A Wedding Party

So in Japan you have a party after the initial wedding party - and in a typically efficient manner they're called first wedding party, second wedding party and so on.  This ni (two) jikai (party I guess?) was for one of the Tokyo Gaijin.

Once again, all these pictures have been re-ordered by the computator, making them follow no particular chronology.  I went on a massive black and white bent with this set, as you'll see.

So I got Dave to pose for this one for a while, it came out okay but not brilliant.  If it were a clean background maybe it would be better.

I enjoy popping up over shoulders, taking a picture, then skulking away.  I don't know why.

Sometimes they see you though, and more often than not the picture turns out a bit rubbish.  This one was okay though, so it's not always a terrible idea to have posed shots.

This was the nighttime view from the 60th floor of the sunshine building in Ikebukuro.  For those who don't know, that's basically the middle of Tokyo (as far as I'm concerned).  Out of the other window you could clearly see the financial district as a huge number of extremely tall buildings.  As they were so tall, it was difficult to see past them and the pictures were a bit naff as a result.

For some reason Phil the South African turns up some good pictures.  I don't know why.

This is one of the wags (do you still call them that?) who often helps out.  The guy on the left is the captain for the gaijin.

The bride just behind one of her friends.  I say bride as it's a wedding party of sorts, but they've been married for a while now.

This is a selection of the gaijin players and their wags (I'm sticking with it).

And a few more.

I particularly enjoy this picture because it shows two couples, and the difference in dynamic between them.  The guy on the right is a welshman though, so you've got to try really hard to understand what he's on about.  (He's super welsh).

This is Mojee and his Missus.  The Fijian style of never dressing up no matter the occasion has inspired me to try this approach in the future.

Despite promising that there would only be one speech, there were in fact three.  Shame on you Dave!

A random group photo.

The view really was excellent.  I also adore this photo - not because it's particularly artsy but because it could be in any magazine or brochure, it wouldn't look out of place.

Again Phil looking for a new facebook picture.

A random baby that was walking around, doing some kind of dance.

This was the night before, taken at a temple (or a shrine) overlooked by Tokyo Tower.

I stayed round a gaijin players house, and this lady was one of the housemates who cooked takoyaki for us.  It was pretty good, but they poisoned mine with spicy chilli and whatnot.  I was not happy the next day, that's for sure.

Again, the night before the party after happened to occur around Tokyo Tower, so there are plenty of pictures of this iconic, if somewhat underwhelming attraction.

This is the guy who let me stay round his house, and his lady friend.

This statue is in the temple grounds, but I couldn't get a direct shot of the tower behind it.  I opted to get a reflection in the building behind the statue, but it is somewhat difficult to tell just what it is.

This is Daves family, lots of Australians meant lots of drinking, unsurprisingly.

I love this picture, but there is someone standing in the background which distracts just enough that I wouldn't say it's great.  The coloured version is better, but it's too noisy to use.

Lots of other people were taking pictures, so I had the opportunity to take pictures of people taking pictures.  What.

She was probably talking to Rich (the welshman) when I took this picture; I guess that because she's looking upwards, and Rich is eighteen feet tall.

This is the view of Tokyo by day.  It really was a brilliant sight.

The kimono worn by the 'bride,' was rather spectacular as you'd imagine - the colours really popped out from the surroundings.  I don't know whether this picture captures that, but I tried my best.

These two guys were talking draft beers, the one on the right being one of the rugby playing gaijin.  It all went over my head (not being a particularly committed drinker) but I now know that aussies drink cider too.  All this time I thought it was uniquely English.

I tried to get some long exposure shots of the temple at night, but I am sorely lacking a tripod.  I keep looking them up, but the good ones that will actually hold my camera are prohibitively expensive.  I only really 'need,' two things to complete my setup as I'd like it - a fast 50mm (f1.2!) and a tripod, so one day, when I have money, those will be my purchases.  I don't really enjoy shooting with a flash because it's exceptionally intrusive.  Sure, you can control the resulting images much better, and gain consistency that's probably required for professional photography, but the spontaneous nature of most of these shots wouldn't be possible with a flash setup.

I don't know what's going on here.

And another shot of the wags, because that puzzled expression is priceless.

That's about it for this edition - a particularly photograph heavy one.

I'm not particularly impressed with how most of these came out, but these were the picks of the crop, as it were.  I need a faster lense to attempt something like this properly - f4 just doesn't cut it in low light with respectable ISO's.  Having said that, I don't have a spare couple of grand lying about right now, so that'll have to wait.

As always, tell me how much I suck below - unless you're a spambot or particularly offensive (you'd be surprised how many spambots there are) your comment will be added promptly.