Alright, time for another travel update.
Osaka was our second stop on this trip. We went there because Thomas was curious about the culture and because I thought there might be some interesting photographic possibilities there. Since we’d spent a decent amount of time in Tokyo on both this trip and the last, we decided to branch out a little more and spend two weeks in Osaka.
Unfortunately, our initial impressions were lackluster. One of our first stops was Dotonbori, which is a famous tourist spot. Admittedly, I’m not too fond of touristy areas, but sometimes I can see why people are drawn to a place. In this case, not so much. There were some lights, some food, and some bars. But the aesthetic didn’t inspire me in the photo department. Thomas wasn’t into it either. So, we only spent a little bit of time there.
The Yakitori Chef
A few days later, we went to a restaurant to try Yakitori (a food Osaka is known for) and had a… questionable time. One of the customers there helped us translate the menu, which was so nice of him, but after that, things mostly went downhill.
Once our order was done, the gentleman who helped us left, and the chef took over. Our first order of chicken was pretty much just flashed on the grill; it was almost entirely raw in the middle. However, from my VERY limited understanding of Japanese food culture, I thought it would be impolite to send it back or not eat it. So, Thomas and I looked at each other, made strange faces, and ate it. The next round was chicken heart. It was actually cooked that time, but the texture was awful. This was when we discovered that the chef had been watching us intently as we ate—while we made weird faces and tried to get the food down.
We spent the next 30 minutes mostly suffering through the rest of the dishes. During this process, the chef kept coming back to our table asking us if we liked it (using Google Translate.) We didn’t, but we kept saying it was great so as not to be rude. He didn’t believe us, so he kept checking. At one point, he typed something in Japanese into his phone, and it translated to English as, “Am I in your mouth?” Thomas read it and just laughed, kind of at him, but not on purpose. I just… sat there—lost. It was so awkward. Pretty sure that chef went home very angry or very depressed. We felt so bad.
Eventually, we paid and left. At this point, I thought perhaps Osaka just wasn’t for me.
Ups and Downs
As often happens while traveling, though, things turned around.
We braved another restaurant, an izakia-style place (where you eat at a small bar in front of the chefs.) This establishment was run by an older couple. They didn’t speak a word of English, but they were so cheery, receptive, and helpful. We used what little Japanese we had and enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Another great encounter happened during our visit to Osaka castle. An older gentleman stopped to ask if a glove he had found on the ground was mine. It wasn’t, but then he started asking us all kinds of questions about where we were from and what we were doing in Japan. It was very endearing, and he seemed genuinely curious about our lives, California, the US, etc… This was the first stranger that had ever struck up a conversation with us in Japan. We finished that evening at yet another izakia restaurant, where the nicest of families greeted us warmly, talked to us extensively through Google translate, and served us multiple dishes of free food on top of our meal.
So even though things started pretty cold, and I probably woudn’t return to Osaka for the photography, the people really sold it. I won’t tell all the stories here, but the kindness and friendliness of strangers were really apparent in our time there, and it left us with an even greater appreciation for the Japanese.
While in Osaka, we also picked up our Japan Rail Passes, which allow unlimited free transport by train (not all trains.) So, we put those to use immediately by just getting on random trains into the countryside and riding them till the end—just seeing where we ended up. The looks we got while wandering around some of the smaller towns were priceless. This was also our first chance to be in a forest or to stand in a field in Japan. Both of which were bucket list items for me (I know I’m weird).
Osaka also had a pretty neat aquarium with Japanese Spider Crabs in it. These things are insanely large and scary looking. Totally worth the price of admission.
There were some missteps, for sure. We got yelled at for accidentally taking photos in a red-light district. I completely failed at navigating the trains one day and turned a three-hour trip into an eight-hour one. But overall, we very much enjoyed ourselves here.
Nara Deer
On our final day, we went to Nara. In the park, thousands of wild deer live in close proximity to humans. Over time, they have become somewhat domesticated but are still free to roam and go where they please. You can visit the area and buy deer crackers/cookies to feed them as you wander around the park. This is an entire story and experience unto itself, so I’ll save that for a video, but it was both endearing and hilarious: Thomas got head butted and bitten multiple times as some of the more bold deer pursued his tasty cookies, and at one point I just threw the rest of my crackers on the ground and ran away. We also met a tiny deer who I named Brunhilda; she followed us around for 45 minutes—long after we ran out of food.
Kanazawa is next. We’ve never been to the other side of Japan, so hoping to have some more interesting experiences there.
With week one of our Japan trip in the books it’s time for quick a report.
After a short, 10 day trip in 2019, I really fell in love with Japan. However, COVID and lockdowns began very shortly after we finished that trip, and I’ve spent the last three years wondering if my enthusiasm for the country was real, or if perhaps I was just nostalgic over the memory of traveling. I’m happy to report that my excitement for being here returned almost instantly. That’s good, since I’m here with my friend Thomas for over a month this time.
What I did not remember accurately from last time, was the reality of flying for 12 hours. Maybe I’m just getting older now, but my body always lands very unhappy after a long flight.
Once through immigration though, I managed to wake up a bit and enjoy the train ride into Tokyo.
4am Walks
The next few days were a blur of jet lag nausea, convenience store food, and sleep. However, those cycles were punctuated by one of my favorite things to do here: walk. And, since my body couldn’t figure out when I was supposed to be awake or asleep, most of those walks happened between 3am and 6am.
