Narita Airport
Canon EOS 5
Photographer: Patrick Tsai website
About a week ago I decided to re-read Pat’s wonderful diary project, Talking Barnacles. As expected, returning to his world was addictive- He’s a fun and honest writer and one of my absolutely very favorite photographers. Through Talking Barnacles he inadvertently but delightfully makes a case for the unbroken sequence- - forty-nine photos of an excavator coming down and around the street add up to something that’s just as rewarding as any “good” Decisive Moment kind of picture. His perception of his world and life make for good reading and photo-experiencing. It’s the little stuff all wrapped up in the big stuff that makes his journaling so fascinating. Pat’s work makes me want to get out and take photographs of life. I think we first met in 2010 or so- the last time we met was in Yoyogi Park in August.
Interestingly, while re-reading Talking Barnacles two odd coincidences occurred. The first was when I went out on a deliberate mission to purchase Pat’s latest book, The World Above, as I walked up out of Meijijingu-mae station my jaw dropped as Mr. Poofy Perm, a well known photographer in Tokyo, came down the stairs past me. Weird. The second event was immediately after I saw off a friend at Narita airport a few days later. I got on the Keisei line to go home and got a text from Pat himself asking if it really was me he just saw walk past the Starbucks window near the ticket gates. It was! Thankfully my train hadn’t moved yet so I hopped out and was able to meet up with him for an unexpected mini-reunion before he had to get going to catch his flight. Here’s wishing him the best for 2015- it would be great if he decided to create another online diary in the future.