Hello, it is Izumi here and I must tell you that I am having a small unhappiness with photographing in the streets.

I am finding this camera without the viewfinder very difficult. Izumi likes her eye to be selecting the image from the scene in front of her by holding the camera up to her face so she can be discussing with it the photograph to come, but looking at a little television on the back of the camera and holding it out with her arms is not getting exactly the framing to her liking. Many Decisive Moments are eluding their capture, I am thinking. Also, what is coming from the card to the computer for post-production is not what my head said was the photograph that was taken.

I am very careful that it is not any lack of cleverness from me that makes me think like this so I talk to people about it and they say that I must practice with the camera to be speedy almost without thought and I do this but sometimes the camera is as fast as it can be but is still too slow. Sometimes I think my old Sakura is better, but then I think perhaps not. I am just having cherry-blossom memories because this frustration.

But I must have fairness as the camera that I am using should not be blamed so much since I am using him for purposes that he is not really born for. I think he is  really waiting for warmer weather so he can be underwater with koi fishes and everyone can be happy with him then because he makes very happy photographs of the kois. 

And some people when they look at my photographs, even ones that are not the most happy for me, say things that make me happy to be talking more photographs and keep looking for that Moment that I talk to you about before in my writings.

But they see only the ones that are photographs that are good - they do not know what Izumi knows of the ones that should be there but are not. I wonder if M Cartier-Bresson had a name for Moments that escape?

But this is not to stop me still getting up for the early morning light and going out to see what is there. Sometimes I feel like an olden-days explorer who is wondering what is over the next mountain, but for me it is only the next corner.

If Mr Columbus had decided to stay in bed and not go sailing maybe America would not be discovered. Or if Mr Cook had wanted to have another piece of toast with Mrs Cook and not look for Venus then I would not have Australia to visit and live in and become excited about finding more Decisive Moments to add to the ones already discovered by M Cartier-Bresson and others and write about my happiness and problems for you to read about with me. My country is different because it is very old and, always being there, was not needing to be discovered like New World or Down Under places.

Winter is now going back to his hibernation and I find that the early morning, which is when I like the light best for my photographs, is becoming earlier and earlier. As you can see from my photographs here the streets that are my hunting ground have shops and footpaths on both sides so I have to be in them when the sun comes up over one side and shines into the windows of the other side making the deep shadows that I like. And I only have until the sun climbs higher and the awnings then block his rays from the windows. I am like the lioness who can’t have a sleep-in because then the wildebeest will be gone when she goes out to look for her breakfast.

Perhaps I can call this Decisive Light.

Here above is a photograph that makes me happy and is full of the light and shadow that I like. Sometimes I find more than one photograph at the same place and here is another one below that makes me happy too.

Despite what I say before about the camera these photographs turn out very happily but I do think it is time to look for a camera that M Cartier-Bresson would be advising me to use if he and I could talk about such things when we have our coffee in the mornings at the street café.

And I would like to have coffee with him from these red cups. It reminds me a little bit of the naughtiness that people say is in Paris.

Perhaps I will say hints about a present for my birthday, then.

And I also must look at a book that David bought for me all about M Cartier-Bresson and how he was taking the photographs that he did. It is from a big exhibition of his works at the Museum of Modern Art in New York this year.

How I would love to see such an exhibition and also to be in the streets of New York with a camera that is good for such photographs. I think Izumi would be like the city itself and never sleep!

Now I can go and have a cup of tea. Thank you for being with me,

Izumi.