31 October 2006
28 October 2006
Japanese-American Veteran Pics
Shot and edited the newest batch of pics below yesterday afternoon.
They depict a Japanese-American veteran of the Second World War on his way home after being demobilised in late 1945.
Out of the various sorts of American veterans coming home from World War Two in late 1945-early 1946, perhaps the Japanese-American veterans, who, along with their families, had been interned and otherwise displaced(except for the Hawaiian vets and their kin, who were too large in number for the American government to intern)from their homes along the Pacific Coast and in the interior of the American West during the war, came the closest in experience, especially in the uncertainity of what they would find when they returned home, to those faced by many European and Asian World War Two veterans.
In many cases, returning internees and veterans were met with various forms of hostility by their neighbours, of all backgrounds, some of whom had profited by their deportation and seizure or forced sale of their properties, and some were even beaten and killed by those same neighbours.
Others were able to re-settle into their old homes, or start new ones elsewhere.
But, the trauma of being interned, forced to take sides or be deported to Japan, the hardships of life in the internment camps, and, for those who fought, the experience of combat, took their tolls on many in the Japanese-American community.
It wouldn't be until nearly 30 years after the deportations happened that the American government and public would begin to acknowledge the deportations and why they were made, and it would be over 40 years until the former officially apologised to those who'd been deported and compensated them for their losses.
In the meantime, the pressure within the Japanese-American community not to speak of, or acknowledge in any way, what had happened to it was intensely strong, and, if anything, the Americanisation process, already well underway amongst the Nisei(second-generation Japanese Americans), when the deportations took place, was intensified to an even greater degree by in the mid-1940s through early 1960s.
It's only been with the emergence of the Sansei(Third-Generation Japanese Americans), Yonsei(Fourth Generation) and Gosei(Fifth Generation) generations within the Japanese-American community that some sort of balance between that community's Japanese and American identities has begun to appear.
It needn't have happened, Folks, but it did, just as it did with the German-American community during the First World War, and more's the pity.
Hope you like the pics.
They depict a Japanese-American veteran of the Second World War on his way home after being demobilised in late 1945.
Out of the various sorts of American veterans coming home from World War Two in late 1945-early 1946, perhaps the Japanese-American veterans, who, along with their families, had been interned and otherwise displaced(except for the Hawaiian vets and their kin, who were too large in number for the American government to intern)from their homes along the Pacific Coast and in the interior of the American West during the war, came the closest in experience, especially in the uncertainity of what they would find when they returned home, to those faced by many European and Asian World War Two veterans.
In many cases, returning internees and veterans were met with various forms of hostility by their neighbours, of all backgrounds, some of whom had profited by their deportation and seizure or forced sale of their properties, and some were even beaten and killed by those same neighbours.
Others were able to re-settle into their old homes, or start new ones elsewhere.
But, the trauma of being interned, forced to take sides or be deported to Japan, the hardships of life in the internment camps, and, for those who fought, the experience of combat, took their tolls on many in the Japanese-American community.
It wouldn't be until nearly 30 years after the deportations happened that the American government and public would begin to acknowledge the deportations and why they were made, and it would be over 40 years until the former officially apologised to those who'd been deported and compensated them for their losses.
In the meantime, the pressure within the Japanese-American community not to speak of, or acknowledge in any way, what had happened to it was intensely strong, and, if anything, the Americanisation process, already well underway amongst the Nisei(second-generation Japanese Americans), when the deportations took place, was intensified to an even greater degree by in the mid-1940s through early 1960s.
It's only been with the emergence of the Sansei(Third-Generation Japanese Americans), Yonsei(Fourth Generation) and Gosei(Fifth Generation) generations within the Japanese-American community that some sort of balance between that community's Japanese and American identities has begun to appear.
It needn't have happened, Folks, but it did, just as it did with the German-American community during the First World War, and more's the pity.
Hope you like the pics.
25 October 2006
"Interrogation"
Shot and edited these very early this mornin', after gettin' the idea to do these pics yesterday.
While some attempt has been made here to render a relatively true-to-life interrogation scene, other touches, like the suspect bein' in handcuffs, aren't necessarily true at all.
Rather, this is a rendering of a kind of nightmare, or at least the sort of experience I wouldn't care to have happen to me in my life, ever.
BTW, the colour pics were shot and edited before the b&w ones. Did the latter just to see how effectively or not, they might impact any potential viewers.
Did they work??? Well, have a look and decide for yourselves if they do or not.
While some attempt has been made here to render a relatively true-to-life interrogation scene, other touches, like the suspect bein' in handcuffs, aren't necessarily true at all.
Rather, this is a rendering of a kind of nightmare, or at least the sort of experience I wouldn't care to have happen to me in my life, ever.
BTW, the colour pics were shot and edited before the b&w ones. Did the latter just to see how effectively or not, they might impact any potential viewers.
Did they work??? Well, have a look and decide for yourselves if they do or not.
25th October Vegas Demo Pics Link
Went down to City Hall in down-town Vegas to-day to shoot a anti-police brutality towards the homeless rally that was being held there.
