May 11th - 18:14

Title: May 11th - 18:14 Medium: Super-8 film Aspect Ratio: 4:3 Resolution: 2880 x 2160 File Type: H.264 Codec / MP4. Comments: We were headed Southwest from Tokyo towards Kamakura. Ethan and I took the train to the local village and dropped off our backpacks and cameras at the paper thin home. It was a tea house. There was an earthquake that night and we felt the walls rumbling. We set out towards the forest to hike to the big Buddha sculpture in town. It took a couple hours to make it through the nature trail and into the town. We paced around the Buddha three times and noticed an entrance on his right side. We respectfully entered the body after bowing to the large bronze sculpture for permission. Once inside you can hear the echoes of a breath. We waited for people to leave until it was just us. Once it was empty we both nodded to one another, without saying a word, and started to hum. The hums slowly become OMs and the vibrations were rattling through our body. It felt like an activation. We stopped when new people entered, smiled, and walked outside. Everything felt different, more lighter on the inside and brighter on the outside. James had arranged for us to meet his wife's friend from kick boxing class, Yufi. She guided us to her town of Chigasaki, which was not too far on the train from where we were staying. We met a rasta man on the train and shared a few laughs. Yufi was waiting for us in her jeep. I picked up a flower from the train station thinking it would be a great prop for her portrait. She brought us to her home as it started raining. Yufi poured us tea and showed us upstairs to her art studio. It was filled with purple and blue pastel paintings reminiscing of her time in Los Angeles. I fell in love with her work and collected a painting on the spot, which reminded me of my time surfing in Los Angeles too. She was having her first solo show in Taiwan in a week. We said we would be there, and changed all of our travel plans to go. When it was time to shoot her portrait, I asked Yufi to paint with the flower I brought. She stopped and looked at me then continued painting with her floral brush surrounded by all her artworks going in the show.