Discount coupon
Here is the special announcement promised earlier. I really appreciate all the new followers adding JapanesePhotos to their circles here on Google+, so in time for St Valentines Day here is my box of chocolates for you. It’s a 10% discount for any purchase on the JapanesePhotos.Asia PhotoShelter account (minimum USD$20 minimum purchase). When you purchase use this code VALENTINES2012 and you’ll get the 10% discount for instant downloads, products (mousepads, gallery quality prints, mugs and more), for private and commercial use. Offer ends 29th February 2012.
Feel free to share this post and share the love with other Google Plusers who might be interested. (Originally posted on Google+)
In the rush to catch up with post processing the Naked Man festival photos, I didn’t have the chance to remember to do this POTW… well, I just plain forgot. Here is one more hurrah from the weekend, a township team showing respect to the shrine after delivering their bamboo pole and other offerings.
This POTW is of the Kounomiya Naked Man Festival, an annual event held just after the Lunar New Year, a calendar that Japan used to follow until the post war years. It’s not often I post an image from my agents website, but it’s there, and more information on the history is on this blog.
NAGOYA - JAPAN, 7 february 2009: the naked man festival (hadaka matsuri) was held. this annual event began in the year 767ad, in the nara period. the event is held to removed bad luck and bestow good luck on the people. the event this year attracted 180,000 spectators and 12,000 (naked) male participants.
This POTW is in celebration of Estonian Baruto and his first tournament win the January Tokyo Sumo Tournament. There is already suggestion that if he wins the next tournament he could become one of two top-ranked wrestlers (a ‘yokuzuna’). The only yokuzuna at the moment is Mongolian Hakuho. Currently, all the top wrestlers, who have a chance at becoming top-ranked are non-Japanese. The Japanese media emphasis this point and the media hang their hopes on Japanese Kisenosato.
I, and many other people all around the world rely on a free and open internet. Intimidation on the internet can only hurt the legitimate business environment on the internet. I need my agents, advertising outlets, and portfolio hosts to remain open, independent, and unintimidated. So I had to oppose the American SOPA and PIPA legislation. There does need to be an effective anti-piracy legislation in all countries, but not one that is arbitrary, skewed to favour American oligarchs and their economic interests, and not one that re-creates a Communist-style censorship of the internet.
So for about 36 hours, spanning from just before the designated blackout day the 18th January to just after, this website was blacked out in protest of the SOPA and PIPA bills that were to be put forward to US politicians. If you clicked on the picture on the homepage, you would have been taken to americancensorship.org that has a summary of SOPA & PIPA and the reasons for the opposition.
An article on the BBC news website says that the US government may not go ahead with a vote to decide if the Stop Online Piracy Act should go into legislation. The media companies (including Rupert Murdoch) have been lobbying for this bill, and earlier versions of it, as a means to shut down websites, potentially websites that oppose Murdoch’s interests. However, the wording of the US House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, feels creepily indecisive: “I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House”, which allows for a last minute attempt to try anyway.
Later today I’ll see what the mood is on Google+ and decide if I’ll also go through with a Blackout in protest to SOPA. Even though I am not American, I am not in America, I’m still affect. See my previous SOPA blog post here. Also, for a summary of SOPA and it’s history, see the short YouTube video here.
The Japanese yen has bounced around quite a bit recently. Actually, Japanese companies have been taking a battering, as the US dollar drops in value, and the Euro discovers it’s got nothing propping it up, so the Yen is the next best safe haven if you can’t or for some other reason, won’t get gold. In truth, Japan is deep in debt, and needs customers (the US) to buy. If Americans don’t buy, then the whole country will whither or remain stagnant. So one could say that Japan needs to economise, why print a 2,000yen note, when you could just keep a restricted production run of 1,000, 5,000, and 10,000 yen notes?
Note that “Nippon Ginko” means “Bank of Japan” (the central bank for Japan).
This POTW is from Shirakawa Village in the Japan Alps, and as you can see, it’s very snowy, dark, and cold. What you can’t see is that it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Happy New Year, and all that malarkey. 1st of January is the start of the Gregorian calendar and therefore the start of the Christian New Year. The Chinese New Year is yet to come, and the Pagan New Year, too. It is an arbitrary date, but interesting to see Buddhist temples and Shinto Shrines celebrate the Eve and the New Year at that time just the same.
What is a worrying start to whichever new year you follow is the Stop On-line Piracy Act (SOPA) being proposed in the US. Effectively, any website can be shut down almost arbitrarily if there is even one link, photo, or reference to a product from Hollywood. It appears that the movie and music industries of the US wants to have a total and uncompromising grip on their products. Really, I should be supporting this, as it means that my products also get protection. However, I’m worried that the opposite effect might occur.
If the bill is passed, it is possible that legitimate companies, who legitimately buy my photos, may stop buying my photos as they decide to save their pennies for possible litigation from accidental breaches of SOPA. It also means that the very places where my photos can be virally promoted may also be shut down. If you take a look at my homepage JapanesePhotos.Asia, you’ll notice that at the bottom of the slideshow is a “Share” button, this allows other people to show-off my photos (also see the Steve Jobs memorial photo below). This is one form of promotion I can do on the internet. If you take a look at one of my galleries hosted on PhotoShelter, the Seoul South Korea gallery, you’ll notice that there is a FaceBook, Twitter, and other buttons that help spread the word of my great photos. The problem is, SOPA threatens the very means I use to promote my photos, and could destabilise the internet economy. Finally, what if the very companies I use to even have a presence on the internet, Asia Photo Connection, PhotoShelter, and my webhost are closed down because of SOPA, then where is my ability to have an income? SOPA is not what the internet needs, and the very nature of SOPA is very, very wrong.
On a final note, seeing the reaction of Americans on the internet, it feels like SOPA has the very potential to smother democratic discussions, thereby making life for Americans no different to that of oppressed communist countries like North Korean and China.
