisy, people going in and out all night despite the tiny thin curtain you can hear everything...it remembered me to buy some earplugs...
Today, I went to see the Ocean ... That's what I thought...
On my way to the Ocean I cross a fabulous small garden with some really nice intricate trees... Some old peoples were playing tennis, some cats were taking a break... A cat break ...
Then I arrived to what I thought was the Ocean, the blue part on google map I was aiming for! You know... Well that was more a highway to the Ocean... A lot of highways indeed...
But from far I could see a rock, a big rock and on this big rock, something looking like a shrine!
When I arrived there I found a small beach, under the highway bridge, few peoples having fun swimming in the water and playing volleyball.
I finally made it to the shrine after taking few staircases. When I enter it, not much tourists.
A couple was waiting on the side. After few minutes a priest came with some encens and start to pray with them.
He's holding a bell and sometime he's ringing it.
And again, and again, faster and faster, like a crescendo.
He started to sing and pray and ring the bell again...
Time is suspended, I'm thinking for whom is this prayer ? A son, a daughter ? A father, a mother...
After maybe 10 minutes the bell is not ringing anymore, the priest is quiet...
Time is back to normal.
A day like that, under the sun, walking around, there is always something to look at. I really enjoy looking at people daily life and taking pictures.
It's been almost a year that I'm not taking that much pictures of peoples. I did some nice polaroid experiments but my Fuji XE-2 was on the shelf lonely.
Today I took few shots, slowly trying to tame my 35mm and my eyes again. I really like this focale because you need to be in the action and you need to be close to your subject, to interact and take some risk in a way. Taming the wild animal. This year was a year of reading and I red some interviews about photography with Cartier-Bresson, he was saying something like :
"It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera... they are made with the eye, heart and head."
Yes that is true, for me there is always a story I can remember behind a photography I take. This is the moment and the now. Im not saying it's always a good story. But this moment is one shot, one clic, one story.
I ended up my day walking around in the center of the town, this is alway a special time when the sun start to go to sleep, the sky is becoming pink, the road is crowded of people looking for a place to eat.
You're wondering what this man is doing on this video.... No kidding, me too! I'll find out soon by testing these yummy cookies.
On my way back to my hotel, I found this nice and friendly restaurant. I have to say indeed that they found me haha! Most of the restaurant have a Japenese menu so it's always hard to know what will be serve, but walking by this one a friendly waiter invite me to have a look to an English menu version. A beer, some chicken and this very nice rice/eggs/pork/tofu, that was a delicious diner, eating in front of the cook at the bar doing giants flames while grilling some chicken!
