Contact: I can be reached by leaving a comment below or by e-mail: aluminum@aluminumstudios.com
If you have comments relating to my Japan and Fukushima videos my Youtube Channel is the best place to leave them.
About: My name is William Milberry and I’m from the United States. My background is Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics. I spent many years working as a systems analyst at a large university. While it was a wonderful career, I knew that I wouldn’t feel complete until I pursued my dream of living and working in Japan, so I took the big step of moving the other side of the world.
I now work as an educator in Japanese public high schools and spend my free time photographing and traveling around Japan and Asia. In the recent years I’ve come to love black and white film which I process myself. My favorite subjects are Buddhist temples, Japanese Shinto shrines, and ordinary every day street scenes that even after seeing for 4 years, make Japan and the rest of Asia look different from the country I grew up in.
Arist’s statement: I never liked the idea of having to make an “artists statement”, but if I had to describe my work I would say: My aim in photographing is to document and capture the intangible feeling, mood, and aura of places and times. Our memories are not sharp, pristine, and sterile and as such I don’t strive to make my photos that way unless doing such pays tribute to a time or place. I prefer to use vintage and used equipment as the imperfect qualities it imparts onto an image are part of a shared history with the time that lead to the scene being photographed.
My work has been featured in a few publications including textbooks, CD inserts, and documentary books. If you are interested in licensing a photo or contracting me to photograph for you, please feel free to make an initial contact via e-mail. My address is aluminum@aluminumstudios.com I’ve also done TFCD work and would be willing to consider that if an exceptional opportunity came along.
i watched the first lesson of how to take better photos on youtube but cant seem to be finding more.
Thanks. Unfortunately I haven’t made any more. I really enjoy sharing photography but found it hard to be motivated to make more videos since many of the concepts I want to cover are covered thoroughly on various web sites and in books. The reason that many people don’t know them is that the automatic button of cameras takes away the motivation to search out and learn more complicated things for many people.
I’m happy you seem to have liked my one video though. Perhaps I’ll do more in the future.
I love your AMV of Sailormoon
my favorite is Sailor Mars Dreams of Red and Sailor Venus-Genie in a Bottle.
about to graduate college and a dream of mine is to go to Japan and take pictures of the social landscape there 
You don’t make AMV’s anymore?? it would be awesome to see something new
Your photographs are amazing I myself am a photographer
I just saw your videos relating to the radioactive fallout from Fukushima. In the video you expressed deep concern regarding the possible health effects to people. I share your concern but am curious why you are continuing to stay in Japan despite this unprecedented nuclear disaster?
As if the contamination by air, water and rain were not enough we have the corrupt Japanese government and food companies selling contaminated food to the people. Once ingested it is big trouble down the line for these people. If anything that would get someone packing their bags no matter how much they love Japan IMO.
Fair question. I fortunately live on the south-west island of Kyushu 1,000 km away. According to various information sources as well as (and most importantly) my own readings with my own Geiger counter, this area was spared any measurable fall-out. Given the west-to-east airflow patterns, it’s quite possible that America has received more than south-west Japan, although I can’t confirm that. Given that the area I am in is not showing elevated radiation uprooting my life, finance, and relationships is a bit of a drastic decision to make. I however feel more and more uneasy every day with the government’s miserable failure to protect the safety of food. There are a LOT of local products from the south-west available for me to buy in the store and I have been buying them as exclusively as possible. If the food situation gets bad though, I will be forced to consider all options…
Good to hear. I was in Tokyo and left to Kyushu on 3.14 to avoid the fallout as best I could. I have since moved to Eastern North America. I do agree with your assessment that the majority of the fallout by air has probably come to North America and I factored that in before making my decision to leave Kyushu (Fukuoka).
My rationale was that I felt the distance (~10-12,000km) would be preferable to the closer distance of Fukuoka to the source of the dispersal even with the wind direction. The food contamination was my first fear from day 1. I knew this would become a major vector for contamination through the country given Japan’s spotty history with food mislabelling and other similar scandals. They have clearly shown that their profits are more important than the health of the people. I felt I could not handle this and decided to leave based on that.
I will add, that having come back to North America has been quite bizarre as 99% of the people have no clue what has transpired in Japan nor could they care less. This has only added to my shock and ongoing despair regarding what has happened. My heart is still with Japan and the people suffering there but I was not willing to risk the health of my family to stay there. I sincerely hope that this can be resolved in the near future so I may return back to Japan. Best of luck to you William and be cautious about the food you consume as even food labelled as “imported” (ie: American/Aussie beef) may actually be from kokunai (within Japan) and mislabelled. Try to stick with an Okinawan diet…better for the body in more ways than one now!
