SIDELINES / rio helmi

It’s clear that George (I discovered it’s actually Joji-san!) is something of a guru for Japanese photo buffs. Today he ran a workshop for local amateurs, and his soft spoken fatherly manner comes across to me like therapy session leader. He has everyone talk about their personal feelings etc about things. Amongst the adults [...]

Yesterday was the the big day for the festival. It started off with my co-exhibitor, George Hashiguchi, and I being interviewed for local tv at our exhibition. George is a soft spoken die hard documentarian who has spent years doing portraits around the world. He has done a huge series on Japanese teenagers, including portraits [...]

So today I go out with Dokyu-san, a banker who has lived 30 years abroad from his native Miyazaki, including seven years in Indonesia, but has come home to look after his parents and actualy wants to live here too. He’d like to give something back to his hometown, and he is active in JICA [...]

Yesterday Terasaka-san, a furniture maker who volunteers for the festival, took me around to see some spectacular nature, and some ancient sites including burial mounds from ancient times and other things. This side shrine at a Shinto temple caught my eye. It really took me back to Bali:

on the way we also passed some tea [...]

Well here I am, post monsoon Bali, early monsoon Thailand – and the rainy season hit Miyazaki today. urgh. But now I know why they have umbrella locks in this town – felt like grabbing an umbrella myself!!!
the view from my window this morning (29th):

How does a town (ok they call it a city) of 300,000 get to have such a big museum and art centre? Apparently the previous governor (or whatever the title is) had a thing for the arts, so they have this amazing facility with, in amongst their permanent collection a Picasso, a couple of Magrittes, [...]

4 seats to myself on the flight (the little triumphs of life) isn’t quite enough to make this post midnight thing into a great flight – but it beats sitting up squashed in old style economy. Fukuoka airport is pretty efficient, and though immigration had the same usual repertoire of Q’s the guy was pretty [...]

So many people think that to travel constantly for work is glamorous. Yep, all those security checkpoints, the moving goalposts of international safety, the crazy taxi drivers, and in Bangkok all the exercise getting to the waiting lounge.
Not to mention that the sponsors of my exhibition in Miyazaki have informed me that they are picking [...]

On the 26th of May I am scheduled to land in Fukuoka, then on to Miyazaki, a small town which has an annual documentary photo festival. I have been invited exhibit there and give some talks. They have chosen s series about Balinese ceremonies etc, and though mosty black and white I am also showing [...]

One day a friend of mine, David Trevelyan, showed me some simple oil painting techniques which I applied to some photographs I had printed on canvas. It was a big buzz for me, years ago I had tried my hand at painting but turned to photography instead. So far I have done about 12 canvases, [...]