After a decade hiatus from having an interview or photo discussion on film, I was invited as a special guest to join a photo conversation with John Cornicello and a group of visual artists he put together that meet weekly; I discussed briefly my photographic history and experience, primarily my two-plus decades in Japan. The collection of photographers for his photo conversations are the Who’s Who of the photography world. Before my 1-on-1 conversation with John, he and many others believed I was just a wildlife photographer because, on the website ‘BlaininJapan.com' that I started seven years ago, that is the image I wished to present, a pro-nature and wildlife photographer who runs photography workshops including photographic adventure themes such as birding with the Steller’s Sea Eagles Hokkaido Photography tour workshop in pack ice, Red-crowned cranes, nature, wildlife, Hokkaido minimalist landscape photography, Japanese sakura, autumn leaves, and authentic Japanese cultural UNESCO world heritage sites such as Mt.Fuji among others. From the creation of my website, I started using my given name, not a pseudonym. Blain in Japan was a title suggested to me by a dear friend, a former director at the Smithsonian. When I spoke to him, I swore I heard Robert Redford’s voice in the background at a board meeting, but I couldn’t be sure because I hadn’t talked to Robert for a while. I asked my friend point-blank what the name of my new website should be, and he suggested Blain In Japan, and I rolled with it. I previously used my pseudonym as a buffer between my private life and my professional life, not to shield myself from anything unseemly. I’ve never worked in the pornographic world, nor will I ever, and fame was never my interest; it was just a job even when I was on a movie set photographing actors and actresses or models on runways. I refused most of the invitations to backstage and after-session parties, preferring to be home with my family enjoying a patio barbecue, but on a few occasions, I attended the parties out of courtesy. However, I was quickly on the road home to enjoy a meal with my lovely wife and family instead of indulging in free-flowing cocktails. I enjoyed weeks on sets in the tropics, Dubai, or jet-setting in other parts of the world, and my favorite assignments were leading Japan wildlife and nature expeditions for visiting photographers for our agency, then I had a sobering, life-altering altercation.
I was flung into a hospital bed and confined to a wheelchair, and the medical professionals, doctors, and surgeons were unsure if I would ever walk again without support. My wife was at my bedside day and night, refusing to leave the hospital for weeks on end and following my every move. My mother-in-law was looking after the homes and family. In the hospital, my consciousness awoke; during a meditation session in my private hospital bedroom, I had a vision. A dear and personal friend and client of mine, who is French Polynesian Egyptian and someone with whom I have spent countless weeks on various sets within the Middle East and Fiji, on one particular occasion expressed the sentiment in one of her most famous songs that “when you do what you love to do, you’re going to be naturally good at it, and you will always smile, and you will bring happiness and smiles to all who experience your creativity.” Individuals such as a chef, a singer, or in my case, a naturalist, studio, multi experienced themed photographer - really anyone who has faced difficult predicaments can appreciate a life message, with heart and soul, to lift up our spirit. A few days after my vision quest, my dear friend sent an email and called to see how I was doing, as she had a vision of me wandering sand dunes in a desert; and in her vision, I seemed lost, something exceedingly rare for me. We talked for a few hours, and after our conversation, I knew that I needed to do what I love so I could share that sentiment with everyone around me. I made the decision to focus on my nature and wildlife photography if I ever got to walk again. The sobering fact was that my life had been inexorably changed, and I needed to adapt to my new reality. That is the moment where BlaininJapan.com was created. The resolve to start a new chapter in my life raised me from my bed and onto a walker, then crutches months later, the long path to rehabilitation. Weeks later, I checked out of the hospital as soon as I was able to, which was not soon enough for me but too soon for my doctors and family. My first stop was the swimming pool which was only used by physically handicapped people; I went there to feel my physical condition in a low-gravity situation and see how much rehabilitation I would need. At home, and for two years following, I slept in a hospital bed, but my rehabilitation regimen brought me to the pool 4 - 5 times a week. I knew the road would be arduous, but I was dedicated to making the dream born from that hospital bed a reality. I do have a high tolerance for pain from the trials and tribulations of spending six years in the deep bush/deep backcountry and from being raised in a wilderness family and, as a mountaineer, climbing the tallest peaks on our planet, mishaps will and do happen. Eight years later, here I am, living the dream, but I found I still have a passion for commercial product and studio photography but not full-time.
The passion I possess for product and studio photography is what drew me toward artisans in my new community, the Hoshina family, so a part of my discussion was focused on them and the other artisans living in Echizenhama. Mrs. Izumi Hoshina is a world-renowned award-winning glass artist who traces her family roots back to the city of Murakami, a city north in the Niigata prefecture. She set up her kiln and workshop in Echizenhama and works diligently to create new glass art pieces. Her husband is also a world-renowned artisan. He expresses his creativity with all-natural dying techniques with organic cloths, organizing expeditions into the surrounding communities in Echizenhama to assemble the raw, natural elements to be incorporated into his cloth designs. Every cloth he produces is one of a kind. Izumi’s mother also expresses her creative spirit as a master basket weaver, and she spends hours, days, and weeks constructing one art piece in various shapes using traditional Japanese methods; she has developed her skill that she is now able to lead workshops helping her students to create fantastic Grapevine baskets, wallets, shoes, and other items; I have seen some very impressive art come from her workshops such as the pieces in the image below. Echizenhama’s artisanal contributions do not end there. Other artists are involved in ikebana, Japanese flower arrangement, Japanese tea ceremony, and other artisans of various themes.