There’s nothing quite like strolling through the peaceful alleys of the otherwise bustling city of Tokyo. But doing so in the very early morning hours is even more special, as you feel like you have the whole city of 14 million to yourself.
On one such walk, I found this great shot of the Skytree that I wanted to take in better light. I went there for sunrise three times and never got the pink, puffy clouds I was looking for. Also, it was taken from a steel bridge that sags and shakes when you walk across it. Thomas found a sign posted on it and translated it from Japanese. Apparently it said the bridge is scheduled for demolition. Safety be damned though. I’m back in Tokyo in a few weeks and I’m going to try and get that photograph again.
As our bodies adjusted to the new timezone, we spent more time walking during the day and watching Japanese television during the night, which is it’s own special kind of entertainment. See below.
If you’re thinking that the above character’s face looks a little bit like a butt, your eyes do not decieve you. The show is, “Butt Detective”. Or maybe “Detective Butt”. Not sure. Doesn’t matter.
Yodobashi Camera, Parks, and Sumo
Other highlights from our week in Tokyo include a tour of Yodobashi Camera, which, is basically just a seven floor electronics store covered in text. And I do mean covered. They sell other stuff as well, I bought beer there.
Per our tradition, we walked a number of parks, which are always beautiful and well-manicured.
Lastly, we bought tickets to some sumo wrestling. And while I didn’t know what to expect going into it, it was super interesting, and I had a fantastic time. Unfortunately, I don’t have a good way to describe what it was like, I think it’s the sort of thing you just need to experience.
City Lights & Sky Meat
On our second to last evening, I wanted to find some good raised views of the city, so I did some research and convinced Thomas to wander around with me taking elevators to the tops of buildings. This turned out to be a really interesting decision as we found a cool place to see the city lights. Conveniently, there were also a number of fancy restaurants on the top floor of the building, so we decided to be brave and try one out. (Neither Thomas or I speak that much Japanese. Thomas speaks the most).
After Thomas asked the host if our clothing was appropriate for the restaurant, we were seated, only to find that this was a Japanese BBQ place. We did not know this. It was also $60USD an entree. Oh well, too late.
The menu was strange and felt quite limited. We couldn’t really figure out what to order, so we guessed at some stuff when our waiter showed up. Our first attempted order included a lot of pointing, guessing, and pretty large plate of cow tounge. Lucky for us, our waiter switched to English in pretty short order, pulled out the REAL menu from the stand on the table (which we somehow did not see), and told us we probably didn’t want the cow tounge; He then instructed us to try again. It was pretty funny.
We ended up with some wagu beef, pork and other assorted meats I can’t remember. I had a few glasses of wine and enjoyed the food and the view. This ended up being one of the highlights in the city, so I’m glad we tried it.
Onward to Osaka
We’re in Osaka for two weeks now, so we’ll see what comes of that experience. Thanks for reading!
Artificial Intelligence and AI Art generators have inundated my internet news feeds as of late. And now that I have spent some time experimenting with these new AI art generation tools, I am beginning to understand what all the fuss is about.
So, this article will be a brief summary of what I have found, what kind of an impact I think AI art generators are going to have on both photography and other kinds of art, as well as some predictions about the immediate future.
Before we get into it, I’d like to mention that all of the images in this post were generated by artificial intelligence using the DALLE-2 generator.
First Impressions
If I’m honest, my first experiments with AI and visual art were pretty bad. I couldn’t seem to describe/create anything that looked real, interesting, compelling, artistic, etc… Within an hour, I had pretty much dismissed the entire concept. However, after seeing–yet more articles–on the topic, I decided to give it a second go. Slowly, as I dove deeper, I began to see what all the hype was about.
While these tools do struggle to create life-like imagery (in many cases, the details give it away quickly), I think that that particular aspect of the AI will improve rather quickly.
Currently, where AI art shines is with slightly more abstract concepts.
With a little practice, interesting double exposures, explosion or mashup-looking imagery, landscape pieces, as well as architectural art can be generated pretty consistently. The resolution might not be there yet, as these images are still only 1 Megapixel in size, but that will come with time.
The Moment My Mind Changed
The breakthrough moment for me, though, was during the creation of my recent YouTube video on AI art.
Typically, when I finish a video, I upload it and then begin working on the thumbnail image if I don’t already have one (which I did not in this case). In my mind, I had an elaborate photo I was going to take in my apartment, but setting up the lights and taking the photo was probably going to take me an entire evening. I decided since this was–after all–a video on AI imagery, I might as well see if I could use the AI to generate a thumbnail for the video. So, I set myself to that task.
After about 20 minutes of trial and error (instead of an entire evening), I had my thumbnail.
Mind. Blown.
Sure, it has its’ problems. It doesn’t look quite like a REAL image. However, I also could not have created anything like this in my apartment.
The landlord strictly forbids explosions.
Conclusion
I think the story above sums up the entire point perfectly.
These tools are going to save people countless hours, reduce the cost of imagery, and pretty much change the entire landscape of photography and all visual arts. I don’t know when it will happen or to what extent exactly, but I think the writing is on the wall.
Some of this will be great, awesome, useful, and fun. Some of it will be sad, unethical, controversial, and will result in the loss of jobs.
Naturally, as someone who loves photography dearly, I have mixed feelings about this prospect. With that said, I am also someone who takes a great interest in technology. So, at this point, I am excited about the prospect of integrating AI into my creative work over time.
We shall see.