This was prompted by the shooting on Friday last of a homeless man, who, truth be told, was throwing rocks at a Las Vegas City Marshal and a Nevada State Trooper, when the incident happened.
The latter officer did the shooting, and is currently on paid adminstrative leave, pending a hearing into the matter.
Nonetheless, considering the City of Las Vegas' policies and actions towards the homeless in recent months(just see some of the previous posts on that topic on this blog for some cursory info on those), one has to wonder, at the very least, if somethin' ain't very, very wrong with the way that the City and its armed employees often inter-act with homeless people, not to mention so-called ordinary citizens, here in the Valley.
Anyhoo, enough blather. The pics can be found here at http://lasvegas.staughton.indypgh.org/news/2006/10/5611.php.
Stop by and have a look, if ya feel like it.
This was prompted by the shooting on Friday last of a homeless man, who, truth be told, was throwing rocks at a Las Vegas City Marshal and a Nevada State Trooper, when the incident happened.
The latter officer did the shooting, and is currently on paid adminstrative leave, pending a hearing into the matter.
Nonetheless, considering the City of Las Vegas' policies and actions towards the homeless in recent months(just see some of the previous posts on that topic on this blog for some cursory info on those), one has to wonder, at the very least, if somethin' ain't very, very wrong with the way that the City and its armed employees often inter-act with homeless people, not to mention so-called ordinary citizens, here in the Valley.
Anyhoo, enough blather. The pics can be found here at http://lasvegas.staughton.indypgh.org/news/2006/10/5611.php.
Stop by and have a look, if ya feel like it.
24 October 2006
Quiet Time
Shot and edited this on Saturday last, same day as the Jack Shirai pics.
Had got the BBI Tyr Anasazi figure in the mail a few days ago, and wanted him to make his debut in a pic as soon as possible.
Among the ideas I had were for a cafe comedy scene, and one or two others that I've forgotten about at the moment.
No matter.
The idea for this pic, which is in the "Cafe Stories" set of photos, came about on the spur of the moment, and depicts a young cafe habitue looking out the establishment's window.
Is he waiting for someone to show up, is there simply no one that he either knows well enough or at all, with whom to converse, or is he just having a bit of a think????
Well, I leave that up to you to decide, but, I can tell you from my own cafe days' experience, that there are times when one or more of these factors merit one moving away from the group a bit, and having a look out the window and a bit of a think.
The day following this shoot, I shot and edited three more pic sets, none of which will be seen here, as two of 'em were a birthday gift for a friend that were based on material done by the Firesign Theater(not gonna get sued for copyright violation if I can help it), and the other was for an Internet project that a friend of mine and I are working on, so no giving away anything from that until after the project's done.
Sorry, Folks. Sometimes, life just works that way.
Hope you like these little pics of a little moment, though.
Had got the BBI Tyr Anasazi figure in the mail a few days ago, and wanted him to make his debut in a pic as soon as possible.
Among the ideas I had were for a cafe comedy scene, and one or two others that I've forgotten about at the moment.
No matter.
The idea for this pic, which is in the "Cafe Stories" set of photos, came about on the spur of the moment, and depicts a young cafe habitue looking out the establishment's window.
Is he waiting for someone to show up, is there simply no one that he either knows well enough or at all, with whom to converse, or is he just having a bit of a think????
Well, I leave that up to you to decide, but, I can tell you from my own cafe days' experience, that there are times when one or more of these factors merit one moving away from the group a bit, and having a look out the window and a bit of a think.
The day following this shoot, I shot and edited three more pic sets, none of which will be seen here, as two of 'em were a birthday gift for a friend that were based on material done by the Firesign Theater(not gonna get sued for copyright violation if I can help it), and the other was for an Internet project that a friend of mine and I are working on, so no giving away anything from that until after the project's done.
Sorry, Folks. Sometimes, life just works that way.
Hope you like these little pics of a little moment, though.
21 October 2006
Sextet Of New Spanish Civil War Pics
Shot and edited these this afternoon.
Their subject?????
The only Japanese-American, and, indeed, only Asian-American member, as far as I know, of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion that fought on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, Jack Shirai.
Read about Shirai in a couple of books on the ALB, and so, what little about him I present here is based entirely on those accounts.
He came from California and sailed across to Le Havre, France, along with the rest of the first contingent of Lincoln Battalion members in January, 1937, stayed a few weeks in Paris before being smuggled out with his comrades across the Franco-Spanish border in late January or early February of '37(ain't sure which), and eventually ended up with his battalion at the International Brigades HQ near Albacete, Andulusia, Spain by mid-February of that same year.
Shirai was employed as a cook for the Lincolns, and it was while he was working in that capacity that he was killed by Nationalist shrapnel during the Battle of Jarama, the Lincoln's first engagement into which it'd been thrown despite being inadequately armed and trained, in March, 1937.
The Lincolns, from what little I know of 'em, contained a fairly high proportion of Jewish-American members, who were naturally outraged and frightened by the rise of Nazi Germany and the persecution of German Jews, African-Americans, many of whom had wanted a crack at Mussolini and the Italian Fascists during the latter's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-36, but hadn't been able to cross the Big Water to get there in time, and a number of Americans from various immigrant backgrounds, like Steve Nelson, the battalion's second commissar(political officer), who, in spite of his WASPy-sounding name, was of Yugoslav background, who'd been radicalised by the Great Depression and other events surrounding it.
