Well there are whale tails and whale tales. This past week or so in Japan I’ve had numeorus photographic assignments all of which were whale tales of one sort of another.

It started early last week with a trip up to Aomori to photograph the Tokyo Two again, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, who are standing trial for alleged criminal theft and tresspass. The trial is winding up, last week was the summing up of the prosecution and defence case. I know which I support, but not sure it’d get good odds at the bookies. The trial is now over until the verdict and possible sentencing later in the summer. If you don’t know of the Greenpeace Tokyo Two story- the alleged embezzlement of whale meat by whalers from a Japanese tax-payer funded programme, subsequent investigations, non investigations, detentions etc, please take a read. You can also watch a 30 minute very interesting documentary about the case made by ABC TV (Part One, Part Two ).
And you can see a selection of my photographs of the Greenpeace Tokyo Two trial here.

And then late in the week it was back to Tokyo, a different court case, a different approach to whaling and protest. Back to the trial of Pete Bethune, the Sea Shepherd activist who boarded a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean and is now residing in the Tokyo Detention Centre whilst he stands trial accused of a few things… So another court case to cover for clients, and again, how to make a court case looking photographically interesting ? But this time the Japanese ‘right wing’ element have helped out, standing outside the courts on each of Bethune’s appearances spewing their vitriol and hatred. And on occasion a lone Sea Shepherd supporter has arrived from New Zealand to run the gauntlet of hatred from the Right Wing in the streets. Certainly spices things up a bit from the photographer’s point of view. And as an aside, interesting  to see that just for unfurling a Sea Shepherd banner you get bundled along the street pretty quickly by the police who then take your details, whilst Right Wing can scream their hatred and swing punches but remain untouched by the law. See here for my photographs of Sea Shepherd showing support for Pete Bethune during his Tokyo detention, and here for photographs of Japanese right wing demonstrating against Pete Bethune and Sea Shepherd claiming also sorts of racial discrimination etc. And from my archives, photographs of Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat in the Southern Ocean, hunting for the Japanese whaling fleet, in 2006.

And then yesterday, another photo shoot, one more fascinating angle on the whole debate about whaling, but that is embargoed for another 24 hours. Please call back tomorrow to see those…

And of course all of the above – the voyages, the whales, politics, the prosecutions, the defence arguments and reasoning, the racist vitriol, is all about Japan’s research whaling programme in the Southern Ocean, debated by environmentalists who call it nothing but commercial whaling in disguise. See here for my photographs of Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean.