Shodo is the practice of Japanese calligraphy and these are some shots of my Tuesday night class taken with my Rolleiflex. The black and white film is a great medium for capturing the calligraphy, and when shooting wide open this camera has incredible blur!

I’m not an expert at portraits, but I wanted to capture my folks on film, so I took down my Rolleiflex MX-EVS and shot a couple frames. This shot of my dad turned out particularly well, I think. There’s something special about these old cameras, and medium format film in particular.

On the hottest day during our trip my wife and I decided to wander. On this side of the island there's really only one street to take and we decided to head south. The view to the East is hotels, scuba shops and the occasional peek at the ocean, to the West sugar cane hills.

Propeller.

Sugar cane hills.

The daughter of the owners of the Ryukyu Ryokan we were staying at drove by later that day and offered to take us to see parts of the island we couldn't get to by walking. She took us to a spot where we could hike to the whale watching point.

Small island viewable from the whale watching point.

View of the tip of the island from the point.

...all pictures the property of Nik Stewart, all rights reserved, blah blah blah...

The Voigtländer Vito B is a small camera made sometime in the mid 1950's. It was dug out of my parent's basement with the hope of rediscovering the mechanical precision I remebered as a child playing with the dials and switches. This camera is full manual, has a viewfinder (not a rangefinder) and is a joy to work with. After shooting with it for a little over a month I've been surprised time and again by both the images it takes and the things I'm learning while thinking about everything about the shot (not just which auto-exposure mode to use while staring at an led screen to see if things will come out okay).

I'm in no way an expert in photography, but this camera reminds me of Japanese woodworking tools. Traditional Japanese tools differ greatly from their Western cousins in their simplicity, but also in the requirement of respect and expertise by the person using them. This camera reminds me of that respect, and the rewards you gain when it is given. I have a Japanese friend who once told me while we were discussing shoji, the interior paper sliding doors, that 'you must respect the door'.