Yeah Steve, that’s right. I found food in YAMAYA store that was labelled as “from America” and then, when I went into the website, it was from Japan. I realized when the packing was so tightly sealed, just Japanese packing is like this…
Regards
bravo to you sir. your youtube videos about what is really going on in Japan and the fallout from the Fukishima plant are some of the most usable information i have ever viewed and i have watched many. continue your good work and may God bless you and keep you safe as you do His work in getting out the truth.
Hey William! how are you doing?
My name is Mark, and I live in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, since 2. May 2011 (before I was in Osaka). I saw your you Tube videos about Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant and the measurements of the radiation levels around Japan. Thank you for your time and work, I really appreciate that (specially people like me that do not know too much Japanese).
When I saw the videos, I thought, thank God, there is someone that thinks as I do, and that I am not crazy about this, I thought that I was really going crazy and that maybe I was exaggerating about the situation, and also some friends told me the same…”you are really exaggerating”…”everything is safe and fine”, but then I was not really sure if they could not well informed and making their own research of the situation…I realized that, when they did not even know how far we were from the Nuclear Plant…so I thought, I need to be sure of the situation and make my own research; I got 2 Geiger counters and I built a third one (since the first two had Geiger tubes just for gamma and beta radiation) and I am measuring every day the levels here.
My measures don’t match with the measurements of MEXT, and are really far from them. They indicate 0.05 uSv/hr here in Kanazawa, and I get an average of 0.18 uSv/hr (which is supposed to be still normal background radiation). I know that my Geiger counters could not be calibrated and are not as professional as the ones that MEXT are using, but the results are incredible different and all my Geiger indicate the same, and 0.05 uSv/hr sounds for me very low for the situation that we are living.
I don’t know if MEXT is really lying. What has been your experience with your measures and the measures of MEXT, do they match?
If they are lying also in the contamination in water… imagine the damage they could be making…everyone cooks with this water.
I’m really worried about the situation and I am thinking of going back to my country, since I’m not sure about the information they are providing us, and also I would like to make a radiation internal exposure (I know, this is maybe exaggerating) but I just want to know if probably I ate contaminated food or water…and if so, take the necessary measurements. If you know where can I make such test, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks a lot again William! If you come to Kanazawa, I would really like to meet you!
Regards,
Mark
You used to make extremely well done Anime Music Videos. I continue to enjoy the old ones that I have saved. I hope very much that you are continuing to produce and share them with on the net. If you are, where can I find them?
Thankyou,
Ralph
I’m afraid I moved on from AMVs many years ago. It’s nice to know I’m remembered though
I too came here, having bookmarked your site eons ago back when you were still doing the AMV’s. they are still soem of the best AMV’s I have, Going through an old hard drive I found this link in my favorites and was curious if the site even still existed, good to knwo you’re stilla round, if no longer invovled in the area where you got my attention.
Dear William,
I just watched your video about food safety. Thank you for producing it. I am very impressed that you can read the tiny Kanji on the food packages. I am in the complete dark about the labeling, except for calories.
I landed in Fukuoka in June, intentionally avoiding Tokyo. This week I moved to Roppongi and had planned to stay for a month before leaving the country. But now I am unsettled by the alarming reports here:
http://enenews.com/local-govt-276000-bqkg-in-soil-sample-near-tokyo-in-kashiwa-almost-18-million-bqm%c2%b2
However, I look around me and everything seems utterly normal in Tokyo. Every body seems to go about their business as usual. Maybe its denial or fatalism. The ony change I can see here from my visit in 2008 is that there are now several For Rent signs in windows.
Ive lost 20 pounds since I arrived here as I have fought a long hard diet under a doctor’s supervision. I need to lose 20 or 30 more. As a result, I eat very little. But still I have eaten grapes and ice cream and I drink the tap water. I dont think bottled water helps; in fact, as in the US, it may not be tested at all and if it comes from groundwater, it very well may be highly contaminated. I think I better leave Japan. Not because I’m afraid of getting cancer in 30 years when Im in my 70s, but because the nuke atoms cause genetic mutations in offspring.
Im really pissed off. This s*** did not have to happen. A 1960s technology GE nuke plant on the water’s edge with back up generators where? In the basement.
