In your bag No: 1546 – Kai Takashina

In your bag No: 1546 – Kai Takashina

Kai is a spring chicken but exhibits some mature tastes and shares with us a pretty cool story too.

Hello! My name is Kai Takashina (yes I’m Japanese-American), and my current occupation, is that of a High School student. I’m currently a 15 year old sophmore in High School, and shoot almost exclusively film whenever I have the time to. I’ve always been interested in cameras, and photography, but what really pulled me in, was when I was given my first DSLR about 3 years ago. I quickly began taking my camera everywhere, while scouring the internet for tips and tricks to improve my shots. But about 2 years ago, my grandfather and I were back in Japan and while looking through some of his old belongings, I came across his old Minolta SR-3. 

I quickly began shooting every chance I had, while slowly but surely began losing interest in the digital realm of photography. As I prefer portraiture, candids, and street photography while shooting, I discovered the famed world of the Leica rangefinder. I was obsessed. The craftsmanship, the beautiful design, and the impeccable engineering. 

This summer, while I was back in Japan, in the Namba area, I went to Naniwa no Kamera store, in search for an M4-2, and came out with a beautiful M4-2, and a Voightlander lens. The other camera I carry with me is a Leica X2, with quite the story behind how it came into my possession. Well it’s not all that crazy, but I figured that people that aren’t familiar with Japan might find entertaining.
My dentist actually gave it to me. My dentist has been working on my family’s teeth since my mom and uncles were kids. Him an my grandpa had been friends for about 35 years at that point, and have basically had a constant gift exchange battle for as long as I know. So when I went in to get my teeth checked over the summer, and had my M4-2 with me, he noticed it, and said he had a Leica that he never used, and that he’d like to give it to me when he came to visit us later that week at our summer house in Nagano.  I had to deny profusely as befits Japanese custom, but he brought it anyway, and so it befell into my hands.

So to go over the items in my bag:

Leica M4-2 paired with a Voigtlander Nokton 40mm at F1.4

A Leia X2

A Leather strap I received for free from my local camera shop

Some Ilford HP5 400

And some Tri-X 400

and my bag is some random Herchel Bag I use for school

Thanks for taking the time to read!

Cheers, 

Kai

P.S.

Although I don’t own a Flickr or Tumblr etc., I do have a far from perfect website/blog that I’m saving money for in order to get a custom domain.  Here’s the link:  https://thewebmasteryt.wixsite.com/thestreets-takashina

And here’s the link for my instagram, although I haven’t posted much of my work there yet:  https://www.instagram.com/kai.takashina/

Thanks for sending in your bag shot Kai. Glad to hear the youth having such passion for film and an eye for good ol’ traditional craftsmanship.

Keep them coming folks, we need more submissions, so get your bag on Japancamerahunter.com
Send me a high resolution image of the bag. Optimum size is 1500px across. Please ensure there is a bag in the shot, unless you don’t use one. The more you can write about yourself the better, make it appealing and tell us a story. Snapshots of your gear with a camera phone and no words will not be featured.
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