Daruma Fair

Jensen Walker January 4, 2013

The Japanese New Years Break ended and with it the throngs of people pouring through temple grounds. However, before it ended I made a visit to the local Haijima Daruma Fair. I have noticed Daruma dolls, also known as Dharma dolls, at temples and even gifted one but this visit brought more understanding about the doll and its cultural significance. The doll is a papier-mache hollow figure modeled after the "Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen sect of Buddhism." The dolls are typically a red painted bearded man (Dharma) but vary in their price, color, and even actual hair or facial expression details. I always believed the doll was a toy but had it explained to me in a greater detail at the fair.

The dolls is purchased blind if you will, meaning there are no irises painted on the eyes. They Daruma are considered a powerful talisman for good luck and used to encourage this luck throughout the year. First, you craft a wish or goal followed by painting the first iris on the eye. Once your goal or promise is achieved you may then complete the Daruma and paint in his other eye. The larger the Daruma the more important, powerful or difficult the goal and vice a versa. At the end of the year people bring their completed dolls to the temple grounds to burn them and to purchase the new luck for their goal or resolution.

I know many people who love making to-do lists and feel great satisfaction crossing items of the list once accomplished. I even know people who write achievements on the list they already finished for the sheer satisfaction of crossing it off. If I am honest, I am both of those people. The dolls were not my goals nor my wishes going into the fire but there was something much more visceral and symbolic than my extra lines crossed through a to-do list. I like the idea of a physical manifestation of your goals to keep you visually accountable to your intentions. As a result, I picked up a Daruma for myself and already gave him a wink for this year. I will be planning my own bonfire this time next year on a Dolomite camping trip perhaps heres to him going up in flames.

If your interested in creating your own conflagration of achievement I know my buddy at Unique Japan can ship the dolls worldwide.

Jesus in Japan

Jensen Walker December 30, 2012

Christmas is over but hot on its heals is a Jesus story in the new copy of the Smithsonian magazine. Inside the January issue is an article accompanied by a couple of my images from a story they sent me on during the summer. This gig was hands down the strangest matsuri (festival) I have attended in Japan. The Christo Matsuri is a celebration upon the alleged burial ground of Jesus Christ. As folklore would have it Jesus of Nazareth settled in the north of Japan with a wife and three kids as a garlic farmer and died at the age of 106. The entirety of the convoluted lore is a humorous read and I wont try to convey it here, grab a copy of the magazine.

The early morning festival itself lasted all of an hour beginning with what appeared to be community awards and culminating in a group of female dancers doing traditional dance around the burial site. After the official ceremony people mill around for snacks and a visit to the one room museum on site and then it is over. As quickly as everyone arrives they pack it up and head down the hill until next year. While the festivities did not yield powerful imagery I thought I would share out of the sheer respect for the kitsch of it all.

Made in America - Crashed upon Globally

Jensen Walker December 9, 2012

I am currently working on a set of personal/campaign images for Organic Crash Pads and was lucky enough to spend yesterday working with the wonderful and powerful Akiyo Noguchi (2009, 2010 Bouldering World Cup overall champion. Second overall in 2011, and again in 2012.)

Akiyo-chan drove over two hours from Yokohama to meet us in Shirotai, she spent almost two hours getting into makeup and then proceded to pose while hanging on a V7-8 as if it were a ladder. As photographers we are all gifted our career by those who are willing to stand in front of our cameras but yesterday I was humbled watching Akiyo work to create our images. O-sama, domo arigato gozaimasu.

Other people who must be thanked are my wonderful makeup artist/wife and friend Nobu-san for allowing us into his gym to do makeup before heading into the mountains. Incidentally, Nobu is also part of this project.

One of my favorite memories from the day came at the end, when we returned to the gym to remove makeup. Our 9 year old climbing friend Nana was there and when she realized who was coming in you could see here through the door jumping up and down as if Christmas arrived early (that is probably not a culturally appropriate analogy but lets roll with it), truly adorable to watch her giddiness around her idol. Akiyo was lovely and gracious signing her chalk bag and posing for pictures, class act.

More shoots to come and Obe-san as soon as your new pad arrives your next! For now, here are some more images from our amazing day in Shirotai with Akiyo-chan.

On the cusp of a typhoon

Jensen Walker October 1, 2012

Yesterday I woke up at 2 am to head to Chiba Prefecture on a surfing trip with a couple friends. With an incoming typhoon last night we were intent on catching some big waves depending on the trajectory of the storm. The two guys I went with are long time Japanese surfers. I have attempted to ride the waves a handful of times but I figured what the hell. Turned out the waves were not fantastic and the water was crowded but the weather was sublime and floating in the sun and water for what will most likely be the last window of the year made it all worth it. I can now say I have surfed in Japan and add the trip to the list of Nihon adventures.

Maid to Matriarch

Jensen Walker May 23, 2012

It took five years, four countries, three dark naked nights alone in the jungle, two illegal border crossings, and one short life of savings squandered. It was a crossing through hell to get to this point. Through that passage she never abandoned her dream for a better life, never dropped the hope for her child.

