I rarely get comments on my photographic skill!..... which is as it should be, as my photographic skills are rudimentary at best.

My photos aren't about photography, they are about seeing.

And that is what I get most comments on, my "eye".

Let me clarify. I take photos of whatever strikes my eye. Notice the object versus subject! My eye is passive. Its a form of non-seeing. I wouldn't see if I was busy looking. Can't see the wood for the trees.

If I look for beauty in flowers, naked women, sunsets, etc then I am missing 99% of the beauty that surrounds me.

Anyway, I suspect I owe my "eye" to having spent most of my life as a painter.

I was a very prolific painter, and the total of my works ran into the tens of thousands.

I sold a lot, so probably there are still some of my works hanging on various walls around the planet, but the vast majority of my paintings no longer exist. Once a painting was finished, it was no longer important to me.

Which brings me to my latest uploads. I recently discovered a box of slides of a selection of my artworks. Quickly scanned them and uploaded them. They may give a clue to my "eye". They are in my Paintings album.

This is my second-most viewed photo on ipernity. It has been viewed more than 1100 times! Obviously it has been blogged, but I can't find out where.

Is there an easy way to discover where it is blogged?

I'm now getting into my own blog. It has been said that I don't supply enough information about my pics, so I am now addressing that issue by going back to the start of my stream and writing blogs.

So far I've finished blogs for the first album I uploaded to ipernity, One Day In Izumo , so if you now view most photos in the album they have links to blog entries.

Just like to say thanks to those of you that do take the time to delve "upstream" to view my earlier photos.

More excellent pictures.... please check their streams for more....

From England, PedjaP

From Romania, Alex

From Switzerland, Hendrike

I have finally taken the plunge and set up a blog and am bewidered by the amount of options available.

ojisanjake.blogspot.com

I would really appreciate hearing from any experienced bloggers who could offer me feedback, advice, suggestions, or tips about layout, what to include, how to increase traffic etc etc.

The first blogs I've posted are about the photos in the first album I uploaded to ipernity, One Day In Izumo

Most of you have probably not seen the album, so when you have 15 minutes to spare (there are 250 photos) try viewing it as a slideshow.

Cheers, and thanks in advance.

Just uploaded my 10,000th doc on ipernity!!!!

How many have you seen?

this was the one.....

We interupt the regular progra…

This is my 4,000th doc to get a vote/fave!!

Thanks to Mad Melon for that one :)

Thanks to all of my faithful visitors for your vists, kind comments, and faves!!

I am very encouraged to keep shooting and posting!

I've mentioned before that I find the emphasis on the "new" to be somewhat of a tyranny. In terms of sites like ipernity it means that older photos simply don't get seen. Charp has started a group that deals with this.

Vide-grenier/Garage Sale

To quote from the groups homepage. "Internet is the world of the short-lived. Here on Ipernity, new pictures drive old ones away, in the dark depths where nobody can see them anymore. :-) This group intends to react against this tragedy by bringing some of them out of oblivion. Pay attention to the rules. Their goal is to slow oblivion here! ;-)"

So, those of you who have been here on ipernity for more than 6 months, its a place to post those "oldies but goodies", and for newer members its a place to view some great photos.

Molnar

The last sequence of photos I uploaded were taken on a weekend last October. One of my little businesses that I am trying to build up is as a tour guide. I'm interested in taking people "off the beaten track" in Japan to see and experience a side of Japan that tourists rarely see. The Molnar's were an American couple I took around for a few days. We visited Izumo Taisha, Hinomisaki Jinja, Tatamigaura, the bridge at Aquas, and a festival in Gotsu.

The new sequence I'm uploading were taken on my lunchbreak. You probably havent noticed, but on Wednesdays (Tuesdays for most of your timezone) I post fewer pictures, because thats the one day a week I go to Hamada to work.

The photos I'm currently uploading, Coventry in December, were taken on my trip home last Christmas. They were taken over a period of days.

Another Day In Coventry were photos all taken on a one day walk when I first got there.

Coventry is the city I grew up in, and by all accounts it's not a particularly pretty place, in fact many would call it a dump, but I have had some good luck taking photos there on my recent trips home. The Coventry Canal has become one of my favorite sites for photo shooting.

One Day in Coventry and Next Day in Coventry were taken on a previous visit a couple of years ago. The One Day in Coventry set I am particularly proud of.

As always, thanks for visiting my pages, I really do appreciate it. If no-one looked at my photos I wouldn't bother to make them public :)

Of course, I recommend viewing my photos with the album slideshow function. They were made as slideshows :)

The Jebel Sahro is an area of southern Morocco, in the Anti Atlas Mountains which lie between the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara.

It was the last area of Morocco to be colonized by France, and is still remote with just a couple of dirt roads crossing it.

