New president M¡ke Keats
FACING UP TO NIPPON Faces
of Japan by Bob Davis
with an introduction by Murray Sayle.
OLD AFRICA HAND MOVES EAST
you imagine the vivid colours which are missing from the pictures. But black-and-white selections is an art
unto itself and, so ski lled photoSomebody once said a picture was worth a thousand words. The collection of stunning photographs in this pictorial portrait of Japan are worth a great deal more words than th at.
Veteran cameraman Bob Davis
of Stockhouse lived in Japan for several years and during the time he was there made ample use of his
talents to compile the photographs in this book. He has captured many of the moods of Japan, the architecture, the cities, the farms, the sculpted beaches and the traditions. But, above all, he has caught the faces of the people in many moods and in many settings. To me, it is a tragedy that the photographs are in black and white.
Only if you have been to Japan can
graphers and designers tell me, it needs more care and attention to assemble a collation of black and
white photos than it does for a similar collection of colour prints. Be that as it may, this collection is good one. From horrific urban jungles to the peace of the countryside, the photographer has focused on subjects
that make
Transport was hard to get ¡n Beirut in 1978. Apart from the human casualties of the war. vehicles had also been hard hit by the constant, often indiscriminate, shelling which rocked the city as various factions struggled
up
the Japan of today. A couple of the pictures I liked most are reprinted
for control. So when UPI bureau chief Michael Keats and a crowd of other newsmen straggled out of their homes one
here.
And as for the introduction by
morning seeking means to get to an election meeting on the other side of the city, there was some question about how they would get there.
Murray Sayle, well, what can one say? Few people know Japan as well as Sayle who looks at the country with a friendly affection tempered by
reality. His all-too-brief ¡ntroduct¡on leaves the reader thirsting for more. "The throwaway society," he calls Japan. "Half-finished." But these remarks combine
with respect for the land and the people.
A worthy addition to the bookshelf of anyone who knows,
or thinks they know, what
makes
Japan tick.
But what was this; Amid the gutted wrecks and twisted steel of runied cars in the compound nestled a two-door BMW owned by Newsweek's Barry Came, then, fortuitously, in Cairo on assignment. Came had been unwise enough to leave the keys of the "Bazza-mobile"
with his good friend Keats so, heigh-ho and away we go and eight correspondents and cameramen squeezed into the car and proceeded to the meeting. The election gathering itself did not provide much in the way of news, just another of the baffling twists in the continuing Lebanese political jigsaw puzzle, but as the overloaded BMW pulled away up a long, straight road, it gained the attent¡on of a morter team from one of the pr¡vate militias.
diaries
And yet more on the Hilter
from The Bulletin,
"The fi rst mortar dropped a few yards behind us and the shrapnel shattered both tyres," Mike Keats recounts today as he sips his Bells and water. "l was driving and I made damn sure we kept on going on the rims. The mortar pattern followed us as the BMW swayed and bumped up the road, the rims gradually being flattened because of the weight." Finally they made it out of range with a heartfelt prayer for German workmanship. But then there remain-
Getting across the "Green Line" from the Moslem to Christian quarters of Beirut could be an athletic -
and sometimes dangerous
-
business.
ed the problem of explaininglo "Bazza" Came what had happened to his car. When the Newsweek man got back from Cairo, Keats handed him the keys to the car and pointed to what was left of it. "You bastard," said Came.
"Let's have a drink." Things are a bit quieter now for the newly-elected President of the FCC. After a quarter century of chasing news for UPl, he is now Regional Manager for Asia for David Syme Ltd. of Melbourne, Australia. It was in his native Melbourne that Mike Keats
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