Toyo Miyatake | Masako and Spam Musubi

A wordless post.

Well, almost.

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So what happens on a beautiful weekend in SoCal?

Picked up the wall portrait of my kids from Alan Miyatake of Toyo Miyatake Studios.

This appears to be an artistic rendition of one of Alan’s photographs of Ms. Condoleezza Rice?

The famous grandfather of Alan, Toyo Miyatake.

Went to visit dad… The workers there told me he’s not eating much as of late. He only had a small salad with a little bit of chicken for lunch. When I asked him if he was hungry, he said no but when I showed him one of his favorite Japanese treats, he went to town.

Number one.

There goes number two!

Number three down the hatch!

He’s happy now. 🙂 And he did finish the last ball.

Took him one of Alan’s 8×10’s…labeled. He’s 94 now.

My bud Brian drove down from Reno for St. Paddy’s Day weekend – no better excuse to share a stogie together!

Played around with my new Canon SX260 HS point and shoot camera. Never had one that I can remember but it was fun to shoot with.

Superior close up capability.

Hand held. Look at the detail… Not bad for a shaky ol’ fart?

aIMG_0156 — I’m keeping an eye on all of you! Who’s got Visine?

Fish eye setting…

My neighbor’s new son, Gabriel. The father is USAF… I pray for his safe return always.

And finally, these were for me. Like father, like son! LOL

“Just photos,” as they say… Photos of my beautiful daughter’s wedding a couple of weeks ago.

Well, with just a little writing, perhaps, with a smidgeon of our American history tossed in.

In my other blog posts, there has been mention of the “internment camps” in which one-half of my dad’s family was imprisoned in the US during WWII.

Internees were not allowed to bring in cameras amongst many other things deemed to be a threat to national or camp security – like knives, guns, tools…and cameras.

However, at one camp called “Manzanar” (where my Aunt Shiz and cousins were imprisoned), one brave soul braved the tight security measures and actually made his own camera…in secret. He then took prohibited photographs during his interment. His name was Toyo Miyatake… (Note: there is a super documentary on Toyo Miyatake called “Toyo’s Camera“: http://www.toyoscamera.com/. One contributor was George Takei who played “Sulu” on “Star Trek”. Takei was also imprisoned during the war.)

toyoscamera — Copyright Toyo Miyatake Studios

The actual camera he made is shown below; it is still in the possession of the Miyatake family:

In what I believe is a Signal Corps official photograph, the Toyo Miyatake family is pictured in their Manzanar barracks:

This is one of the more well-known photographs taken by Toyo Miyatake at Manzanar during WWII:

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Jump forward to today.

Toyo Miyatake’s grandson is Alan Miyatake; my 11 year old son sneakily grabbed my EXPENSIVE DSLR and snapped this photo of Alan and I chatting at my daughter’s wedding. The gent on the left is Alan. We are the same age……but I do look YOUNGER, of course. Just kidding, Alan!

We’ve known each other for over five decades now; we attended the same church. When we played B-ball in the church league, he played guard. When he let loose a shot, his form reminded me of a graceful ballet. He was good… and his photography was fortunately much better. (Smile)

He shot my weddings…both of them, unfortunately. And there was no one else I was honored to have shooting my daughter’s. Both of us were joking before the wedding that we were both extremely grateful for auto-focus…

The following proofs are Alan’s work where noted.

Thanks, Alan…but I still challenge you in sports photography! LOL

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