Archive for May, 2007Snowballs in May(in the Northern Hemisphere, no less) We're on vacation in Furano, Hokkaido (northern Japan). It's my first time to Japan's big northern island, and it's turning out to be a really nice trip. It started with the idea of coming to see one of the things Furano is famous for, its huge fields of lavender and other brightly colored flowers. It's apparently spectacular, but due to an unfortunate image / calendar mismatch in one of Fumie's guidebooks, we're here two months early for that. (The other thing Furano is famous for is that it's the setting for a Japanese soap opera that's been running [...] 
View full post » Koinobori Floating in the Breeze The other day I posted about a koinobori bento that Fumie made for Anthony, featuring koinobori (carp streamers) made from wieners. Today is the Children's Day national holiday in Japan, for which koinobori are flown. We saw many more koinobori flown while driving around Hokkaido than we do in Kyoto. It was nice. The ones above are in front of what looks like a small hotel in the middle of nowhere, in Biei, an hour's drive north of where we stayed in Furano. (A bit of search after the fact shows that it's indeed a small hotel with the odd name “With [...] 
View full post » I happened across this very odd view of London on Google Maps.... Unlike the wonky view of San Francisco that resulted from the pasting together of multiple images, this seems as if it's had some kind of weird “etched in copper” Photoshop filter applied. Zooming up, you can guess some of the real reasons... The shadows point almost due north, and are long, so it must have been taken in the heart of the winter. The bare trees along the riverbank also attest to that. The lack of trees certainly takes away some color, but I just don't get the overall muddy, copperish [...] 
View full post » Biei, Hokkaido, May 2007 As I mentioned yesterday, Biei, Hokkaido is a really pretty area, and we went three days in a row. Each day's weather was different, so each had its own feel. Big Fields Means Lotsa' Plowing The fields all seem to be in different states, with some recently plowed (deep brown dirt), some green (grass?), some dried yellow dirt. A very few had dotted rows of tiny seedlings that could be seen only up close. I loved the endless combinations of rows, colors, and shapes, along with the many different types of backdrops. I was forever stopping to take pictures; Fumie is [...] 
View full post » Anthony Squishing Around in Good Old Fashioned Wholesome Mud I ended my previous post with the sad tale of having most unfortunately thrust my foot into a large, gooey pile of finely aged cow poop. The story doesn't end there. In fact, that wasn't even the low point of the tale — it turned out to be one of those “one of those days” days. So, to continue the story, I washed it off as best I could in a puddle of what I fervently hoped was water. I was able to get it to appear fairly clean, but then again, the shoe was [...] 
View full post » Drowning in Scarlet Pink.... ...and Pure White.... ... and Light Pink.... ... and Violet, Orange, Red, Purple, Peach .... Every year, the local water-treatment plant opens its gates for four days so the public can enjoy its manicured gardens of about 4,600 azalea shrubs (tsutsuji — つつじ — in Japanese). Kyoto's Keage Water-Treatment Plant (蹴上浄水場) is on a sprawling hillside less a kilometer from our place, and I've long enjoyed the brilliantly colored (mostly insanely bright pink) hillsides of shrubs that are visible from the road, but until I ventured inside yesterday, I didn't realize how much I'd been missing. The place is huge, and full [...] 
View full post » I went again today to the Kyoto Keage Water-Treatment Plant to see the azaleas (although I didn't know they were called “azaleas” until looking up the word yesterday). The pictures yesterday didn't give much feel for the overall site, so I thought I'd show some today that attempt to. I'm sure I won't be successful, for as I said yesterday, it's a huge sprawling site with many terraces, pathways, alcoves, gardens, nooks, and crannies. View From The Road (Looking North) The view is nice enough from the outside, with many flowering azaleas to brighten it. The picture above is from across Sanjo Street, looking down the hill [...] 
View full post » In our trip to Hokkaido last week, we took a car ferry most of the way. We drove the 83 miles from Kyoto to the Tsuruga ferry port, then boarded the Shin Nihonkai Line's ferry named Suisen (which means Daffodil). Big Boat Needs Big Rope Looking at that big rope, I have to ask: if you had to choose, would you rather be caught between the ship and the dock, or read my blog? It's a question of whether you'd prefer to be moored to death, or bored to death.... (yeeach, that's rank, I know ) Anyway, the boat is 200 meters long, [...] 
View full post » Sunset over Southern Hokkaido Sunset photo taken handheld on a gently rocking car ferry off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan. The mountain peak to the left is about 25km (16 miles) away (with the sun being a bit further away than that ) For sun pictures, I still think my Malaysian Sunrise is my favorite. 
