Sat, 24 Dec 2005
Soirée de Noël et Oyaji Attack

soirée de NoëlJ'ai mis à jour ma galerie avec ces quelques photos prises lors de la soirée de Noël du bureau et j'en ai profité pour m'amuser un peu et toutes les passer en noir et blanc.

À quoi bon laisser de la couleur, lorsque celle-ci ne fait que distraire? Le noir et blanc permet au contraire d'éliminer les détails de couleur parasites, comme les traînées de lumières pendant de longues expositions, effacer les reflets du flash sur les visages et de surexposer les visages de manière subtile, pour éliminer les imperfections de la peau, technique appréciées par les dames!

Ishida-san à la soirée de NoëlÀ part ça, la soirée était plutôt sympathique, même si toujours trop courte. La bouffe aussi était très réussie, ainsi que le stand de dégustation de vin, victime de son succès, puisque les retardataires n'auront pas eu le privilège de goûter aux fins vins de Bordeaux sélectionnés pour l'occasion.

La partie la moins plaisante de la soirée reste le fait qu'avec mon appareil photo sur l'epaule, j'ai parfois l'air du gars de service engagé pour prendre les photos de la soirée (et qui boit et mange pendant le service!). Cela m'a valu à 2 ou 3 reprises d'être agrippé par le bras par ce que j'appelle volontiers un sale oyaji qui m'ordonne de prendre une photo de lui avec une fille, sur laquelle il a dû fantasmer toute l'année. Je prends tout de même la photo pour lui et il me laisse partir sans même me remercier. Je garde tout de même la satisfaction d'avoir pris la photo et d'avoir une autre preuve, s'il en fallait, que les sales pervers pathétiques sont encore là parmi nous au Japon...

Fred et Chernnee à la soirée
de NoëlPour ceux qui s'interrogeraient, le manque cruel de mises à jour de ce blog est principalement dû à un manque de temps et de motivation: le froid aura eu raison de mon courage à même prendre des photos, alors que le manque de temps m'empêchait de développer celles qui traînaient sur mon disque dur. Pour l'instant, je préfère passer du temps avec Eiko et préparer ce Noël et ce passage à la nouvelle année, que j'espère un peu plus souriante que cette année 2005, qui m'aura épuisé professionnellement parlant.


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Fri, 03 Jun 2005
Surprise Party pour Kaori

kaori et son gâteauQuelques photos de la petite soirée surprise organisée chez Jean-Paul pour l'anniversaire de Kaori.

Merci à eux pour nous avoir chaudement accueillis, même si je n'ai pas pu rester très longtemps: lever à 5h pour aller à Hokkaido le lendemain oblige!


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Sat, 21 May 2005
Marathon au boulot

Alain à Tokyo, Mai 2005Oui, elle a bien été difficile cette semaine. Non pas pour la chaleur qui commmence à nous étouffer dès le matin à Tokyo, ni pour la longueur des journées au bureau. Non, le plus éprouvant a été de tenir le rythme de vie qu'Alain a lorsqu'il est de passage tous les six mois à Tokyo! Un petit verre tous les soirs, des célébrations ci et là, et une soirée avec toute l'équipe en fin de semaine, ça, c'est la mer noire (private joke)...

takagi-sanLa bonne humeur qui a reigné pendant toute la durée de son passage permet tout de même de tenir le coup, et de redynamiser les forces vives de la boîte, et c'est bien ça le plus important.

Comme d'habitude, les photos sont dans la galerie. Pour terminer sur une note de geek, CaptureOne, l'outil que j'utilise pour développer mes photos a fait un suppppperrrbe boulot en réduisant considérablement le bruit électronique des photos pourtant prises à ISO 800 ou 1600, une gamme dans laquelle le Canon 10D n'est d'habitude pas très à l'aise, comparé aux appareils de dernière génération.


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Sun, 23 Jan 2005
Soirées en vrac

family picture at Jeff's farewell partyCa faisait un petit moment que je devais mettre ces quelques photos sur mon site: la soirée "fondue" chez Guillaume pour la farewell party de Jeff. Merci à Guillaume pour nous avoir chaleureusement accueillis, ainsi que pour avoir sacrifié son appartement pour 3 jours, à cause de l'odeur de fromage dans le living room :).

Jean-Paul and Franck's birthdat partyQuant à la petite sauterie de Samedi soir qui m'a valu de dormir jusqu'à midi aujourd'hui, elle se passait chez Jean-Paul, pour son anniversaire, ainsi que pour celui de son frère Franck. Kaori s'est encore dépassée pour tout préparer à la perfection et la soirée était franchement réussie. J'ai fait de nouvelles connaissances, que j'espère revoir bientôt dans la bonne humeur d'une soirée comme celle-là.


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Mon, 10 Jan 2005
La farewell party de Philippe

Maggy vue a travers une bièreJ'ai mis un peu de temps pour les mettre en ligne, mais voilà les photos de la farewell de Philippe, qui a quitté le bureau de Tokyo pour aller a Hong-Kong.

La soirée se passait bien évidemment au Kani Douraku (かに道楽), un restaurant spécialisé dans le crabe. Le sashimi de crabe est vraiment sublime et je comprends bien pourquoi il s'agit du restaurant préféré de Philippe.


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Sun, 12 Dec 2004
Xmas Party 2004

Guillaume, Fred and Fred at the Christmas PartyPictures of the Company's Christmas Party, in Shiodome.

For those pictures, I had to use a flash, as it was way too dark to take pictures without, and I can't be grateful enough to the person who created the "Velvia effect" action for Photoshop, also available from Adobe Studio Exchange. With that action, I was able to saturate the colors of the picture to restore the original atmosphere and get rid of the blue cast, typical of pictures taken with a flash.


