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!

Tanabata was originally about a Chinese love story of a princess and a cowherd being separated by the king.  Traditionally in present-day Japan, people celebrate Tanabata by writing their wishes on colorful, small strips of paper called tanzaku…

…and hang them on bamboo branches…

The streets are decorated with huge colorful  hanging lanterns which kids enjoy watching…

…especially at nights when these lanterns are being lighted.

This was during the Tanabata Festival in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa. This is the biggest Tanabata festival held in the Kanto Area. The most famous one is held in Sendai.

…

This is the second part of the Midnight Shooting: Roppongi to Shibuya blog entry.

We started our walk around 1:00AM from Roppongi, and reached Shibuya at nearly 3:00AM. Below are images that you will likely be seeing in an early Saturday morning in Shibuya.

This guy welcome us right at the foot of the pedestrian bridge near the south entrance of Shibuya Station.

Outside the station, you can see a lot of people sleeping. Either they lay down on the pavement..

… or simply just sit down…

They sure had fun last night, eh?

Obviously, these people are waiting for the station to open, and catch the first train.

And finally, the gate has opened. Ohayou, Shibuya!

The next post will be about homeless people staying near Shibuya station.

Thanks for watching. :-)

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. :-)

The Timog Forum Photography Club is going to have an exhibition from 25th to 29th of March in Art Garden Kawasaki. The exhibition, dubbed as, “Japan in the Eyes of the Filipinos and Philippine Images”, will showcase the skills of the Filipinos in the field of photography.

I am participating in this event and will be showing three of my street photos, all taken in Japan.  This is my second time joining a group photo exhibit. (The first one was organized by the Flickr group Philippines and it was held in Manila last October 2008.)

To all my friends in Japan, I will be glad to see you there in the exhibition. I will be on the site on the 28th (Saturday) from 13:00 to 19:00. Please drop me a line if you are coming.

****

Bayanihan Photo Exhibit Poster

<Date and Time>

25th March : 13:00-19:00
26th-28th : 10:00-19:00
29th : 10:00-16:00

<Venue>

Art Garden Kawasaki
3rd Floor RiverK Kawasaki-ekimae
12-1 Ekimae Honcho, Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki City
Map here.

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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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