Images, Words, and a Doorbell

On the value of having a photographic journal and a video doorbell

Hello Dreamers! This is the second dispatch of Dreaming with One Eye Open, by yours truly — Toto (@totocaster) — and, let me tell you all about my doorbell.

Doorbells used to be simple things. Push the button; spring behind the plastic compresses; two wires touch — ding-dong!

My Tokyo apartment has a doorbell lifted from sci-fi manga of the 90s. White plastic. Clacky buttons. Tacky blue LED. Surprisingly large screen for something that has ice-cube-sized pixels. Gadgets like this at home are ubiquitous in Japan, so I mostly ignored it. “Oh, I can see who’s ringing on the ground floor, neat” — I thought and forgot about it.

A few weeks ago, that garish blue LED refused to stop blinking. Nobody was ringing the bell. Being midnight, half-asleep, I accidentally fat-fingered on the wrong button and discovered that my doorbell records and stores low-framerate videos of everyone who has ever pushed the button. The corner of the display had familiar to any digital photographer text: ‘1/53.’

During all those times, my doorbell has captured dozens of “portraits” of people. Mailmen, friends, stubborn television salesmen — all doing the same thing — ringing my bell.

Being the relentless pixel hoarder that I am, my natural response was — “I want those!”

Locating an SD card or any ports on the device was a moot point. As if Apple designed the damn thing. Not knowing how long the doorbell would store the data, I got impatient and snapped images off the screen with my phone. They came out a bit skewed, but that matched the visual aesthetic of the atrocious screen.

Publishing photos of people who didn’t even know that they’re being recorded felt wrong (heck, I didn’t realize that before a few weeks ago!) — even if harmless. After cleansing my brain with 62% cask strength whisky, I had a lightbulb moment to collect all into — oh surprise! — a book.

The plain sequence of doorbell portraits didn’t really work, so I decided to include full-bleed photos of the doors captured during my long walks in Japan. As a tiny hint of sub-text, each door matches personality from the same spread.

The first page reads:

For everyone who rang the bell. Except for that NHK guy.

I made a dozen of copies, one for each person in the book.

Out of Memory: Photographic Journal

It all started as a productivity journal to maintain focus on a personal solo project that required months of design and engineering work. Every day I’d put down hundred or so words reflecting what I had done, what went well and wrong — all in writing. I never launched said project because I burned out. As with every failure, there were sound side effects and things to learn. During those months, I built a robust habit of writing and keeping a journal. It’s 900+ days since the first entry, and I haven’t skipped a day since.

Interestingly, it took me less than a hundred days to realize that consistency had a far higher value than quality of work. Somehow ‘good writing’ would pop up randomly from the dozens and dozens of entries. This pushed me to rethink my approach towards my street camera, Ricoh GR3, which I carry almost every day in my pocket, hand, or backpack.

Coming from film days and from a country where everything was expensive in the 90s — pressing a shutter release button always associated with the cha-ching cash register sound. Each photo was literally precious. This mindset has remained in my head and into the digital world too. I’d describe my shooting style before that moment as stingy. Then, I discovered a series of magazines by Daido Moriyama — Record. The stream-of-consciousness style of sequencing vast amounts of seemingly random street snaps has become very appealing. Appealing and liberating.

“Not all images in series have to be Elliott Erwitt masterpieces,” rumbled in my head as I was going through 700 pages of New Shinjuku.

The idea of letting that ‘perfect street photo’ by simply documenting the world around me with a camera was the single most significant change in my mindset not only photographically, but in life too.

Thus the idea of making my photographic journal of my own. Out of Memory has become my longest continuously running project after the written journal itself. But, unlike the former, I love sharing photos with anyone who comes to my place.

Somehow I managed to keep the format consistent too. I didn’t come up with the following rules from the get-go, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can say that the following dictated how the volumes work and look:

• There is no overall theme. There is no theme per each volume either. I shoot and include whatever or whoever I find exciting or captivating.
• There is no visual style to the images. Although, the first three issues are hi-contrast back and white photos. I guess I fell into the are·bure·boke 「アレ・ブレ・ボケ」 visual style.
• Every time my camera runs out of memory, I dump images into the computer and start a new volume. I don’t review or delete anything in-camera.
• I sequence images by feel rather than cerebrally. This might sound like an excuse to justify random order, but it takes about a month to pick and sequence select photos.
• The viewer should be able to spend as much time with the zine as they wish. Opening it in the middle and turning pages in any direction is a totally valid way to enjoy the volume.
• Each volume of Out of Memory is a physical object.

There are two goals I haven’t achieved yet:

• Try to sell issues if there is an interest.
• Find [much] cheaper ways to produce them—possibly even locally in Tokyo (or Tbilisi?). Currently, I make one-offs on-demand using Blurb; they aren’t cheap to make.

Two notable books arrived in the mail this month.

The Book of Vales, Jonas Bendiksen

Every time I see Jonas’s work, I get a sudden urge to stop taking “pretty pictures” and actually focus on “meaningful work.” I can’t quite articulate what I mean by those two phrases, but they convey my feelings rather well.

The Book of Vales is a fascinating book where Jonas tries to explore the recent emergence of the fake news industry that has been happening in Vales, Macedonia. Images of the city in a poor economic state paired with portraits or quotes of subjects are fascinating food for thought.

‘17, George Nebieridze

I’m fortunate to call George a friend. Our paths diverged a few years ago to Berlin and Tokyo, respectively. But, I’ve been following his work ever since. ‘17 is his third book. A collection of photos he made during 2017 while living and melting pot of Berlin’s vibrant techno- and queer scenes. It’s a visually striking and brutally honest set of photographs.

I got several heartwarming messages after the first issue. Thank you to everyone who reached out and to everyone who reads this experiment of mine. This means the world to me.

Next dispatch, I’ll be writing from my hometown — Tbilisi. If you’re there, please nag me for a cup of coffee or a walk.

For now — onwards, forwards.

—Toto