:-)

A Hundred Smiles is a collaborative project of two photographers, Paulette Waltz and yours truly. On the 11th of July 2009, we were roaming around central Tokyo, bringing our frames, stopping by people, and asking them one question: “What makes you smile?”, then *snap*!

I was inspired to do this project after my good friend-photographer, Carlo Nicora, made his Thousand Portraits in Britain. It was really a challenge, not only as a photographer, but also an individual who wants to share the positivity to others.

One day, I met up with Paulette. I talked about the project I wanted to do, and a great brainstorming happened right there. The frame is Paulette’s wonderful idea. Two heads are better than one, indeed.

This project will continue to expand as this is going worldwide. We are going to invite other photographers all around the world to do the same, and gather all photos/smiles in one site, that is A Hundred Smiles.

The photos shown on this blog entry are my top 5 photos. I hope they bring a little smile on you. Please visit the site for more smiles.

If you want to be involved in this project, you can contact me or send an email to info[at]ahundredsmiles[dot]com.

Keep smiling.

:-)

Harajuku – one of the most visited places in Tokyo. The place where you can see the most extreme (weirdest and cutest) teenage fashion styles. The styles include punk, goth, lolita, ganguro, and others. Also, cosplays happen here every weekend, mostly on Sundays.

Below are some of the photos I took two years ago.
Note: I used to over-process photos when I was starting photography. ^_^

The annual Kawasaki Halloween Parade this year was held on October 31st. It is said to be one of the biggest Halloween parades in Japan. It was my second time to see the parade and I’m still quite impressed with the participants. Their costumes were amazing. They can described as either ‘kawaii’ or ‘kowai’.

In Japan, ‘kawaii’ means ‘cute’, and ‘kowai’ is ’scary’. (Be careful when you try to use them. You don’t want to get yourself embarrassed after mistakenly saying ‘kowai’ to a cute little Japanese kid, instead of saying ‘kawaii’).

The Mario Family. Kawaii ne~!

Screams. Uwa~, kowai~!

HEAD, HEad, head Yeah, it looks kowai, but it has some kawaii-ness. :p

The mummy is belong to us! The baby is so kawaii~~ ^_^

Zoombie chick. I’m gonna cut your head off if you say she’s kawaii.

Sweet Butterfly. Hands off, humanz. She’s mine. Kawaii ne!

Two weekends ago, I, with 3 photo buddies, had an early morning photowalk again. This time in Kabukicho at around 5:30 in the morning.

Kabukichō is an entertainment and red-light district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Kabukichō is the location of many hostess bars, host bars, love hotels, shops, restaurants, and nightclubs, and is often called the “Sleepless Town”. The district’s name comes from late-1940s plans to build a kabuki theater: although the theater was never built, the name stuck. — Wikipedia

There are still nanpa activities in this early morning. A nanpa is a way to pick up girls in Japan. To know how it works, check Nampa – Japanese for Picking Up by Neil Duckett.

We walked through Shinjuku Golden Gai and we could still hear people laughing while having some chat inside the shanty-style bars and clubs.  Learn more about the Golden Gai here: Old-world left in a Big City, Shinjuku’s Golden-gai

Kabukicho is a notorious place known for a lot of illegal activities like prostitution, illegal drug trafficking, and other crimes. A number of business establishments here are owned by yakuzas and Chinese triads. The photo below is the most famous police box throughout Japan for having been featured a couple of times in TV documentary shows.

Thanks to my friends: Mika, Kyoko, and Naoto for joining me in this walk.

Last Friday (06/26), I went to SuperDeluxe in Roppongi to see the Naked Tokyo Photo Exhibition organized by some of my Flickr friends. I can say it was a great event showing some artistic naked photos. I would like to join next year. :-)

After stopping by the exhibition, I, with my friends Mika and Kyoko, went for a photowalk from the streets of Roppongi down to Shibuya. It was a fun walk.

I tell you. There are a lot of things to shoot in the middle of the night.

