Mihenno

Thanks, you're one clever cookie FACE!

BAE

BAE

Me after new haircut + hair colour, May 9.
 

Last recent photo (implant looks fine, tho, I am so happy with that )
 



Aaaand...
I finally got my long awaited boots, so I took some comparasion pics. Left are mine, right is SHOW, from JIGGYS SHOP. Unfortunately I don't own the whole set (it's really hard to get them, since they're sold out), but it's okay. SHOW looks so thin, I can't believe xDD 
 

My Fairytale new maxi single "鳥籠トロイメライ(torikago traumerei)" will be released at 2015/06/17 (1,620yen), which will be sold in advance at their presents live "トロイメライ〜虚無に響く旋律と鳥籠の中の絵空事〜(traumerei〜kyomu ni hibiku senritsu to torikago no naka no esoragoto〜)" at Ikebukuro EDGE at 2015/06/03
 
[track list]
01.鳥籠トロイメライ(torikago traumerei)
02.トリックアート・ゴシック・マンション(trickart gothic mansion)
03.白昼夢とアンソロジー(hakuchuumu to anthology)

That means a lot, honestly. I will be running it again on Saturday at 5:00 if you want interested in going! Though not sure if I am going to be filming it or not lol.      
Only the top skiing photo and the Bee and Puppycat cosplayer (the one with the plushy) are the only strobbed shots there. I will have to post more of my strobbed, but to be completely honest, flash has been the single most difficult area of photography for me to understand. First off, I hardly ever shoot with the flash on camera. If I do, I am certainly bouncing it off of a ceiling or a wall. I am not going to make any assumptions on how much you know about photography, so sorry if some of this is a little basic. The softness of your light is directly proportional to the size of the light source in relation to the subject. Essentially, if I want really soft flattering light, I need to figure out how can I make the light bigger. Bouncing off a wall (assuming the wall isn't colored) can help a ton. The down side of this is that it uses a ton of power, especially if the walls or ceiling are higher or far away. You can use a bulbous diffuser right on the flash (like the Gary Fong Lightsphere). This will give you a marginal increase in softness (and still sometimes a bit of an unflattering look if the light is on camera).
 
The absolute best thing you can do is get your light off of camera and with a modifier. Shoot through umbrellas are probably the cheapest way of getting this done, but I really love the look of a soft box (I use my 43" apollo orb soft box as my main modifier). When you take a photo with a flash right on top of the camera, you are lighting someone, but you are taking away so many of those shadows this give depth and contrast. Shooting off camera flash can add really add to the depth of an image. I have been looking for a great solution for what to buy in terms of off camera flashes for a while and am on my to my third set - 3 yonguo YN560 IV's with a YN560 TX transmitter, all for around $300 with great remote manual controls, these things seems great so far.
 
All of that said, I shoot more often with natural light. Most of the time I am walking around a con I have my 35mm f/1.4 lens on with the aperture set to max (1.4), the shutter speed between 1/60 and 1/200, and then I adjust the ISO to whatever gets me in that range. I don't know what kind of camera or lenses you are shooting, that would make it a lot easier to recommend things. Be warned though - the lights in the dealers hall at Acen flicker at about 1/200th so never let your camera get above that speed when you are in there.
Since I Acen is coming up in a week (!!!), here's a shot from last year using a super ghetto rigged flash setup.
 

It's from a Oneness in store event back in march, but it's probably my favorite picture I've taken with any bandman. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGG2jO8oBRk

b a e

Is this a Spam Your Selfies Day? This is me on May Day's eve! Here's some smiling for you DarkWater!
 

Artist: MEJIBRAY Single: 盈虧 1. 盈虧 2. 人間 3. 蜈蚣
Rating: | It's more pleasant than open face surgery at least.
 
I'm legitimately disturbed by how far MEJIBRAY have fallen.

I never expected much from them, but this is yet another step down from Theatrical Blue Black, and I wonder how this band keeps fans and continues their activities. For one, the singing is enough to make anyone run for the hills. The goat bleating is such a chore to listen to, and if it's not that it's either strained falsetto or some weird demented frog guttural yoga hums. Tsuzuku's inability to sing trivializes the skills of the rest of the band to a large extent. Their unorthodox vocalist may have worked for them at one point, but that time has long since passed. Tsuzuku needs to either improve his delivery on all fronts or cede his position to someone who can actually sing, because "sounding unique" is not a good enough excuse to hide the singing inability.

盈虧 is the soundtrack that plays on loop in the room where people go to watch paint dry. The excerpt at the beginning is stupid enough, but then it feeds into this aimless and bland melody that fails at being dark and moody. The repetitive strumming does not build up a convincing enough atmosphere, and that chorus is a train wreck of massive proportions. It's the most unengaging single I've ever heard in my life and it provides nothing to hook the listener in. The band isn't compensating for Tsuzuku's shortcomings by producing catchy music, and they're definitely not playing to his strengths because he sounds out of place, so I'm not understanding how this is supposed to work. The accompanying tracks are only marginally better, but still pretty awful. 人間 is a power ballad with an awkward metalcore section in the middle. It's a bad choice to follow one slow, boring song with a gimmick that they lack the tools to execute. 蜈蚣 is the banger that probably works better live than in studio that doesn't get my blood rushing the way a good core song should. For all it's aggression, it feels just as stagnant as the first two songs. If they fail to be convincing with their mother genre, I don't see much hope for this band.

As MEJIBRAY completes their transition from boring to disappointing, I struggle to find any reason why this band should remain relevant. It's frustrating how inconsistent they are. Their last album was met with a lot of unexpected praise, but whatever inspired them then didn't now. This is beyond disappointing; this is almost insultingly bad, and when I remind myself that they pumped this crap out in three different editions my stomach churns. There are claims that MEJIBRAY have potential, but much like Tsuzuku's singing ability I hear none of it. Unharnessed potential is wasted potential and even if the members themselves are individually talented, their music does not reflect on their abilities. In all good faith, I could not recommend this single to anybody. This is by far one of their worst releases in a long time. Even if you're a diehard MEJIBRAY fan, I recommend waiting for the next single.

If you're that brave trooper who actually bought this single, ask for your money back.

What. Pizza Kei is coming.

Love the PV and love the samples. Unlike most people i don't care much for their 'heavier' songs, and i'm glad they are going back to the kind of sound in their first few singles that won many of their (early) fans over. Also nice to see them recovering so well from kazuki's departure.