Before I watched two films about the two worldwide famous photographers; Annie Leibovitz and James Nachtwey, I have thought that photograph is just an expression of the world of the person who took it. Both of them are photographers, however the ways they describe what they see through the lends are quite different from each other.



Annie is an American portrait photographer and became famous for the great works for the Rolling Stone Magazine and Vanity Fair.


She was born as the third of six children and she and her family frequently moved to place to place by the car, that means she has sawn many kinds of worlds through her own lends. 


In my opinion, she tries to express her world through her works so that her works are unique and interesting to see and we can say that her works are artistic. When we look at the pictures she took, we can see that she took pictures of well-known celebrities. She asked them to express many unique things to realize her ideas for her works. 


Also her works focus on the beauty of human beings. And her pictures show that how she tries to put her every little energy into her works. 

Her works try to express the beauty people have originally and try to bring out the ability that the human beings have.




James is a photojournalist and a war photographer. 
Compared to Annie, he tries to show what is happening all over the world taking the photos of the real situation. 


He says he takes pictures in such dangerous places because he believes that his job is to let people know the real situation of the word through his works. 

    http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/

    http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/

    http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/

Through comparing those two different photographers, I thought the different thing among them is James takes picture as a tool to communicate with people through his works but Annie tries to stick to the idea that the photographs are the part of the art. 

However their works are sometimes similar in some way because in their works, the objectives are so clear to be understood that I can catch the messages straightly from them. Also, both of them tell a story and a message by taking a pictures of people. Both of them focus on people and they try to see the core part of people and shot them. 

Through watching two films about those famous photographers; Annie Leibovitz and James Nachtwey, I realized that one shot has a very huge power to people and we take photographs for both of art and the tool for communication. 

AndI thought the most important thing to take pictures is to trust, which means to understand the object to catch and face them. 

Japanese People

When I tried to start writing this article, I had no idea of who I should take the pictures of. 

Then, suddenly my little cousins called me and I decided to use the pictures of them. 

He is a 4-year-old boy, who loves trains.

Whenever I meet him at my grandmother's house, he takes me outside to see the passing trains. 

He also loves animals such as dogs, cats, insects, and reptiles. 

The day when I took this pictures, we visited the "焼き鳥"(grilled chicken) restaurant, 

which belongs to my aunt and uncle. 

Since I had 6 turtles at home, I gave two of them to my uncle. 

As I mentioned, my cousin likes animals so he was very interested in the turtles. 

He was crazy about playing with them forgetting eating Yakitori. 

Whenever we visit my uncle's 焼き鳥 restaurant, my cousin takes me to the park next to the restaurant even if I say no, but this time was different. He never stopped playing with turtles even though he was bitten by mosquitoes a lot. Usually, he gets tired of things very quickly, but turtles were special and strong for my cousin. 

He has a elder brother who is very noisy and strong. Compared to his elder brother, he seems to be quiet and calm, but when he played with the turtles, he talked to them a lot and said many funny things to them. That was really funny to me and I thought I could find his funny characteristic which I didn't know. 

I seldom have a chance to meet and talk to him, but the more he gets older, the more things of him I can find, so I always enjoy the time I spend with my cousins. 

Neighborhood Koshien

I've lived in the town named Koshien for my entire life, which every one in Japan must have heard of. The reason why every one knows here is because Koshien has a very famous baseball stadium, which is Koshien Stadium.







This stadium is famous for, first of all, the home stadium of Hanshin Tigers, the Japanese baseball team. 


Most people in Kansai (関西) area in Japan like Tigers and on the day that they have a baseball game, I see a lot of people around here wearing the uniforms of Hanshin Tigers. 

Secondly, this is famous for High school baseball, which is a really big event for Japanese!! 
Every boy who plays in high school baseball club has a dream of playing a game at this stadium. 
In summer and spring, the teams, which wins  in every prefecture, gather at this stadium and have games to decide the winner. 

Next to the stadium, there is a place of practice for players of Hanshin Tigers, so if you are lucky, you may be able to see some players here. 














The Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1999 affected Koshien. Cracks appeared and part of the stands collapsed. In July 2004, a concrete plan surfaced for improvement of the complete baseball ground facilities. That means if you visit this stadium, you can see the very new and beautiful one now! Before the improvement, Koshien stadium was also famous for ivy, which was around the building, but now all the navy's gone so people concerns this stadium now is trying to restore them by planting the seeds. 










Moreover to this Koshien stadium, there are many other places to see around in Koshien. I love this town here.