Kyoto Fall-Color Preview

Looking at my server logs lately, it's clear that people are looking forward to fall, as I can see the popularity of posts like the following bubble higher:

Those three are particularly popular at the moment, mostly via people coming from the search engines' text and image search. As fall gets closer, more and more posts from my Japan, Fall Colors category will become more popular.

Fall hits Kyoto a month or more later than it seems to hit elsewhere in the world, so interest will wane by the time the colors actually arrive this year, so to help satisfy the current colorful-foliage needs of the Internet, I've dipped into my image archives to show a few rejects from last year....

November 24, 2006 — along a small street, Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2006 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/160 sec, f/11, ISO 320 — map & image datanearby photos
November 24, 2006 — along a small street, Kyoto, Japan

The photo above was taken on the same day as these colorful shots, from a small street leading up into the mountains on one of the routes to Mt. Daimonji, taken very near where the “Pausing to be Silly” shot from this post was taken.

The image below is from the garden at the most-excellent Enkouji Temple (north-east Kyoto). With the focus at the far background and most things out of focus in the front, this might not “work” for most people, but the colors are wonderful.

November 21, 2006 — Garden at the Enkouji Temple, Kyoto Japan -- Copyright 2006 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 40mm — 1/1000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 500 — map & image datanearby photos
November 21, 2006 — Garden at the Enkouji Temple, Kyoto Japan

Photos from my one visit to Enkouji last year have ended up in four other posts:

The next shot shows the temple complex nestled in the bamboo-covered mountain, with northern Kyoto in the background.

November 21, 2006 — Enkouji Temple in situ, Kyoto Japan -- Copyright 2006 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 20mm — 1/160 sec, f/10, ISO 200 — map & image datanearby photos
November 21, 2006 — Enkouji Temple in situ, Kyoto Japan
December 10, 2006 — view from my veranda -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2006 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm — 1/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 — full exif
December 10, 2006 — view from my veranda
November 24, 2006 — along Kawabata St., Kyoto Japan -- Copyright 2006 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 38mm — 1/320 sec, f/10, ISO 200 — map & image datanearby photos
November 24, 2006 — along Kawabata St., Kyoto Japan

Kawabata St, which runs parallel to the big river in eastern Kyoto, is one of the most pretty main thoroughfares of the city. It helps that there's a river and park all along one side (as opposed to big ugly office buildings, parking lots, and convenience stores), and also because it's planted with so many kinds of, er, plants.

The whole length is an explosion of color in the fall (the yellow shown above only one of the many fall colors), and has an even more beautiful and varied outburst in the spring (such as shown in the first pic on this colors of spring post).

The yellow trees above (seen closer in the first pic on this post) are ginkgo trees (in Japanese: イチョウ), which are beautiful, but when, unfortunately, once its smelly seeds start to fall, it makes the whole area smell like dog poop.

With that pleasant thought in mind, finally, here's another one from the same area as the lead photo on this post....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70 -200mm f/2.8 @ 130mm — 1 / 250 sec, f/9, ISO 320 — full exif & map — nearby photos November 24, 2006 — along a small street, Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2006 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, http://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 130mm — 1/250 sec, f/9, ISO 320 — full exif & mapnearby photos
November 24, 2006 — along a small street, Kyoto, Japan

All 2 comments so far, oldest first...

Ginkgo is a dioecious tree, meaning each individual bears only male, or only female flowers. In Europe and the USA, I believe that most public authority street plantings use only male clones, because of the stink and mess from the fruits off the female trees.

But I know that the kernels of roasted Ginkgo nuts are a popular savoury treat in Japan, so maybe that’s why they’ve planted female trees – as a public service? Also, these trees look to have a usefully narrow crown, so are well-suited to street-planting.

— comment by Peter on September 19th, 2007 at 10:34pm JST (16 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink

Your first image is stunning! A wonderful burst of colour ( I must admit i have a fondness for saturated bright colours). It looks like it’s coming out of a Bravia ad. ^.^
I’m very envious of your autumn colours. It’s something I miss from Canada. I now live in France and we go from warm summers to grey winters with little or no change (a tiny bit of yellowing but nothing like what I grew up with). This year has been worse because we had such awful weather this summer that we went from bleurgh to bleeeeurgh. It’s a good thing you posted these images, they cheered me up. o^.^o

— comment by Cherrylicious on September 25th, 2007 at 2:51am JST (16 years, 6 months ago) comment permalink
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