Arrived just in time for the reception at Tanto Tempo Gallery in Kobe hosted by Takeki Sugiyama, founder of this unique photography festival. Unique because, according to Takeki-san, this is probably the first international festival with a good representation of guests and reviewers from outside Japan. It is also unique because of it’s location, in the Kansai region, away from Tokyo, to be set in the picturesque mountains above Kobe and it’s beautiful bay. Special guest photographers Antoine d’Agata and Hiroshi Watanabe (whom I met at Sagamihara in 2007) will be leading their presentations individually over this weekend.
Jay from SIPF and Fabrice Wagner, independent publisher
Antoine d’Agata and Gwen Lee from SIPF
Yoichi Nagata (Fraction Magazine Japan), Naoko Ohta (KLEE Gallery curator), Yosuke Fujiki (B Gallery, Tokyo), Kunihiro Takahashi (Toseisha / Tokyo) Hiroshi Watanabe.
Welcome to Kobe
Antoine’d Agata, Takeki Sugiyama (MtRokko director), Hiroshi Watanabe, Jay, Gwen sharing a moment
Education, according to Takeki-san is vital, in the moving forward of photography in Japan, especially in the youth, and greater exposure of contemporary Japanese art photography to the ‘outside’ is his challenge. More later.
explorenation.net ~ photography posts, workshops, writings and thoughts by Steven V-L Lee 
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