In February 2007 I walked across 200kms, with a small group. Tents, food, equipment and baggage were carried by 3 mules, each led by a muleteer, and we had a Berber guide who spoke passable English.

I went with a friend who organizes walking tours in various places around the globe, though mostly in Cornwall.

www.chycor.co.uk/adventureline is his website if anyone is interested.

We took ten days to walk the 200k, so it was easy going.

I love the desert. I spent 12 years in Arizona because of that love, and after 5 years in Japan my soul was desperately in need of what only the desert can give me.

The Jebel Sahro is awesome country. It reminded me a lot of Navajo Country, where I had lived for 5 years, and the Berber people we met reminded me of the Navajo in many ways.

That winter there had been a break in the ten year drought, and everyone said it was greener than anytime in the last ten years. On the second day of the hike we had some freezing rain, but the other days were mostly sunny and warm.

The pics I'm posting now are from Day 4 of the hike. below are links to the photos of the first three days.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

I'm going to be uploading a lot of pics from London.

Seems like half of the people on ipernity have posted photos from London, so I'm sure the last thing you want to see are yet more pics of the Houses of Parliament, London Eye, Tower Bridge, Lloyds, the Gerkhin, etc but I have spent almost no time in London, so the day I spent walking along the Thames "doing" the tourist sites was a lot of fun for me.....

Just got back home after a very hectic week in the UK.

Thank you for your kind messages of condolence.

My young nephew is wanting to learn about photography, so I suggested he join ipernity

www.ipernity.com/home/43498

please welcome him....

Now I will get back to posting 15-18 photos a day :)

Hope you all had a nice Easter.

The photos I'm uploading now are from last summer at my favorite festival in my area.

Full details as well as a soundfile of the festival music and a short video can be found here

http://www.japanvisitor.com/index.php?cID=366&pID=1492&pName=kuromatsu-matsuri

I have a family emergency, so wont be able to upload any new photos for about a week :(

Please take this opportunity to look through my albums.... I have more than 9,000 photos, so Im sure there are some you havent seen :)

Thanks, as always, for your visits.

a few of you asked to see photos from around my village, so this gives me a chance to upload small groups of photos from various times during the last year.

I actually live in a hamlet of less than 100 people, called Shimonohara, which means "lower field". About 150 years ago, when the modern state of Japan was created, Shimonhara was incorporated into the village of Tanijyugo, which means "inhabited valley". Tanijyugo was later incorporated into the town of Sakurae, which means "cherry inlet". 2 years ago Sakurae became incorporated into the city of Gotsu, which means Go Port, Go being the name of the river that enters the Japan Sea at Gotsu.

Shimonohara is about 20kms upstream of Gotsu on the bank of the Go.

My hamlet is further subdivided into 3 sections, Upper, Middle, and Lower. Each of these sections is composed of 5 household units called "Gumi". Gumi were created by the rulers of Japan as a form of political control. each 5 household group was held collectively responsible for any crimes or misdemeanors committed by any member of the 5 households.

This goes a long way to explain the nosiness of Japanese to their neighbors.

The gumi as a unit still function. If there is a death, it is the gumi that is responsible for the funeral and the complex set of rituals connected to it.

Japan has a very aged population, and in the rural areas the younger people have moved to the cities for "convenience", so most people in Shimonohara are much older than me.

The houses are built against the steep mountainside, around the large area of rice paddies.

The road ends here, so there is no through traffic.

the My Home album contains photos  from within my house or hamlet.

Tomorrow I will start uploading an album called "May 4th". 2 mexican friends from Kyoto were visiting on a mini-Flickr meet, and these photos are from a one hour walk around the hamlet.

Next day we went to Iwami Ginzan, and the resulting photos can be seen the Cinco De Mayo album

I have about 40 albums of photos still to upload, so I'd like to ask you, my regular visitors, what you'd like to see next.

More Coventry?

Kenilworth Castle?

Along the River Thames?

London Museums?

Around and near my village?

Morrocan desert?

Touring Japan?

3 days sailing?

more from the interminable 48 Hours album?

An afternoon at the Water Museum?

I upload quite a few photos every day.

Several people have removed me as contact because ipernity still hasn't listened to an oft-voiced request to change the format of the contacts Latest Docs page.

My dilemma is that my backlog of slideshows/photos gets larger. I have a couple of thousand photos from this and last year still to upload.

So I think I have to increase my daily uploads.

The format of the stream is also problematic for me.

If you come to my docs, they are in reverse order, you see the later pics in the sequence and work backwards.

Not sure how to get around it, except to suggest that the best way to view my stream is via album slideshows.

I apologize that I am not a very "verbal" contact. I rarely comment on your pics, and rarely reply to your comments, unless there is a question, which I am always very happy to answer.

I truly appreciate your visits, comments, and faves, and I enjoy looking at every single one of your streams.

Cheers!

In its entirety

Introducing David Joyner