Neil Duckett

It’s not exactly a chore writing up this post each week … and the job is made even easier when guys like John Turningpin suggest J-Babes like Sayaka Ando, thanks JT.

Prior to today’s search through flickr i wasn’t familar with Sayaka Andos’ work, i must say i’m impressed and now officially a fan.

Born in 1981, makes me feel old just writing that, Sayaka is a former race queen from Gunma and takes over from last weeks winner Waka Inoue.

Congratulations Sayaka, you can now add “J-Babe Of The Week” to your long list of accomplishments.

This series gets better and better and Sayaka Ando has raised the bar, figuratively speaking.

Before coming to Japan i was never that keen a photographer, i hadn’t owned a digital camera when i was in Australia so the expense and effort in getting photos developed from traditional camera i had put me off.

Since moving here i’ve bought a few cameras with the current one being this Canon IXY Digital 2000 IS, and most recently i picked up a Sanyo Xacti HD 1010 video camera that shoots stills too. I try to take at least one of these with me everywhere i go, there’s usually one in the bag i take to work each day.

On the weekend however, especially at night, i usually rely on my iPhone to capture a few random photos, not the best quality but it does the job.

Any-hooo, with all these devices i manage to end up with quite a few pictures, some interesting some not so interesting, here’s a few i came across when freeing up some space.

I pass this cool fluffy black dog on my way to work most mornings.

Fireworks are readily available in supermarkets, this was at the last Hanabi Party i went too.

The title of the post says it all, for more information you can visit the official site here but it should be pretty self explanatory, if not here’s the skinny … people who write online in someway shape or form are encouraged to cover the same topic on the same day thus raising awareness.

At the end of the day there are several ways people can assist charities, the main ones being volunteering and cash. I’ve been too busy to volunteer in the past so about 7 years ago i chose the cash option and started sponsoring a young fella through World Vision. Once i did the maths and worked out how much money i was spending on grog and smokes each week it was a pretty easy decision for me to redirect a small amount of it to a worthwhile cause.

Young Ernie from Tanzania was 5 when i started sponsoring him and now he’s 12. I get 1 or 2 updates each year and usually 1 of them contains a photo. Unfortunately the photos from the early years are in storage in Australia, but here’s the latest.

Update: Apparently it’s against World Visions T&C’s so i had to give Ernie a little make-over.

I generally shy away from discussing topics like supporting charities, politics and most definitely religion because opinions are like assholes, we all have one.

Contrary to popular opinion, It’s not all rice and sushi in Japan and it’s not always super expensive either, some of the foods in Japan are pretty similar to what i would eat back home.

Take this place for example, レソトラン　ソルタナ (Restaurant Sultana?) i walk past it every day on my way home from the station, i’m in and out in less than 15 minutes and i even get to use a knife and fork to eat with.

Fried Chicken with potato salad, lettuce and cabbage for 550 yen.

I saw my first example of Tilt Shift Photography last week on Danny’s site and then the same day Paul bought it up on the way home from work.

Now i believe there’s a few different flavours to this “Tilt Shift” business but the ones that appeal to me the most are these tilt shift miniature fakes where a lifesize location or object is manipulated so that it looks like a photograph of a miniature scale model.

I did some sniffing about on flickr and came up with this great set of photos there’s a heap of great ones in there so check more of them out.

This one is students at Dokkyo University.

Some roof tops in Saitama.