The Japan Dreamscapes design has evolved from hosting artisans to showing their work on a worldwide stage. The global pandemic has meant postponing any international gallery shows and workshops for 2020 and 2021, but our team and community have our eyes set on 2022 for introducing Paris, London, Rome, Toronto, New York, Seattle, LA, Salt Lake City, and several other cities introducing authentic Japanese artisans who are themselves breathing works of art. I also have plans to lead international photography workshops to off-the-beaten-path locations worldwide. My photography expeditions and assignments have taken me around the world, and my images have been internationally published, and I will continue that trend. Wildlife Videography is another medium that I am accomplished working in, and as the medium of photography has evolved, so have I, adding a digital leaf to my photographic portfolio. However, I am the happiest when I am chasing the light during a photography workshop to capture that defining image; of course, that defining image changes daily. Taking my own family into consideration, my sister Cindy Harasymiw is an award-winning Canadian Photographer. At the age of 15, she won her first award for an image taken on Harding Lake, Manitoba, for outdoor wilderness photography. She has photographed over 75 formal engagements and was published in the Weddings in Winnipeg magazine, and was invited to be the first to photograph a wedding at the Manitoba Club. She has photographed more than 100 private events, as well as family gatherings, portraits, and commercial commissions for advertisement publications. In 2008, Cindy earned a position to showcase her work at the Toronto Film Festival. She met and collaborated with an elite group of talented photographers while under the guidance of Magnum Photos’ Larry Towell.
Returning to my photo discussion with John Cornicello, John’s circle of friends didn’t seem one-line oriented, like actors and actresses, putting on an unnatural persona for social media, so I was happy to work with him and his colleagues. I agree that you need to choreograph things, and I am working on improving my recorded storytelling, but the way some people talk online, it seems like they want only to be influencers. I am also thinking about opening my own YouTube channel. I have had the pleasure of working in the field with several of my mentors. And one of the main reasons I did the photo conversation was to get a chance to talk/shoot the shit and get advice from Jeff Schewe. It was a rare joy to be able to speak candidly with Jeff Schewe. He’s a visual artist I admire, elite in many field of photography and a very talented commercial photographer. John and I are pondering to schedule a second photo discussion in the coming months, but it will depend on schedules and our shared availability. I really only reached the tip of the iceberg about my experiences in Japan and leading Hokkaido photography tours and adventures, plus Cherry Blossom Photo tours, Mt. Fuji Photo workshops, authentic autumn leaves photo tours, basically the four seasons, and my other adventures here in the Land of the Rising Sun, so I hope to share more. Here are some highlights from the discussion:
I opened the discussion talking about where I grew up, 400 kilometers from the polar bear capital of the world, Churchill in a First Nations Canadian community, and embraced the culture. I also mentioned how I am part of a wilderness and visual arts family and that I have spent over six years of my life in the deep bush, and, as a child, my family and I would spend two months every year canoeing the northern Canadian waterways just before the Canadian tree line where the loons and timberwolves would call out at dusk, and the dancing northern lights served as entertainment accompanying the symphony of wildlife around the evening campfire. Canada has more lakes than all the countries in the world combined, about 1.4 million; it was the perfect old school for manners and politeness and how to survive in the wilderness and gave me the appreciation I still have for nature’s grandeur and respect for all life. While on the topic of Canadian adventures, I told an anecdote about an early spring ice canoeing experience that I had while home visiting family. As you can see in the front page clipping below from a few decades back, I took my dog, Zeus, out for an afternoon river paddle. I have been canoeing the world's waterways since I was old enough to walk, so a few ice jams or even being held up for 30 minutes didn’t bother me in a puncture-proof canoe. I had provisions in the canoe, and most importantly, experience. Unfortunately, some passersby transposed their anxiety onto me while I was delayed in a small ice jam and called emergency services to ‘save me.’ I told the bystanders in no uncertain terms that I didn’t need saving by anyone because I knew that the ice jam would shift, and in a few short minutes to an hour, I would continue my paddle downriver and would be picked up before sunset. However, the emergency service corps arrived in about 15 minutes, and they hurriedly prepared to send out two rescuers in wet suits in a Zodiac boat, but before they could depart, I identified myself as a rescue specialist and exclaimed,,, “Get the line guns!” “A what?” was their reply. I found myself shouting where on their vehicle they could find the line gun, as I thought to myself, “Go Away” and then “What a waste of time and Canadian taxpayers’ money.” After giving a crash course in how to load and use the line gun, they fired but got the projectile and line tangled up in the trees above them. The second try was a dud shell, so after two failed attempts, I was in the same state I had been since the start of this debacle. Finally, the two rescuers attempted to cover the 40 meters in their Zodiac boat to reach me, but as they were approaching the 20-meter mark, I could hear the ice jam beginning to shift, and after a quick survey of the ice jam around me, I warned them to “Stay back” and “Get to shore!” They had no lifeline on their Zodiac, and I expressed my displeasure with their lack of proper preparation loud and clear. Moreover, a Zodiac boat could have been punctured by a foreign object in the ice, the ice itself, or even trapped in an ice jam, and from the ‘rescue workers’ actions to that point, I didn’t trust them, so there was no chance of my beloved dog, Zeus, or me getting in that boat. The shift in the ice occurred as I knew it would. I jumped out onto an ice sheet and then back into my canoe, then paddled myself and Zeus to shore in about 10 seconds, and after a quick 15 minutes on shore talking with the fire chief, I jumped back into the canoe with Zeus, and we paddled into the sunset. Some visual artists may have been stunned silent after hearing about that experience, but this is just one of my Canadian and worldwide adventures. I have dozens of more solo and pro team adventures that are more hair-raising that I may share if the spirit moves me in a future photo discussion, or if you are a participant on one of my expeditions, I enjoy to tell a story or two during our adventure.
