2/April/2023

There is a place called Kasai City, about 20 minutes by car from my parents’ home in Himeji.

This Kasai City is adjacent to the northeast of Himeji City, and the center is called Hojo, where there is a Hojo Sekku Festival.

There are many autumn festivals in Harima, centered on Himeji City, but in this Hojo, festivals are held in the spring season when cherry blossoms bloom. A large mikoshi (portable shrine) called a yatai is loaded with drums and paraded. In Himeji, it is now called a mikoshi yatai and looks very similar to a mikoshi. On the other hand, at this Hojo festival, there are yatai called futon yatai, and the roof part is literally made of piled up futons.

Also, the people who are called “neriko” and  “kakite” are often doing mawashi at festivals in Himeji nowadays. Mawashi is also mainstream in my area and  wear a half coat on top. This Sekku festival is different, and they wear kimono and have a festival. The overall impression is that it is slightly more elegant than the rough image of Himeji. However, even if you say elegant, it is different from Kyoto’s festival, and it is not offset by the rustic smell.

Another thing that catches my eye is that there are two or three men wearing silk hats, morning coats and sticks mixed with the katsuki’s kimono. They are probably representatives of the district. Western formal wear is mixed with Japanese, but I didn’t feel any strangeness in my eyes. Their appearance was pushing the festival up one notch higher than those in kimono, and they were playing a role in tidying up the festival. I had a camera and was taking pictures of the festival, but my lens was more attracted to the elderly men in silk hats and morning coats than to the yatai and those in kimono.

I walked around the festival for about two hours until the yatai entered the shrine.

The other day, I received an inquiry from someone overseas asking if I sell my photos. I had previously tried various methods to sell my photos online, but it’s quite challenging. There are several ways to sell photos online.

The first option is to print the photos yourself and sell them on your website or a platform for selling products.

The second option is to use a platform that takes care of both printing and shipping for you.

The third option is to use a platform that sells digital photo files.

The first option is quite difficult. Printing and shipping the photos is labor-intensive, and it becomes even more complicated when shipping overseas. Since the first option doesn’t work, I would like to rely on the second one. I’ve spent a lot of time researching various platforms and even listed my products on some of them, but I’m still in the trial and error stage. The third option seems to have slim chances of success. I’ve tried platforms like Shutterstock, but it’s tough to get through their strict quality standards, such as noise and blur. Also, most of my photos are candid photography, so they naturally include people’s faces. This makes selling photos of people quite challenging since I don’t have their permission. Of course, I submit photos without people’s faces (especially close-ups) for review, but it’s quite difficult for an amateur like me. I guess the platforms’ critiques are valid since I don’t pay much attention to camera shake and don’t hold my camera properly. Still, failing the review process does hurt my confidence.

I’m still waiting for some review responses, and there are platforms I haven’t tried yet, so I’ll continue experimenting. If anyone happens to see this post and has any advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

I wonder how to sell candid photography effectively. But first, I need to take good photos that people would want to buy.

Below, I’ll post some photos that didn’t pass the review process.

Recently I watched an Indian movie called RRR.
It was the first time I saw an Indian movie on the screen.
This movie is a hot topic in Japan, and it seems to be very popular, as people on social networking sites are dancing in one scene of the movie. I went to the theater with high expectations since the movie was being shown in a theater in this rural area. I bought a ticket, the usual popcorn, and took my seat. The seats were empty and only one-fifth of the seats seemed to be occupied. Still, it felt good to be in a movie theater for the first time in a long time. However, I was a little worried that people might leave the theater during the three-hour movie, and the movie started after the usual number of useless commercials.
The two main characters in the movie are superhumanly strong, and Rama, who is about to shoot an arrow out of the fire in the picture, is literally superimposed on Rama, the hero of the Indian epic “Ramayana,” and in the movie he plays the role of Prince Rama and crushes his enemies. (Which god is the other hero?). The scene where he appeared as Rama was cool and impressive. The CG animals were too CG.
The popcorn was half caramel and half salt, which made the movie more enjoyable.

Is it still better to watch Indian movies in India?