Hiram Borges

People I Met Series! Same night, same place I met all the aforementioned beautiful folks, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to the bartender. Lemme tell ya, I cannot describe to you how much of a badass this dude is. Ryo works at the bar, and has only one policy: keep it chill, and don’t squeeze the chicken (if you don’t want to buy a shot for the whole bar - a bar of max 7 people). My boy works from dusk till dawn (literally) to afford for his 1 year old child and wife, and he still made time to relax and go solo-camping for a few days, just to get back, keep working hard, taking care of business at home, and still being the chillest guy at the bar. On top of this, he’s honestly a better photographer than I’ll ever be, and speaks 3 languages. If you have the pleasure of going to the Golden Gai in Tokyo, look for him. You will regret not meeting him. Chances are, he’ll beat you to the punch, squeeze the chicken himself, get you wasted on Snake Whiskey, take a photo of you with your camera, hand you a cigarette, light it for you, and squeeze the chicken again for good measure. All this to say, I started and ended my trip to Tokyo here. There are still a ton of other folks I met in between, so stay tuned! Also, I heard someone say I should put the settings here, but honestly, I ended up spending a lot of time on Lightroom editing the hell out of these photos to help me dial in looks for films I’m shooting, so I’ll really only post the camera and lens used. Everything else varies. Here it goes: Camera: A7R Mk2 (she has a few nasties on her sensor, but I still love her) Lens: 50mm Nikkor-H. F2.0 Made in Japan

People I Met Series Same night I met Chisako, I had enough Sake and Japanese Whiskey to down a small horse, and walked around to a different bar at the Golden Gai. I was approached by two cool cats that were so cool that the Latino in me got a little scared. They wanted me to step into this bar, where there were some other folks who just seemed like a hell of a vibe and were inviting people who seemed would vibe with them to have a drink. Well, shieeeet, what could possibly go wrong, right? So I went right in, and this one interaction with these folks would go on to transform the rest of my trip to Tokyo, for which I’ll make more individual posts about. I met a father-son combo that had come from Atlanta to just have fun. I met a recently married man at the beginning of his honeymoon trip with his wife (he just wanted a little getaway of his own that night), slamming cigs down like he was gonna get caught (I was guilty of encouraging this behavior). I met two homies from Florida who worked hard for their vacation time, and went on to drift it up with the community on the weekend, and just straight up had the gnarliest of times. And of course, I met the sickest bartender, Ryo. My boy speaks 3 languages, has a 1 year old child, and went camping that same morning we wrapped it up. I’ll eventually do a separate post about him and the bar he’s at because he was just that sick. And of course, I met two folks that I’d dub “My Hong Kong parents” for the rest of the trip. They also get their own post, since I saw them the entire trip after this night.

Finally finished editing the portraits for the People I Met Series. Gonna be posting them now. I followed mostly everyone on my main account, so I’ll drop their tags in the comments. We’ll start with Chisako! She’s a sober bartender in the Golden Gai area of Tokyo that I met while bar hopping. 3 months before I met her, she decided to turn her self-claimed sedentary lifestyle around and become a body builder. So, she picked up some weights, opened up a gym membership, and got to work on some gains! Now she’s out making a name of herself in body building competitions. Her and her husband had yet to go on their honeymoon trip, and I hope they decide on California instead of Hawaii, since I know they’ll have fun at Disneyland (she’s a huge Disney fan), and since I know they’ll have a great time camping (he’s a huge camper).

Been lagging on releasing some of these photos. Just wanted them to come out well. Anyway, I’m gonna do a “People I Met” series while on my trip to China and Japan. Just gonna take it in chronological order for the sake of not overloading my brain. All the people I photographed made some form of impression on me and added to how unforgettable this trip was for me. We’ll start with Shanghai, China. Here we got Mattias, David, and a skeezy guy, whose name I don’t remember, respectively. Mattias is extremely lucky. Homie got 30 days visa free visit into China. I only got 10 days with an added trip to Japan. Guess they hate the US. Wonder why. David’s a friggin’ G. My boy learned English on his own with the help of a book titled “Surrounded by Idiots.” He’s also probably the biggest coffee connoisseur I’ve met, which is saying a ton. Homie went to Colombia to follow the process from planting the coffee tree, to roasting the beans. Only Asian to do that entire tour, surrounded by nothing but Westerners. Mr. Skeez-a-lot was a cool guy!… who tried his best to get me in trouble. Hell of a Pool player, and his love of China knows no bounds…. But I don’t think you’ll ever understand why Venezuelans are traumatized by Hugo Chavez. Such is life ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

More from Mackinac Island

Trying to get back in the groove of things and chuck out some more photos ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Went to a little bbq once upon a time with some homies ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Also, Patrick got legs for days tho

Party up!

More party photos

Here are some party photos

Longhorns were pretty cool ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ These are also from the road trip in 2019. We made a stop in DFW and saw some sick longhorns and cowboys. It was a grand ol’ time. This time, I think I was testing out a 70-135mm Tokina lens on some Ektar 100 with the Nikon FM.

I just remembered I have a ton of 35mm photos with a random assortment of lenses and film stocks that I never posted or did anything with, pre-pandemic. Guess that’s what I’m gonna post next ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I believe I shot these on a Nikon FM with some Ektar 100, and a mix of a Nikkor 50mm F2.0, and a Sigma Mini-Wide 28mm F2.8, for those that care lol. These are from Jackie and I’s first road trip we made to TX and back in 2019.