Sometimes, friends will just drop out of your life completely. Its not sad - people change. People grow. And that is never a sad thing. I think the last time I explored this little park was with my old friend - lets call her Sasha. No wait, lets call her Sandra. I like Sandra better. Anyway, Its been almost 4 years since the last time I was at this little park. Time sure does fly.
I think the first thing I noticed about this place was the amount of vegetation that grew in the last 4 years. I clearly remember being able to see the ground where I was walking pretty easily back then. Now, there are trees blocking the way. It feels more adventurous I suppose. Wearing sandals was the worst idea ever.
I brought my D800 (the picture below was taken with my Oneplus) and the newest lens I own - a 20mm 1.8. Its my first time really using it. With the product shots (Like the Evora, T-shirts) I am usually shooting with a 55mm 2.8 macro. The 20mm has too much distortion for product but I love wide shots for scenery when I am traveling.
As the Ken Rockwell review suggested, its insanely sharp. Like insanely - even at f1.8. And it is small compared to the 16-35mm f4. I am so glad I went with the 20 prime instead of the 16-35.
I took an Evora along for the walk. I didn't actually throw it at all, but the purple is a good contrast for the forest. It is funny though, years ago CLYW had a video contest with "Canada theme" as the challenge, and I filmed it here. I won a gold and red splash Peak for it (Ironman edition?). I wish I still had it. That thing was bad ass.
I walked for a bit longer along the path until I found the stream. This was in the CLYW video from back then.
If you follow the stream, it leads to this brutalist monstrosity. This didn't change much since the last time I was here - I remember hopping around on the bricks in the past before as well. More graffiti than before I guess.
I think the last time I was here with Sandra we got covered in mosquito bites because we didn't wear bug spray. I didn't learn my lesson. I look back at it now, and it is weird how okay I am with how everything happened. We just knew each other so well because we grew up together from a young age.
This plant looked so out of place. What the hell.
Anodized titanium sure looks pretty. Its always so different than aluminum anodized that we are so used to seeing. Anyway thats where my journey ended. I essentially walked back where I started at the bridge. TLDR; Don't get hung up on old friends, anodized titanium yoyos are pretty, and the 20mm f1.8 is a baller ass lens. Cant ask for more!
It has been a year an a half living in Osaka, crazy how time flies. I remember releasing the Plastic Fulvia just before leaving Toronto, a product that I could argue changed the trajectory of everything. At that moment, Luftverk grew exponentially, with the support of retailers around the world. At that moment, I developed so many behind the scenes processes for management that it became much more of a corporate job then a creative one. Huge projects like Cheatcode, and the CLYW collaboration definitely had its creative sides dont get me wrong, but the addition of moving to a foreign city, learning a new language, pursuing motorsports and delegating tasks behind the scenes with razor sharp margins meant for a lot of it I was on the brink of burnout. I questioned if I even still liked doing yoyo stuff at all, or if it was just to keep food on the table.
Crazy to think it has been 2 years since the original release of the Plastic Fulvia and Plastic 000. Both models as of now are pretty much sold out everywhere, and I knew it was about time to update both with a small batch of new colors as well as fix a few small issues with the first designs. I appreciate everyone who has reached out anticipating a restock of these - as the manufacturing process is very timely for sure so restocks can't happen as quick as I'd like.
In January, I released the AKURA MG, a yoyo made from Magnesium. This material has a very low density and I talked about how it performs more like a plastic than anything else. But what made that yoyo really special is the aesthetic. I loved the lines on that yoyo. The proportions with the chunky rims were just perfect. One of the biggest aesthetic challenges though were that after the ceramic coating the lines were quite subtle which hid the design.
Jeffrey Pang
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