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Fri, 26 Nov 2004
Fred's Birthday Party

Fred and Nanae at Fred's Birthday PartyPictures of the Birthday Party for the other Fred (there's just too many of them lately, someone has to do something), secretely planned by Nanae to be celebrated at the Barbacoa restaurant in Omotesando.

There was a really good atmosphere at that party, which comforts me in the idea that my colleagues are also good friends first. The food itself couldn't be more voluptuous, with different kinds of meat ranging from chicken to beef and lamb, served on a all-you-can-eat basis.

I guess that's just what I should have avoided after having spent 2 weeks in Sydney, where meat was served in portions that challenged my digesting abilities, but I guess I can just start my diet tomorrow :).


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Wed, 29 Sep 2004
Team Party and Relaxing Times

fred at the partyFor Alain's coming to Tokyo, our team went out to have a sumptuous dinner at Torafuku, a restaurant located in Shiroyama Hills, specialized in serving rice, cooked in what I presume is an ancient style, with huge recipients made of stone. The rice is indeed just voluptuous, as the other dishes, such as the sashimi or the grilled fish, we had the pleasure to try.

I really liked the atmosphere of the restaurant, quite spacious and with a pleasant lighting, not too noisy (if you don't take our group into account!), and really enjoyed the evening there. Looking at the different pictures taken during this party, I can tell that I am not the only one.

thierry, relaxing timesAmong all the pictures of the gallery, don't miss the part where we all tried to make our own "For relaxing times, make it Suntory time", from the most excellent movie Lost in Translation. The undisputed Grand Master in this category remains Thierry, who demonstrastes, once again, his ability and talent for acting with so much ease, and yet with a innate class, which left everyone way behind him.


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Tue, 08 Jun 2004
Alain in Tokyo

izakayaIt's been already 3 weeks since the pictures have been ready, but somehow, I forgot to post a link, so here it is: the traditional team party for the visit of our regional manager in Tokyo.

NT, Unix, networking, programming, you name it, the guy knows it all inside out!
Recently, he was even doing some troubleshooting, opening PCs to mount their hard drives on other machines, because of an unsuccessful patch on NT (did I mention how much I enjoy having a Mac at home?).

How many top-level managers do you see do that recently?

Anyway, he's quite an amazing man (remind me to make him read that before the appraisal process at the end of the year!), and it's always with great pleasure that I meet him, both professionally and personally speaking.

It was also another shooting session for me, as I'm practising for Fred's wedding to understand how to capture the atmosphere of a party, without killing the mood...

What I've learnt this time: the key elements are a wide angle len to capture the whole scenes, fill-in flash to fix the subject and to have a good rendition of the ambient light, tilting the image to make it more dynamic and enjoying the party yourself!


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Sat, 13 Dec 2003
Company's Christmas party

fred and cherneeThe company's Christmas party was at the Hong-Kong Garden this year and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food in this Chinese restaurant in the middle of Tokyo, although my mom's cooking remains the best ;-) (just had to cover myself, just in case she reads that!)

Chinese acrobatOn top of that, Chinese acrobats (I don't know if they were readers...) were entertaining the audience with a show like the ones of the Circus of China you see on TV: lady on a monocyle tossing up plates and cups to put them on her head, balance exercise on a pile of chairs, etc.

Of course, I did take pictures, and under the pressure of Fred, they're already online!

All in all, that was a very successful party, not to mention that I even won something at the lottery for the first time in 4 years :), so Eiko and I will be spending one lovely evening at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.


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Thu, 13 Nov 2003
Xavier's trip to Tokyo

xavierXavier dropped by Tokyo for a couple of days and it was really great to see him again, to see he didn't change and even better to see what he's accomplished in our headquarters in Paris, thanks to his great vision of things and his unique character!

The restaurant we went to is the famous Kani Douraku, where each and every dish is based on crab.
I especially liked the kani sashimi (raw crab), the taste is so much different than when it's cooked, it's hardly believable.

On the other hand, Jean-Paul had a hard time there, as he cannot eat crab at all!

A quick word on the pictures, from a technical point of view: they were taken with my 50mm f1.4 again (I will never say it enough: this lens is a-ma-zing) under ambient light at ISO 400, that's why the depth of field is so shallow.
The rest of the merit goes to the camera itself, the Canon EOS 10D, which produces almost noise-free pictures at high ISO!


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Thu, 19 Jun 2003
Candice's farewell party

chamboredon familyWe had a quick party in the office for Candice who's returning to France with Arthur, Tom and Gaelle, who was at the party too.
On the other hand, Sebastien will follow later this year.

I took some pictures but the light was just awful (those neon lights, combined to a flash bouncing on yellow walls) and it's just a nightmare to get the skintones right :( so I used the "sepia trick", in order not to have to manage the colors...
I actually kind of like the way the pictures came out with this sepia tone, but it's a just a little too much when there are too many pictures, so I guess I'll have to work on them again when I have some more time...


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Sat, 31 May 2003
Omar in Tokyo

omar Omar came to Tokyo before he actually starts working with us in August
Omar is going to replace Bruno who is going back to Paris (sniff ...) and he had the traditional welcome party.


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Sun, 15 Dec 2002
Party at Fred's

The pictures of the annual awesome party at Fred's, celebrating birthdays of Fred, Pierre, Naoko, Natsuko, Cyril sayonara party and there must be something else too but the list is too long !


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Sat, 29 Jun 2002
Stephanie and Gael's wedding party

Celebrated in the lovely city of Alan, Stephanie and Gael's wedding gathered tons of friends ans relatives around a wonderful ceremony and the party which followed !


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