Hello. Here is Izumi talking to you.

But first I must tell you of something that is interesting that I learnt by looking at books of photographs on a rainy day. Everyone knows the famous photograph by M Cartier-Bresson of the man jumping puddle…

    and Jeff Carter also has a similar photograph. It is in a book he gave me of his photographs and he even said that he is like M Cartier-Bresson after taking it. I think before as well as after. Maybe I should call him Jeff Carter-Bresson but he is not here to hear me so perhaps I won’t as it makes me sad that he is not.

And because we had a week of raining and not very nice light, when it stops I decide to go to some streets that I have not searched on before. I have noticed that I am not getting many new photographs on streets that I know and I don’t want to be repeating of myself.

I know when I have several photographs of a particular scene that sometimes it is all that there is and on other times I want to come back in different light or time of day. But I only will do this a few times as I am afraid of taking the same photographs two or more times over and I say to myself that is not good.

I must go to green meadows where there are new pastures for my PEN and myself and we open our eyes to different things and see what is to be seen with fresh eyeballs and lenses.

My PEN and I are now like we say ‘uo to mizu’ (fish and water) and I think that when I use different lenses on our walks it is maybe like different sauces on the fish. When I have my exhibition I will have different little foods to eat in front of different looks or sections of photographs. Perhaps then I become a chefotographer? Please excuse me for my English if that is not very good.

But now that makes me think of English word-joke. When I am out hunting photographs and I look at the camera screen I see different settings he is thinking of using and I see the word RAW in the corner (because that is the best way of taking photographs for me) and I always think of a lion in Africa who also makes ROAR when he is out hunting like me.

I find out you call it a pun and I think that is also good because it is my PEN that is making this pun. Can there be double-pun?

I have muted the brightness in some of these photographs to see if I can get a different feeling in my emotions that is not the same as colour or black and white either. Sometimes when my PEN and I are looking at a scene and deciding if it has a photograph in it I think that perhaps there is one but not as we are seeing it in the reality of the day. When I get home I will see if Photoshop can make the photograph like what my mind was seeing on the street. Because I shoot all my photographs in RAW I am able to try out different thoughts like this.

Perhaps M Cartier-Bresson would not approve but I think he would as long as I am being true to the scene that was in front of us.

So on those thoughts I will end now.

Thank you for looking and seeing with me,

Izumi.