View full post » Feast for a Monkey We awoke today to find that Anthony had prepared a lavish feast for George. A Dazzling Array of Tastes 
View full post » I've come to the conclusion that as a general rule, photographers are horrible writers. I haven't surveyed an overwhelming number of books on photography, but most I've seen range from “pretty bad” to, well, the most poorly-written book I've ever seen, on any subject (Bryan Peterson's “Understanding Exposure”). The only well-written book I've seen on photography is Stephen Johnson's On Digital Photography. The reason for this, almost certainly, is that these photographers are missing one of the two wholly unrelated skills that non-fiction writing demands. They know what to present because they have knowledge of the subject matter, but they lack the other skill — good writing [...] 
View full post » Heian Shrine From Afar As Nils suggested the other day, I visited the hiking trails behind the Westin Miyako Kyoto Hotel today. The trails are extremely simple (with mild stairs the whole way), and because it's all shaded, it was substantially less strenuous than moving around inside the gardens at the water treatment plant of recent posts. I brought Anthony with me, and it was thoroughly enjoyable for both of us. (It was much better than when I bought him on a multi-kilometer, much more difficult hike up the Daimonji Mountain last December, where I had to carry him most of the way. Sigh, I still haven't [...] 
View full post » Baby Brother I love the little sprig of blossoms nestled in the bark of the tree. I thought I'd post some more photos from the really pleasant visit I had to the Yodogawa Kasen Park a month ago, at the start of the cherry blossom season. If you'll recall, it's a mile-long raised berm with a path in the middle, lined with hundreds of flowering (but not fruiting) cherry trees. The area to either side has pathways as well, and eventually rivers (it's at a spot where three rivers come together). I wouldn't be surprised if the lower areas flood during the rainy [...] 
View full post » (IMAGE: Abandoned House in Hokkaido) During our drives around the countryside on our recent trip to Hokkaido, I noticed a fairly large number of abandoned houses. I love them for their photographic opportunities, and because I find them to be quite intriguing. (IMAGE: A Real “Fixer-Upper” Special) I wonder who built the house? Who lived there? Were kids raised there? (How did they like it, and where are they now?) Why did someone leave it? What's happened to it since? Who owns it now, and where are they? Mostly, I wonder about who might have lived in it first, when it was new. How wonderfully [...] 
View full post » (IMAGE: Solid Copper Rain Gutter) On our stroll through Kibune (hamlet in the mountains of northern Kyoto) last month, we came across the most impressive rain gutter and downspout I've ever seen. It was clearly made of solid copper, and looked as if it could withstand anything man, beast, or nature could throw at it. (IMAGE: Copper, Black, and Tan) I thought the flowers to the side were interesting as well, although my pictures didn't come out very well. (IMAGE: Small Floral Starbursts) (IMAGE: A Veritable Fourth of July of Floral Excitement) 
View full post » (IMAGE: Everyone's Favorite Weed) While viewing the amazing cherry blossoms in northern Kyoto last month, despite all the attention on the blossoms, there were plenty of other botanical signs of spring, and I took a moment away from the blossoms to enjoy them as well. In an earlier post, I showed some of Kyoto's brilliant spring colors, but those of today's posts are a bit more subtle. Among the weeds around the little river that flowed through the area were a number of different flowers.... (IMAGE: Little White Flowers) (IMAGE: Budding Pink Something-or-Others) (The leaves make me wonder whether these aren't early azaleas, which recently exploded [...] 
View full post » A small subset of Anthony's Tomika collection(Sorry for the fuzziness; it's a tiny crop from thebackground of a much larger photo) Today was Kyoto's Aoi Matsuri festival, but instead of enjoying that, Anthony and I went to the store to look at (but not buy) toys. The most popular little toy cars in Japan are a line called tomika from the Tomy company (“tomika” sounds like the way a Japanese would say “Tomy Car”). They're about two inches long and well made, and at only 378 yen (about $3.15) each, they're a good value. They've been around approximately forever. Over the years, Anthony has accumulated [...] 
View full post » Fumie and I spent today, our 9th anniversary, being sick, me mildly and Fumie miserably. Yuck. This is a photo I took at the Kyoto Botanical Gardens about a year ago, during the first field trip of Anthony's preschool life. It was the same trip with the funky echium wildpretii plants of an earlier post. I love the rich colors in this shot, although how rich they appear to you depends on your browser, your OS, your monitor, and many interrelated settings. If things are set up to show accurate colors (as I've worked to ensure my setup is), these colors are incredibly rich. What [...] 