Daniel
I just want to reiterate what has been said here, and in your YouTube page. Your work is immensely important not only to the people of Japan, but to the rest of the world as well. I’ve become interested in Japanese food quality because I live in NYC and there are many Japanese run/owned restaurants and buffets. I’ve often wondered in some of the food and vegetables are imported frozen from Japan. I imaging that Japanese nationalism is strong and these restauranteurs here in NYC may have connections with food producers in Japan that my make it financially beneficial for hem to import. I know of a very popular Greek restaurant in Queens NY that imports all their fish from Greece. This lead me to think that Japanese restaurants my do the same. William do you have any information about food imported to the NYC market, or how I can obtain info?
Thanks again for your work.
Joe, I really appreciate the words of encouragement. As far as Japanese businesses importing from Japan, I’m afraid I have no insight into that nor any real way to find out. I know that the distribution system in Japan is one of the most complicated in the world with huge numbers of whole-sellers and middlemen, so I speculate that a Japanese business abroad would have quite a selection of suppliers in Japan to choose from. Also, like you said, Japanese have a strong sense of pride and believe that Japan/Japanese things are very special, so I’d imagine that they try to use a fair amount of Japanese ingredients. Certain common Japanese ingredients such as nori (dried seaweed) and katsuobushi (dried fish flakes used everywhere as flavoring, soup, and sauce bases) are probably mostly only available from Japan.
You could ask the restaurant, however, you may not get an honest answer. Japanese culturally believe it is better to tell people what will make them feel at ease even if it is not completely accurate. Here in Japan I have asked a number of restaurants were the beef is from and they say “Australia” so fast that I suspect they have been getting this question a lot and have prepared and rehearsed their answer.
I believe this situation is controllable and if the government was taking better actions I would suggest just only avoiding particular foods for now. However, given the failings left and right of the Japanese government, it might be best to explore other cuisine for the time being.
-William Milberry
Hi again.
I purchased the same monitor counter you use in your videos: DX-2 by Industrial Test System, INC. That should work testing green tea and other foods stuffs shouldn’t it? I used to purchase Sencha and oolong from a company called Rishi Tea, but stopped after the disaster. I was going to purchase a small quantity and test it. That should be sufficient I think. Can I have your opinion William.
Again, great, great work.
Joe
Joe,
I’m afraid to say that style of Geiger counter is great for hunting down radioactive items at flea markets (uranium glass, radium watches, etc.), but it is not usable with food at all. It’s difficult to explain in brief, but if you have tea with 200 becquerels of cesium/kilogram for example, it means in 1 kilogram you get 200 emissions of beta particles per second. Radiation radiates out more or less equally in all directions. The Geiger-Muller tube in the DX-2 is about the size of your index finger, so if you hold it next to the tea only a few beta particles out of all of the ones radiating out will hit it. It’s like holding your finger next to a candle flame, only a small portion of the light which goes out in all directions from the candle into the room hits your finger. Then if you factor in that Geiger counters are only 30% sensitive (on a good day), 2/3 of the radiation hitting the tube passes through it without being detected. The result is when measuring things of a few dozen to few hundred becquerels of activity, only a handful of counts per minute register. This gets lost into the natural background radiation which can be anywhere from 15-50 counts-per-minute depending where you are. It’s impossible to distinguish with an analog counter. What is needed is a digital counter with a timer function. You can take a long average reading of the background radiation, then a long average reading of the item you are testing, and compare the two averages – the difference will be what is coming from the item you are measuring. Also, because of limited volume, tube based counters aren’t very effective with food even if you can do timed averages, a pancake style Geiger-Muller tube like the Radiation Alert Inspector Geiger counters have is the most effective because it’s large area can catch many more counts coming out of the food item being tested.
I hope this explanation is clear enough. I’m afraid to say that the DX-2 won’t reveal anything about the tea, even if it is very contaminated. It’s a sensitive and good Geiger counter for hunting down radioactive objects and measuring medium to high levels of radiation, but it’s not useful with low levels.
-Will
Will- Thanks for the explanation. Off to eBay it goes I’m afraid. Can you recommend something for measuring food/tea?
Hey William,
I recently saw your videos on youtube about the nuclear crisis that happened, and I had a flashback of when I was a kid. It was the same person that I used to follow that did phenomenal AMV videos 6 years ago as Aluminum Studios, and to me you were the best out there.
I’m glad you are still out there doing what you love to do. Your pictures you take are astonishing and have that unique feel to them as your amv did back in the day.
P.S. Did you take down all your digital video editing tutorials? I used to love to read those on how you did amv back when I was a kid.
Sincerely,
Chris
Thanks for the nice message, it made me feel good. However, “when I was a kid” makes me feel old!
