On the Beach at Isei, 2006

cool jazzy undulant vibe sensei --- a graphic beauty !

Fabulous! 

Certainly different to your customary output, rare delight by it's bold dynamics in scale and tonalities. Also the distribution of people top notch. To my eyes the person on left is affected by the tree trunks. 

It only takes five  human beings and two trees to create a wonderful impression. The ultimate thing is to decide where everybody stands, or in other words, where the photographer brings them to a stand still.

Best regards Jack

Herman

Wonderful pic, great composition. Well done!

The trees and the boys seem to be simply swaying along the beach and in the breeze.

Jack, this is an extraordinary image, even iconic.  If someone had written "The Boys from Ipanema," this would have to have been the album cover.  It has a relaxed Brazilian feel to it, not a Japanese one--at least not for me on this morning.

This is all the more powerful for me since, believe it or not, I was singing Tom Jobim's

--Lannie

Really strange, like other worldly.  Great one.

Great tones and the minimal approach make me love this image. It's incredibly artistic. It's stark yet has human emotion attached to it. Great work Jack, into the faves.

Best Always, Holger

Very nice graphic!  It really flows.  The languid shapes of the boys so natural, it just grabs the eye.  Very poetic.

Jack,  This is pure class... Best wishes for the new year 2016!

Bold display, and intriguing scene. Best regards.

Something dark, broody and slightly threatening about this scene - harsh contrast and deep shadows seem to rule the scene. It's quite different from the more quirky funny scenes in your portfolio, but equally fascinating. I like this re-visit to your old(er) photos - it reveals different sides, yet also a persistent sense for graphics. It sure adds to the body of work you've built up here.

Thanks as always for your well-expressed comments on this picture. I'm chewing through my portfolio now, month by month and year by year, and it's a time consuming process. It involves a lot of drudgery weeding out so many mediocre photos but occasionally coming on one or another that still works pretty well. As with you, I like the starkness of this picture and the way the tree trunks impose themselves on the scene and segregate the boys into groups. I don't have any particular emotional reaction to the picture but do like the graphic quality of the image.

With me the photographic process doesn't end with the clicking of the shutter. The original picture is quite different from what you see here. As a photographer I'm certainly no purist, that's for sure and consider the original image as a kind of trigger to fire my imagination. That's one reason I don't think of myself a true photographer but rather a creative interpreter in photographer's clothes.

Years ago I worked as a found object sculptor or rather assembler. I would bring back all sorts of crap I collected on my daily travels along deserted beaches, in vacant lots or abandoned, broken down buildings - bits of metal, driftwood, dolls that washed ashore on lonely beaches, strips of faded linoleum, everything imaginable. This was strewn around the floor of the converted garage in which I lived (I had a sleeping platform right in the middle of the room); I was truly living right there with my own gatherings, a beach comber of sorts on his own private beach. Every morning I would climb down and start sorting through the bric-a-brac and assorted junk looking for combinations that would excite my imagination and would them fashion them into hopefully interesting assemblages. I think I was always more interested in re-imagining, in trying to see beyond the narrow parameters in which we are schooled and to break out of this prison of definitions. It's a very limited reality we have created, and for me the work was and is to see things as they truly are, mysterious and nameless, a magical place of limitless interpretations. This world of infinite possibilities is always there, coexistent with our ordinary world, it just has to be seen and acknowledged. It takes a bit of effort to keep your mind receptive and in a neutral, open state - as I'm sure you know

I'm not explaining this very well, I know but it's 20 to 4 in the morning and my brain isn't exactly purring along at max power. Anyway, it has occurred to me that I still pretty much operate in the same way. I collect a lot of images and though I don't usually do true photo assemblages, I'm still looking for elements that excite my imagination and can be exploited to create other possibilities. I stumble along, mostly in a fog but with brief moments of insight where things appear to reveal something of their other selves - or more accurately, my other selves. I don't usually write long comments like this anymore but if anyone perhaps would be interested in a fuller explanation of the way I see things, it would be you. I'm not quite the essayist as my friend John Crosley but I can get up a pretty good head of steam if I think I have a willing ear. Thanks again for your support over the years. I always look forward to reading your intelligent and perceptive comments; they're like shining beacons in a desolate world of "tweets" and "likes" and "thumbs up". Best regards, Jack