View full post » View From Our Room at the New Furano Prince Hotel,Furano, Hokkaido, Japan That's Mt. Furano and a host of other peaks, 15 miles in the distance. The view from our 8th-floor hotel room on our trip to Hokkaido was wonderful. We stayed at the New Furano Prince Hotel, which is not to be confused with the non-new one some distance away. (IMAGE: Zoom Up on the Mountains) (IMAGE: Zoom Up on the Hills) As I mentioned in a post the other day, I love how low-angle shots like these really compress distance, especially all the tracts of farmland in the foreground. As for the hills, [...] 
View full post » Garden at the Enkouji Temple, Kyoto Japan, Fall 2006 One lovely side-effect of using Adobe Lightroom as the hub of my image workflow is that I now have all the shots I've loaded into it available at my fingertips (which at this point is everything since last summer, currently about 12,500 images that have survived the delete key). I came across the wonderful photo set from when Nils and I visited some temples last fall, and realized that I hadn't posted many of them. At the time, I did post a bunch of fall-foliage desktops, and a few about our visit to Konpukuji Temple, as well as [...] 
View full post » As I wrote in January, one of the most forsaken places I've ever seen is Kyoto University's Kumano Dorm (京都大学の熊野寮). It's right here in the city, but once you enter the grounds, it feels as if you're visiting the long-abandoned remains of a war-ravaged society. Wandering the grounds, only the word “forsaken” seems to do justice to the ambiance. It's otherworldly eerie. (IMAGE: “Kyoto University Kumano Dorm”) Since my visit last fall when I took these pictures, I've learned a bit about why it is the way it is from my friend Shimada-san. During the student unrest common around the world in the last 60s and early 70s, [...] 
View full post » (IMAGE: Excellent Wordplay) Outside the gates of the forsaken and forlorn dorm of my previous post, I noticed this stand of housing magazines, and couldn't help but appreciate the wit of its title, nor its inescapable appropriateness for the location. The magazine's name in Japanese is オウチ, which is a polite way to say “home.” It's a three-syllable word (oh, eww, chi), but when romanize (written with roman letters, like English) it becomes Ouchi, which looks just like “Ouch!” except for the location of the dot at the end (! vs. i). Very witty. Considering the common penniless student looking for a place to live, especially in [...] 
View full post » The family down the hall has had a nice flower display on their porch for the last week or so, but now that it's gone, I thought I'd recreate some of it here.... (IMAGE: Tie-dyed Rose) (IMAGE: Bird? Plane? British Punk Rocker?) (IMAGE: Big Ball of Little Leaves) (IMAGE: Delicate) (IMAGE: Bee Tracks) 
View full post » Today Nils posted a recording of the frogs in the rice paddy behind his place. It's sure to bring back memories of Japan for anyone who used to live near a rice paddy (although they'll be bad memories for those whose bedroom window faced said paddy). View full post » A few more pictures of May snow near Furano, Hokkaido, Japan, where there was still plenty of snow a kilometer up...... As “Full Speed Ahead” as Yellow Boots Allow (IMAGE: Chasing Mommy with a Snowball) (IMAGE: Layer upon Layer...) (IMAGE: Kids Love to Poke Things) (IMAGE: Master of all that is Snow) It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Falls into a Crevasse (IMAGE: Snowball Soccer) (IMAGE: Unbridled Joy) (IMAGE: Our Hotel From 10 Miles Away) On the way home, I was surprised to notice our hotel so visible in the distance (the white building in the lower mountain, above the rightmost orange [...] 
View full post » (IMAGE: Fish..... Tasty.) (IMAGE: Great Blue Heron at Home) Every once in a while we see a great blue heron around this building (across from where these night blossom shots were taken), usually standing motionless on the sloping banister wall. The first time we saw him we didn't even realize it was real, until eventually it moved slightly. I happened to have my camera with me when I saw him on the banister wall today, and was about to take his picture when he jumped down to the stairs leading to the basement property. I ran up to look, and saw him go down [...] 
View full post » (IMAGE: Rich Colors) In between snapping pictures of the great blue heron yesterday, I paused to take a picture of some potted flowers. The result is a deliciously rich set of colors that can't really be replicated properly on the web. This image is right out Lightroom, with all settings at their default. The saturation may look unnaturally vivid as if it's been boosted in post processing, but believe me, the colors are so rich to start with I worried that something might explode if I touched the saturation. I'm wondering how this might be as a desktop background.... Hmmm..... Also while [...] 