But, Shirai, as I wrote above, was the only Japanese-American and Asian-American to join and fight with the Lincolns during their existence.
Why and how he decided to join up, I've no idea, alas, though, my best available guesses, and they might very well be wrong, would be a combination of the break-down of American capitalism in the first years of the Depression, and as a reaction to the nasty and prevalent anti-Japanese and anti-Asian racism in the America, and especially in California and the American West as a whole, that was around in the early and mid-20th Century.
The deportations of the Japanese-American community that occured in 1941-42 were only the culmination of a long line of anti-Japanese and anti-Asian rhetoric and practises found in the Western US from the 1870s onwards, and Shirai, like many Japanese-Americans his age, would have been well aware of it, in one way or another, by the time he joined the Lincolns.
Either way, this photo set's a tribute to a very young man, as were so many of the Lincolns, who went away to a country not his own to fight for a better world as he saw it, and who didn't return alive.
May he, and they all, rest in peace.
Their subject?????
The only Japanese-American, and, indeed, only Asian-American member, as far as I know, of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion that fought on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, Jack Shirai.
Read about Shirai in a couple of books on the ALB, and so, what little about him I present here is based entirely on those accounts.
He came from California and sailed across to Le Havre, France, along with the rest of the first contingent of Lincoln Battalion members in January, 1937, stayed a few weeks in Paris before being smuggled out with his comrades across the Franco-Spanish border in late January or early February of '37(ain't sure which), and eventually ended up with his battalion at the International Brigades HQ near Albacete, Andulusia, Spain by mid-February of that same year.
Shirai was employed as a cook for the Lincolns, and it was while he was working in that capacity that he was killed by Nationalist shrapnel during the Battle of Jarama, the Lincoln's first engagement into which it'd been thrown despite being inadequately armed and trained, in March, 1937.
The Lincolns, from what little I know of 'em, contained a fairly high proportion of Jewish-American members, who were naturally outraged and frightened by the rise of Nazi Germany and the persecution of German Jews, African-Americans, many of whom had wanted a crack at Mussolini and the Italian Fascists during the latter's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935-36, but hadn't been able to cross the Big Water to get there in time, and a number of Americans from various immigrant backgrounds, like Steve Nelson, the battalion's second commissar(political officer), who, in spite of his WASPy-sounding name, was of Yugoslav background, who'd been radicalised by the Great Depression and other events surrounding it.
But, Shirai, as I wrote above, was the only Japanese-American and Asian-American to join and fight with the Lincolns during their existence.
Why and how he decided to join up, I've no idea, alas, though, my best available guesses, and they might very well be wrong, would be a combination of the break-down of American capitalism in the first years of the Depression, and as a reaction to the nasty and prevalent anti-Japanese and anti-Asian racism in the America, and especially in California and the American West as a whole, that was around in the early and mid-20th Century.
The deportations of the Japanese-American community that occured in 1941-42 were only the culmination of a long line of anti-Japanese and anti-Asian rhetoric and practises found in the Western US from the 1870s onwards, and Shirai, like many Japanese-Americans his age, would have been well aware of it, in one way or another, by the time he joined the Lincolns.
Either way, this photo set's a tribute to a very young man, as were so many of the Lincolns, who went away to a country not his own to fight for a better world as he saw it, and who didn't return alive.
May he, and they all, rest in peace.
18 October 2006
Hong Kong Movie Pics(Well, Kinda)!!!!
Shot and edited these last night, 'tho' had the idea in my head, and the figures more or less set up, for a few months prior to the actual shoot, so, was glad to finally get this done.
The pics depict a quartet of Hong Kong film industry workers(circa 1965), a director and producer, respectively, and two screenwriters having a late night meeting about the screenplay for their latest flick.
From the looks of it, it seems that the producer and director are having a few heated words, probably over the flick's budget, but maybe over creative matters, too.
As for the writers, well, one of the saddest parts of workin' in the film industry world-wide is that the writers are very often the very LAST people consulted about anything to do with a film.
So, what they say don't mean bupkis most of the time.
Anyhow, hope, as always, that you like the pics, or that they at least don't send you runnin' out into traffic, screamin' bloody blue murder in horror at their sheer awfulness.
The pics depict a quartet of Hong Kong film industry workers(circa 1965), a director and producer, respectively, and two screenwriters having a late night meeting about the screenplay for their latest flick.
From the looks of it, it seems that the producer and director are having a few heated words, probably over the flick's budget, but maybe over creative matters, too.
As for the writers, well, one of the saddest parts of workin' in the film industry world-wide is that the writers are very often the very LAST people consulted about anything to do with a film.
So, what they say don't mean bupkis most of the time.
Anyhow, hope, as always, that you like the pics, or that they at least don't send you runnin' out into traffic, screamin' bloody blue murder in horror at their sheer awfulness.
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