Two Photographers

I like photography, but I’m a bad practitioner. I deal in lazy snapshots, never taking the time to really see what’s happening in the frame before I start shooting dozens of images on full-auto, hoping the law of averages will come to my aid. Fortunately, there are other people who take the images I wish I’d taken, and put them online. This is a quick post to share two Japan-based photographers whose work I like.

The first is a guy I’ve never met. His name is Jim O’Connell, and he lives in Tokyo. His website, wirefarm.com, has been listed on my sidebar since I started this blog. I found his site years ago, and it’s changed format several times, but the photography is what matters and it’s really good. He shoots almost exclusively in black and white, using an assortment of equipment that includes a fair number of cameras other people would write off as hopelessly obsolete. The current incarnation of wirefarm has a good collection of his work, and if you go to Flickr and type his name into search you’ll find a real treasure trove. I especially like some of his quieter portraits of those odd hours that are neither morning nor night, but pure bartime, like this one.


The second photographer works at the far opposite end of the aesthetic spectrum, excelling in full-color nature photography, especially close shots of animals and insects, though some of his landscapes are great too. His name is Michael Helbig, and he lives and works here in Hiroshima, though he’s recently married and will be moving back home to Perth soon. He shares and sells his photographs here, on smugmug.com. Living in a mid-size Japanese city, it’s good to be shown the small scenes of natural life that Mike shoots, like this image of rabbit tracks on a winter hillside.


Anyway, if you’ve got time to kill (and clearly you do), both of these guys offer a better return on that time than anything I’ll say this week. Begone.