View full post » “I think Lightroom will be to photographers what Photoshop is to photographs.” —Reid Thaler Digital Photography Review forum post May 23, 2007 This excellent quote succinctly clarifies the difference in focus between Lightroom and Photoshop. I only wish I had come up with it! View full post » It's been just over six months since I released my long writeup on digital image color spaces, and it seems to have been very well received. I appreciate all the wonderful feedback I've gotten about it. However, I've recently realized that it contained a relatively big mistake. I've corrected it now, but in the original version, I repeated the “conventional wisdom” that most applications on Windows blindly treated color data as being sRGB color data. I called these applications “Color Stubborn.” However, it seems that was wrong. Today I tested IE6, Firefox, and the popular IrfanView image viewer and found that they were “Color Stupid” in that [...] View full post » After the ugliness of my last post, now I just want to see some interesting pictures, so here are a few random shots that I've been wanting to share.... (IMAGE: Just So) These were strawberries that Fumie prepared for the kids when Anthony had some friends over. They lasted for about 30 seconds before the plate was clean. A similar shot was featured on one of my Lightroom posts. (IMAGE: Stark) A tree at Anthony's preschool last January. Being in a valley, it seems that Kyoto's sky is always hazy, but on this day it was crisp and deeply blue. (IMAGE: Up Close and Personal) A [...] 
View full post » (IMAGE: Wilty-Looking Purple Iris) While on a drive in the mountains of northern Kyoto today, we came across a pretty scene... a small watter-filled field of wilty-looking purple flowers, with a backdrop of the sun setting behind some mountains. To me they were “wilty-looking purple flowers,” but Fumie guessed they were one of three kinds of flowers, each of which turns out to be an iris of some sort when I look up the Japanese names she offered. (IMAGE: Enjoying the Flowers and the Frogs) The field was apparently filled with frogs, their loud din similar to that mentioned the other day. 
View full post » On the drive in the mountains yesterday, after the lovely field of purple flowers, we came across this farmer preparing one rice paddy in between two that were already planted. (IMAGE: Preparing the Paddy) (IMAGE: Rice Waiting to be Planted) For actually planting the rice, the tractor takes an attachment that holds tray after tray of rice seedlings, and automatically puts them into rows as he drives along. The clump in the foreground above are some such trays, likely left over when the foreground paddy was planted. I suspect they'll use them in the paddy being prepared in the photo. (IMAGE: Just-Planted Rice) 
View full post » I noticed this headline in the news today: Uganda shelves plan to convert rainforest Now, let's imagine a non-native English speaker comes across this headline but doesn't know that “shelves” is a verb meaning “to suspend indefinitely” and instead thinks that it's the more commonly seen plural of “shelf.” The headline still makes complete syntactic sense, although the part of speech played by every word changes. What had been the verb becomes the subject, what had been the subject becomes an adjective, and so on... Intended Perceived Uganda [...] View full post » (IMAGE: Having a Stroll in Kyoto) I had to drop the car off for a checkup this morning, and decided to walk the mile or so back to my place. There's nothing particularly special between the car shop and home, but then again, it's fairly typical Kyoto, so I brought the camera along. My route was predetermined, but what I took pictures of was random.... The elderly lady above was just crossing the street (Higashioji, at Nijo), perhaps on her way to the bus stop nearby. (IMAGE: Flower Bed in front of Hotel Fujita) (IMAGE: Kamo River, North from Nijo St.) We'd had a [...] 
View full post » (IMAGE: An Actual Cherry on a Cherry Tree) For some reason I thought that the cherry trees in Japan generally bore no fruit, so it was with some surprise that a cherry almost hit me in the head while I was standing under a tree today. Sure enough, there were a few very small cherries (the size of large peas) here and there on the branches. It was windy and hard to get a picture of anything, but I did taste one and it was bitter-sweet, which reminded me much of what the normal wild cherries I had as a kid. I was under a [...] 
View full post » Yoko-chan's Daddy Unplugged Last month we attended a small get-together at the house of one of Anthony's classmates, Yoko-chan. Yoko-chan's daddy really appreciates music ... jazz, classical, classic rock.... all kinds, and we were treated to a wonderful selection from his CD and LP collection throughout the evening. He also plays the guitar quite well, and at one point he and another daddy had a little jam session. I snapped a few wholly unremarkable pictures, but I thought I'd see whether I could turn them into something more interesting. I know that he saw Eric Clapton two nights in a row when he came to the [...] 
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