In Mid-June Group 6, G6 , Traveled to the Konica Minolta Plaza Gallery

      On Friday, June 17th I and my group members went to the gallery named  Konica Minolta Plaza and which is located in Shinjuku. It was raining, but a rainy day might be suitablefor seeing the exhibition, 'AQUA'The gallery is on 4^th floor of Gucci store building which is next to ‘Big Camera’. The gallery was quite small. The gallery was divided as 3 small, different areas. The first area was for displaying David Doubilet’s photography and second area was for playing underwater world video.(I am not sure that the movie was filmed by David Doubilet or not.) The last area was displaying diving suit (not David’s) and some knowledge of diving and ocean. Even though it is a small gallery, but the area where the photographs are displayed was clean and simple interior, so that people can focus on the photos. The whole atmosphere of the gallery was calm, but it is not the calm that people feel awkwardness to visit at all. (Oh, I should have to tell you that the greatest thing about this gallery was that it was free, so anyone can go and see the show, even though you don’t have any money!) 

Anyway, when I and my group members visited the gallery, it was holding the American photographer David Doubilet’s exhibition. The photographs at the gallery were mostly about our underwater world. His main work of photos is for ‘National Geography ‘. Therefore, the figures that he took are mostly nature and animals which live in water.  As I’ve mentioned, He dives to take pictures, or he takes pictures from high altitude. As I mentioned earlier, the photographs are mainly about underwater creatures and underwater world. Therefore, most photos have mysterious and cool atmosphere.

There were 31 unique photographs and I would like to introduce few of them. To describe the structure of this picture, the diver is the center of the picture and around him schools of cardinal fish make a circle. This structure is pretty balanced. Moreover, the picture was taken against the light, so it made a silhouette of diver and fish, however, the sun lights wire coral and the color of wire coral popped out. Diver and fish versus wire coral makes the contrast and it contributes the mysterious atmosphere. All these elements gathered and made the watchers feel this atmosphere. Thanks to his work, we are able to see the mysterious world of ocean and nature. Therefore, I think it will be great opportunity to see the nature and know about it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take a picture of his works so I found David’s web page which you can see some of his works...

Another member describes some of the images...

About a picture of turtle.

In the picture, there was a big turtle alone apparently. But there are two remoras which are trying to get a little share of big turtle’s left over. But the turtle does not seem to be caring about them at all. He is relaxing his limbs against the back ground of blue water. The water is shining by the reflection of sunlight. The picture was taken in the water. When the photographer took the picture, he was in the deeper water than turtle. He looked up to take picture. The glow of shiny greenish water and the darkness of the deep sea emphasize on their color each other. The turtle looks like an astronaut who is swimming in the cosmic space.

About a picture of anemone fish

In the picture there is a big bright orange fish which has comical large eyes. It occupies about the half of the picture. People might not notice on first sight though, in the lower half of the picture, the thing which looks like coral or seaweed is actually fries just trying come out from eggs. The photographer took a picture of anemone fish guarding its eggs. By noticing the fact from the title of this picture or the picture itself, the comical eye of the fish changes into the eye filled with love. But still the hundreds of eyes of fries seems gross to me.

About a picture of Australian seal

The upper half of the picture is occupied with really clear water, the lower half of the picture is occupied with fresh green seaweed. Since the water is so clear, the picture seems as if it had been taken on the ground. There are more than five Australian seals in this picture their behavior is airy and elegant. People cannot imagine that their weight is actually about 2000 pounds. The sunlight pours into the bottom of the sea is really beautiful. Seaweeds are shining in the sunlight.

About the picture of school of Barracuda

There are thousands of Barracuda surrounding a diver. Diver is at the center of a circle at intervals of about two or three meter. The school of barracuda swims in good order. Around the circle there is a ripple also drawing circle. The contrast of dark blue, water and water shines by reflection of sunlight is beautiful...

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