(Translated from the original article on December 20, 2023)


This is Ara

When I walk around the city, I often come across walls that make me want to stop and point my camera at them. Not only wall art that is meant to be seen, but also ordinary building walls can be transformed into magnificent subjects, depending on how you crop them.

The exterior wall of an ordinary commercial building. The orange color of the sign against the achromatic background and the fire extinguisher through the window are striking. I tried to capture it in a square format in the style of an abstract painting.

This shot was taken on a winter afternoon, capturing the oblique light illuminating a wall under the elevated train tracks. Although this is a typical composition often seen on social media, I couldn't resist capturing the beautiful rays of light.

I waited for the right moment for a person to walk by and took the photo with the GR III. I applied negative compensation to get the right exposure for the highlights, then used in-camera RAW development to adjust the contrast and darken the shadows to finish the image.

In this shot, instead of focusing on the wall itself, I focused on the scene beyond the wall. Near the Ginza 4-chome intersection, a glass wall surrounding a subway entrance is decorated in the shape of the letter "G". I moved close to the glass at the fixed focus distance of 1 meter. The pattern on the wall is in the foreground, adding a dreamy atmosphere to the photo.

These are some of the wall photos I took with the GR. When you have been taking photographs for a long time, there are times when it is difficult to find motivation. When you face such a "wall," it might be worthwhile to try taking pictures of walls for a change.


(Ara)