This month’s July 2002 issue of Asahi Camera magazine is their annual special issue on nudes. The pictorials feature nudes by a number of photographers. My favorite were the underwater nudes by marine photographer Ikuo Nakamura who usually photographs fishes instead. He had two young Japanese women swimming underwater in sunny Saipan. The rippling shadows from the ocean surface covered their white bodies in the bright blue water. Very nice.. 

In early June 2002, Kodak Photo Salon in Ginza (Tokyo) moved to a larger place at Tokaido Ginza Bldg. 3F, Ginza 6-4-1, Chuo-ku, Tokyo. It now has two galleries so two photographers can show there at the same time…

Up until a few months ago, famous woman photographer Hiromix had her own official Web site at hiromix.net, but it has suddenly disappeared. I have no idea why she took it offline. It didn’t have much. Just an announcements page, a biography page, a message board in Japanese, and her online diary, but no photos. She also had a links page which included a link to my book reviews of her photo books. That was nice. I hope she comes back online.

BTW, there’s one Web page dedicated to Hiromix at http://perso.club-internet.fr/fefr1/hiromix.htm. Let it be known that this page is a total rip-off and illegally reproducing the text and images without permission. The text was written by me (for PhotoWho’sWho under Hiromix) and I did not give permission for it to be reproduced on that page. The images were also taken from other sources and that coward does not reveal his (or her) name and contact information. If someone can track him/her down, please do so and let me know… 

Wasn’t the World Cup unbelievable? I was never interested in soccer until Nippon’s first World Cup match in Japan. Throughout June, I was more fascinated by the reaction and high emotions of soccer fans rather than the game and matches themselves. In Osaka, hundreds of people jumped into the murky river at Dotonbori to celebrate. I wish we had a tradition like that here in Tokyo.

I’ve been living in Japan for quite some time now, and I’ve never seen such mass outpouring of support and passion like that. Not even during the Nagano Olympics in 1998. It was worse (or better?) in Korea. Have you ever seen a huge stadium where everyone wore the same-color shirt? And the sea of red in the city plaza? Incredible…

I went to the stadium in Yokohama a few hours before the final game was played. There were a lot more Brazilian fans than German fans. Yellow shirts all over the place. And one thing I noticed was that many people went up to a foreign soccer fan (especially the pretty or sexy Brazilian women) and had their picture taken with them. And the women happily obliged even with the man’s arm around her. I’ll soon upload some of the photos I took that day. Unfortunately, I didn’t have tickets to see the game…