Some trash dumped right next to a phone booth.

The lights and shadows are just amazing.

You can see stores closing.

It took us almost two hours to reach Shibuya station.

This is just the first part of this photo walk.  I will post the photos I took around Shibuya later this week.

I would like to thank Mika and Kyoko for joining me that night. We will definitely do it again. :-)

April 5, 2006 — the day Kalandrakas was born!

But, what is Kalandrakas?

****

It was two months after since I started working in Japan that I got my first digital camera, a Sony DSC-R1.  I was taking pictures of almost everything: from plants to animals,  macros to landscapes, festivals to cosplays.

When I signed up on Flickr, I had a hard time choosing a screen name since I didn’t want to use my real name. During that time, I was still involved in the company’s bi-annual newsletter named Kalandrakas.

The word kalandrakas means variety or miscellaneous in Cebuano or Bisaya, my local dialect in the Philippines.

Because my photos were so random, I was thinking it would be nice to use this word as my screen name. So there, the Kalandrakas photography was born.

During the first year, I’d been trying to shoot a variety of subjects. There were times that I wanted to focus on one subject, but after some time, I changed to another.

After a year, I got a new camera, a Nikon D80. I then started going out to public places to shoot.  The place that I often used to visit before was Harajuku. It was actually in this place I started to love street photography.

In streets, everything is quick and random.  Sometimes it’s frustrating, but once you capture raw and candid moments, it just  feels great.

Right now, I have a Nikon D700,  that works very well with low-light — perfect for street photography during the night.

I might stick to street photography for a while, ‘coz in the streets, the world is so kalandrakas.

Happy 3 years to me as a photographer!

****

Achievements of Kalandrakas:

2006
Dec. 9 -  JapanToday: Picture of the day
Dec. 22 – Metropolis issue 665: Photo of the week
Dec. 30 – first studio shoot (s0lo)

2007
Apr. 18 – JapanToday: Picture of the Day
Apr. 19 – created the FTPS group (with Naoto)
June 9 – JapanToday: Picture of the Day
June 29 – Metropolis issue 692: Photo of the week
July 6 – Metropolis issue 693: Photo of the week
July 22 – JapanToday: Picture of the Day

2008
Apr. 21 – Kabayan: Fil-Am Fotogs Photographer of the Week
June 23 – Kabayan: Fil-Am Fotogs Photographer of the Week

2009
Mar. 13 – Harajuku photos featured on Gym Class  magazine
Mar. 25-29 – Bayanihan: A Photo Exhibit

Look what I found in my mailbox today!

I just got the contributor copy of the Gym Class Magazine Issue 02 which has a 4-page feature of my Harajuku photographs. I also received the “Chosen Last” pin, and Gym Class stickers. Very cool.

If you want to read the full feature, click here.

****
Aside from this, I’m also happy to announce (or remind) you that the Bayanihan Photo Exhibit will start tomorrow (March 25th) at 13:00 in Art Garden Kawasaki. I will be in the gallery on the 28th from 13:00 to 19:00. Hope to see you there.

****
Also, tomorrow’s a payday, and so i sing, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, You’re always a day away!!!”

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After almost a week of trying to resolve the domain transfer from Yahoo! Small Business to JustHost, now my ever personal website, JessleeCuizon.com, is ONLINE at last! *phew*

The homepage is still under construction. I still have to finalize everything– the content, design, layout, etc. Keep posted for updates here in my blog page.

To start this “first” post with a *bang*…

Believe it or not! I am being featured on the 2nd issue of  Gym Class Magazine, a London-based zine that tackles  “a whole lot of random stuff”. This is the magazine “For the Guy Chosen Last.”

The four-page  feature is more about Harajuku and a little something about me as a “photographer”.

I would like to personally thank the cool guy behind Gym Class, Mr. Steven Gregor, for the feature.

If you want to read the full feature, click here, but if you want the full copy of Issue 02 , you can order it  here.

Thank you for reading.

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