I then transitioned into talking about the toll that my adventurous spirit has had on me and a few mishaps that have left their mark on me in my life, but how one mishap guided my wife and I to start a new life in Niigata, Japan, so I could start leading Niigata photo workshops. I explained that I’ve been lucky, as my total inpatient time has been capped at two years from several mishaps. Doctors have told me three times that I won’t walk right or even walk at all. I was in the category of an adventurer whose life expectancy was markedly shorter than the average human being. Mother Nature does not care which professional outdoor gear and goods sponsorships you have; your life can still be cut short by way of an avalanche or other act of God. While sitting in the hospital and then at home after my last mishap, thinking about my rehabilitation, I talked it over with my wife, Manami, “We need to try something different.” She replied, “A different…country?” I said, “No, let’s take an adventure on the other side of Japan, a healing adventure for the both of us.” Within half a year, we had chosen a new location in Niigata in an artisan’s hamlet. We chose a 100-year old kominka, and we carefully chose Japanese master carpenters, and we got lucky, Japanese master carpenters still exist, which is a rarity to find in today’s Japan, and all three master carpenters were in their 70s, who completed the restoration in six months with my wife and I’s help. In a meeting with the lead master carpenter, Sanada-san, before they started, he said, “This is our last job.” For old time’s sake, they took on the project for my family. At first, reluctant, they sensed our connection to the home and the land, so they gathered their traditional Japanese tools and got to work with an entourage of sub-contractors in charge of foundation cement, roofing, kitchen, plumbing, and fixtures, and preserving the original Japanese architectural aesthetic. From the roofing, the flooring, and the aged wood support beams, everything was stripped down to a skeleton then built back up. Echizenhama is perfectly positioned amid an onsen hot spot, the Sea of Japan, and a Buddhist sanctuary where nuns and monks have been trained since the inception of Buddhism into Japan. With the help of Echizenhama and the power spot it rests on, my body was mostly healed. This is the power of my new home and region in Niigata, Japan.
After talking about my healing transformation, I transitioned into discussing some of my blue hour photos that I have taken while leading my Mt. Fuji photo workshops and other cross-country Japan photo expeditions and the concierge of the Zen forest, one of the many spiritual guides that steps in on my behalf and seemingly blesses my photo sessions with perfect weather conditions. One series of photos stood out during the discussion, and I was happy to share my perspective about them. I recalled how the Zen Blue Hour Forest Photography Session during my 2019 Mt. Fuji photo tour was a blast. There is a multitude of images from that one Zen Garden and region, which is best viewed in the autumn and spring light. The image below is one of those mind-popping images that I captured in the misty blue-purple haze blue hour; my participants and I had the perfect overcast weather on our last two days at the base of Mt. Fuji, late November Autumn 2019. The fiery orange and red autumn leaves appear even more radiant, with the colors having nowhere to hide.
Nearing the middle of the first hour, I opened a discussion about Landscape photography from my Hokkaido Winter wonderland workshop from 2019 and the nearly mythical heart-shaped sunrise that I was lucky enough to finally capture. While in Hokkaido in 2019, I captured an extremely rare sunrise opportunity that occurs maybe once or twice a year due to cloud cover and horizon; the sunrises in the shape of a heart, and in my over 20 years photographing sunrises at this spot; I have only seen a heart-shaped sunrise in print. Locals believe this was a sign from the Ainu Kami, the spirit guides of the First Nations People of Japan, and the Medicine Buddha smiling upon us. After sunrise, I bid the Hokkaido Pacific Ocean farewell till the next week, and my participants and I returned to our inland lodgings for hot springs and, after a leisurely breakfast, we took about an hour photographing the Shima Enaga and other birds and wildlife.
If you want to hear more of the stories I shared during my photo discussion with John Cornicello and other visual artists, follow this link
If you’d like to watch other conversations, go to John Cornicello’s photo discussion page on his website. https://cornicello.com/conversations