Konnichiha Steemit! - Hello from Japan!

Hello Steemit!

My name is David LaSpina. I'm an American expat who has been living in the land of the rising sun (Japan) for a dozen years and have permanent residence.

I'm also Italian from my dad (he was born in Sicily) and grew up in Indiana, making me a Sicilian* Hoosier†.

I'm 39 years old and am married and have kids. No pets yet, but if my firstborn gets his wish we shall soon have dogs, cats, an alligator, a snake, and a dinosaur‡. I'm not sure my wife will ever agree to any of those, but I'm game for at least the first two.

I am a professional photographer by trade. Mainly I do freelance work, but I also sell a lot of stock photos. At one time I ran JapanDave.com, which I ran for about ten years, so you may have seen my work before. Don't bother going there now, it is currently gone due to some problems which I won't get into at the moment.

My photographic style is all over the map. I used to use film back in the day and usually shot black and white but also loved Kodachrome (as did everyone, I know). In the digital world I was an early user of HDR, but when my buddy Trey Ratcliff hit the big time and HDR became mega-popular I kind of abandoned it and went back to monochrome photography, also exploring some of the more artsy effects that digital makes so easy to do (see the photo I include in this post as well as my profile photo). Nowadays I use a mixture of everything, which I suppose to could say is my style.

I already posted one of my photos as my first Steemit post, and I will post more as time goes on. I will include some Japanese history along with the photo if any applies, so if you are interested in that kind of thing, be sure to keep a watch for my posts.

Beyond my kids and main job, I spend my time exploring Japan by bike (and taking photos of it), reading about Japanese history, amazing locals with my bad Japanese and my love of natto§, and trading cryptocurrency.

And with that... I've given you all enough to read. The Steemit guide recommends I include things like favorite movies and so on in this post, but I think it's long enough at this point. If anyone is interested, I might follow up with those things later.

I look forward to learning more about this community and interacting with all of you. Feel free to drop me a line with comments, questions, or anything else.

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*: Actually my maternal grandmother was from Gioia del Colle (Bari), so I guess I'm a Sicilian Gioiese Hoosier (who lives in Japan).

†: Who's Ear? (Only Hoosiers will get this)

‡: If you happen to know where I could get my hands on one of these, let me know.

§: It stinks, is slimy, and has a mushy texture. Most foreigners hate it, and many Japanese do as well, but I love it. See here.