I “retired” from AMVs a number of years ago and don’t do much with video editing these days anymore. My web site is also pretty simplified and just features my photography.
-Will
Hello William,
I’m from Hamburg/Germany and I really like your accurate journalistic work about the sad and tragic Japanese nuclear desaster – which affects us all.
I just watched your recent video from the upcoming Japanese demonstration move. I really appreciate that the Japanese society is on a good way to make use of their legal voice. After Fukushima large demonstrations against atomic energy production took place over here. Whereupon my government (again) decided to end up with this form of energy prodcution within the next decade. The eight oldest nuclear powerplants have been taken from production on short-term and the rest of them have to follow year by year until 2022.
I look forward for the next video from you – tks!
Stanis
Thank you very much. Your words are very encouraging for me. I hope the demonstrations grow and the Japanese learn to stand up for themselves more and more.
Hello William,
Thank you for your YT videos on Fukushima and on the radioactivity situation in Japan. I appreciate your time and efforts in researching and producing the videos.
I was planning to visit Japan earlier this year (2011) but because of the earthquake and tsunami, I decided to wait till Feb/Mar 2012. If I don’t visit Japan then I may not be able to do so for a very long time due to other demands and commitments. I’m planning on visiting only areas to the south and to the west of Tokyo (and Tokyo itself), e.g.: 大阪, 名古屋, 京都, 沖縄県, etc. My question is: do you think it’s safe at all to come to Japan?
Like you, I appreciate Japanese culture and aesthetic, and have been longing to visit Japan for many years. But if it means undue exposure to risk of radiation, it’d be difficult to justify such a trip. As a vegan, I wouldn’t care if the beef, the fish, or the dairy is bursting at the seams with cesium or plutonium, so to speak. (It still hurts a bit to see people consuming these stuff and inadvertently poisoning themselves, though.) But while in Japan I’ll still drink their water, eat their rice, and breathe their air, etc. Am I putting myself in unnecessary risks simply by visiting Japan?
Thank you very much. Appreciate any thoughts you could share.
Thanks for your comments. That is a tough question and I’m not an authority so please don’t take my opinions as any kind of official advice. I personally wouldn’t visit Japan if I were you. I wouldn’t come here if I knew what I do now and didn’t already live here. I would avoid Tokyo especially (which I am doing, I really wanted to plan a trip there this year, but that’s been canceled.) My latest video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5RSMv1TWvw) features excessively radioactive dirt that was taken just 26 km (16 mi) away from Tokyo. Also, research done on car air filters (http://vimeo.com/31370998) from Tokyo and (and Fukushima) demonstrates that there were (and probably still is to some degree), a lot of hot particles which if they get into the body can cause many health problems down the line. It’s just not worth it for a vacation IMHO. Japan is NOT as great of a country as it was before a triple meltdown and the nuclear contamination of 10% of it’s land and the government trying to contaminate the rest by allowing contaminated food to be sold and burning radioactive tsunami debris all over Japan.
Also, are you familiar with how difficult it is to be a vegetarian in Japan? Everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) has pork, fish, or some other animal product in it and the Japanese don’t understand the concept of vegetarianism at all. Even if you say you are a vegetarian in Japanese and that you don’t eat animals, they will still serve you fish, or ramen with pork in the soup and say “but there’s no meat in it.” A lot of restaurants don’t have any good vegetarian options. Just something to be aware of!
-Will
Thank you for the quick response! Really appreciate it! I agree risking radioactive exposure for a “non-essential trip” to Japan doesn’t seem justified. The contamination of their food supply and water is a real bummer… I would still be affected even if I only visit the southern part of Japan, far away from Tokyo or Fukushima. But then visiting Japan without seeing Tokyo doesn’t make much sense either, so it seems like my whole plan of traveling to Japan has to be scrapped. Do you see a reduction in 外人 visiting or living in Japan since Fukushima?
Thanks for the heads-up on the difficulty of being a vegetarian in Japan. Yes I’m quite aware of that as I’ve lived in and visited neighboring Asian countries of Japan (which also tend to have a similarly warped understanding of vegetarianism), and have seen how Japantowns and Japanese restaurants are like in say California, where I lived. Guess I’ll get tired of plain おにぎり and 味噌汁 for every meal, everyday! ^_^ Despite that challenge I was still planing to visit Japan anyway because of my appreciation and fascination of her people, history and culture. (I always thought watching the 紅白歌合戦 live in an authentic Japanese household would be a memorable experience!) But now with the nuclear fallout, like I said it’s becoming difficult to justify such a trip.