Her salvation and ultimate damnation lay in the care of a different family though. She cleaned their home and helped raise their children. From sunrise to sundown, she mothered children not of her own loin and cleaned the clothes of a husband she did not lay beside. It was a separate life lived in the service of others and, yet, never a part of them. However, at night in her servants’ quarter, while writing letters home she never complained. In a safe house making good money she was able to send all her earnings home, and she prayed it actually went to her daughter’s education and not her drug-addicted brother. She was not what you would call happy, but she was content, knowing she was doing the right thing for her family. This is how she lived her life for several years, until the car accident.

The carnage occurred on the last day of a weeklong Christmas vacation to Goa, India. It was the exotic pilgrimage the wife had dreamed of since her college days, and they were finally hitting the beaches in style, rather than as penniless, backpacking ravers. From the few calls home to check on the kids, she gathered they were having a great time, a “second honeymoon” the wife said.

Then they did not come home on their scheduled flight. Two days went by, then two weeks and finally she received word the wife was in a country hospital and they were doing everything they could. “Please tell the kids we will be home soon” were the only instructions she was given over the phone. It turned out, on the way to the airport the wife decided she wanted one last adventure on the back of a motorcycle taxi. The husband rode with the luggage. The shrieks of joy and excitement on the back of the bike pushed the driver to further and further levels of danger and excitement, until he finally made a wrong cut behind a bus into a head on collision with a semi-truck. The wife never made a return flight.

It was possible the natural transition as caregiver and homemaker brought about the change, or maybe it was the crushing loneliness when the house was quiet, but whatever the impetus, after a year the husband asked for her hand in marriage. To her it seemed more of a service than a commitment, something included with the job description and so she acquiesced. Initially the changes were subtle, even quiet after living together for so many years. Her long solitude made intimacy to some degree welcome, if not altogether awkward, but it was the access to wealth and a new tier of society, for which she was unprepared.

During her first few years of marriage she was like a little girl who dressed in her mother’s shoes and finest jewelry, living out the fantasy of adulthood. She slowly moved her meager personal items into the master bedroom and for a while even spent money lavishly, as an experiment rather than a form of self-indulgence. Then while standing, ironing the shirt of the man she was now married to, she realized the only thing that changed in her life was the access to the 30 year-old scotch.

For years she raised the heirs and cleaned the modern-day castle. Ultimately through tragedy, she had even usurped the throne, but to what benefit and to what end? She was the matriarch of a kingdom, but one where she had forsaken her past, leaving her standing alone and different. It was at this point, when a sudden sense of entitlement and the inspiration for something darker crept into her heart.

These images are from a shoot we did last week in Singapore. As usual I can't help but to embellish with a little narrative. All imagination aside though we could not have accomplished the shoot without the help of some wonderful people. Thank you dearly to Ana Boutique for lending us the clothing, you are so gracious with us. I swear one day soon we will get to do a full day blow out with her clothing and it will be amazing. Thank so you also to our MUA Yvonne Ng and our model Nina Lopez, looking forward to working with you both soon. Finally and as always thank you to Charmian Grove and Orientography with much love.

Pink on the Wind

Jensen Walker April 20, 2012

It is always with a mixture of melancholy and spring anticipation that I watch the pink succumb to the wind and yet the Sakura have all but dropped. We never did get to throw our own Hanami party this year but I thought I would share a few images from a short evening I spent last week in Ueno park prior to its soggy rain out. Regardless of the rain I had a wonderful evening and I would like to say thank you to everyone who invited me onto their tarps, fed me and kept the beer and sake flowing.

7,000,000,000

Jensen Walker November 7, 2011

While the world marveled last week on its new population of 7 billion people I decided I needed a way to illustrate our new vastness. This quoted text from Wikipedia seemed like a good place to start.

"The Greater Tokyo Area is a large metropolitan area in Kantō region, Japan, consisting of most of the prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Tokyo (at the center). A 2007 UN estimate puts the population at 35,676,000,[4] " (The current number 37,730,064.) "making it the world's most populous metropolitan area by far. It covers an area of approximately 13,500 km² (5,200 mi²),[5] giving it a population density of 2,642 person/km² - which is somewhat more than twice the population density of Bangladesh. It is the second largest single metropolitan area in the world in terms of built-up or urban function landmass at 7,800 km² (3,000 mi²).[6]"

Japan is approximately the size of California in land mass but still manages #10 on the most populated countries list and Tokyo's population is close to the entire population of the Roman Empire (AD 300-400). It will be interesting to watch how the world adapts to the new space, agricultural, and industrial challenges of a planet hosting this level of human diaspora. The following aerials attempt to illustrate the sheer sprawl that is greater Tokyo. From the air I could view the population horizon in a manner impossible from the tight-knit street level of the city. I scheduled a future dawn flight, even though my pilot informed me the city has yet to return to its full force illumination in the wake of last years tsunami and subsequent power shortages. For now this hazy mid-day flight was an amazing glimpse at the worlds largest city and possible a sign of things to come.