Thanks again for your time! Take care in Japan!
Hi William,
I want to commend and thank you for your excellent material on the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. I am relieved to see you are some distance from Fukushima Daiichi and the plume emanating from it. I was a long term Japan resident until the end of July – I decided to leave after getting high readings at home in Tokyo on a SPER 840007. This happened on two occasions, once in May and once in June, for about two hours each time – readings were reaching the end of the analogue scale plus “beeping” – according to the instruction manual, “beeping will begin approximately at 15mR/hr” – I think this equates to 150 micro Sv/h. I am unaware of any public warnings being issued at or soon after those occasions, although perhaps this is moot as there was probably little one could have done to avoid exposure to what I guess was gamma radiation from some highly irradiated noble gas. Whether or not such irradiated gas would have been accompanied by higher concentrations of hot particles (the inhalation of which may be ameliorated by use of a suitable face mask e.g. 3M 8210Plus) is another question.
Thank heavens there are honest individuals such as yourself who are striving to provide credible, objective information on the situation in Japan.
Best wishes,
Richard now 7800km away
Richard, thanks for taking time to leave this message. Your compliments are encouraging and hearing other people’s stories reminds me that I’m not alone in all this craziness. It must have been hard to leave, but I think you did the right thing. Even though you got some external exposure, by leaving you are avoiding what I believe to be the greatest danger – internal exposure through the ever more contaminated food supply. Even though I’m some distance away, Fukushima is slowly being delivered to everyone in Japan through municipalities voluntarily accepting radioactive tsunami rubble for burning plus the food :-\ I’m envious of you.
Take care.
-Will
Hi William,
I was living in Japan since march until November. I could not handle my stress about food, so I came back to my country. I was living in Ishikawa prefecture, and at the time of the Fukushima accident I was in Osaka. But I can not understand why are you still there? I mean, you uploaded all this videos, you are telling all about this information about the corrupt government…WTF is wrong with you?? If you say that everyone at the time of the accident in Japan is going to die, WTF with you?? Still there?? why?
Just please… don’t label your videos with alarmist names to attract more attention, and I suggest you to read official information about previous nuclear accidents and the health effects from those accidents from sources like WHO, IAEA, UNSCEAR and really scientific people and researchers that were for example at Chernobyl studying the health effects in the contaminated areas or those who were at the time of the accident. Instead of saying that everyone will die from Fukushima.
I am not saying that everything is OK and that the Japanese Government is saying the truth, we all now that the Japanese Government is corrupt, but I invite you to read scientific information about the risks of radiation and at what level are dangerous.
PS. People that were at Chernobyl had more mental problems than health problems, because they were told that everyone there will have cancer from the Idione 131, cesium 134 and 137 and that they will die. So they became alcoholics and many others suicide without having any disease. William, let’s think about the people near Fukushima or in Japan, that were seeing all the videos and info you posted, and the mental stress that you are causing. We don’t know how many people will die from Fukushima, in a alarmist view: let say everyone in Japan, we can do anything to mitigate the effects of radiation, but please, don’t stress the people any more, don’t make the problem bigger.
Paul
Paul,
If you are going to leave a comment please try to be a little more civil and adult about it.
First of all, be careful not to misquote people. I never said “you say that everyone at the time of the accident in Japan is going to die.” I never make such extreme statements. I also do my best to avoid making hard statements about things which I don’t have clear support for.
Also, I am anything but alarmist. I provide analysis and discussion based on available information (not speculation and pseudo-science like many “truthers” do on various blogs and youtube channels.) I provide relevant links for people to go and investigate themselves to decide if they agree with me or to confirm what I a presenting.
It IS bad to be alarmist and say the situation is much worse than the evidence indicates. It’s equally irresponsible to tell people “everything is fine” just to make them feel better when the situation is clearly not fine. The goal is to follow the data and gain as much of an understanding of the situation as is possible. How people handle the understanding is another issue. It sounds like you may not have been able to handle it so well and are still suffering anger over it.
Information is the most important thing and armed with information, such as knowledge of the random sampling results which I discussed here or information about contamination in green tea like I discussed here, people can make more careful and informed decisions on how to protect themselves.
I have a reasonable scientific background, work experience in research labs, a close family member who was an engineer in the nuclear industry, and do read (and understand) scientific literature. So kindly direct your criticisms at the people who are finding implausible amounts of radiation in rainwater, claiming to have identified Neptunium with little more than a Geiger counter, and blaming every dead tree leaf on Fukushima.
William