The image above is a tiny version (click to enlarge somewhat) of a “painting” I made from a photo I took at Ryouanji (龍安寺 — the Ryouan Temple in Kyoto Japan) a couple of years ago. One of the toys I picked up on my trip to The States is a Wacom Intuos 3 pen tablet, which came with a copy of Corel's Painter Essentials 3 that I used to paint-ize the photo.
Corel's product is a mixed bag. It's just fantastic when it works, but it had a tendency to crash on me every five or 10 minutes, just disappearing without a trace (losing all [...]
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(IMAGE: Anthony, Mommy, and Daddy)
Half an hour after the sun went behind the mountains, and 10 minutes after the official sunset when it was already fairly dark, I saw the most amazing, deeply rich maroon/crimson/pink rainbow you could imagine.
At first I caught only the glimpse of one edge of it... it was brilliant, all the more so because of the aforementioned darkness, and perhaps also because the sunlight creating it must have been the deepest of the reds of sunset (seeing how the sun had set 10 minutes prior, it was made with the last rays still hitting misting rain from the upper clouds). It [...]
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I posted yesterday about an amazing evening rainbow I saw at dusk but neglected to get a picture of. It turns out that there was a similar rainbow 10 minutes earlier, 10km away, that a friend was able to get a picture of while driving.
See his rainbow pictures here.
Having taken the main rainbow photo while driving, it's not the best example of photography ever made, but at least he got a shot, which is infinitely more than I was able to do.
For a while now, I've been meaning to recommend Zak Braverman's blog as one with good photography and well-written posts. He's an American who [...]
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I went for a drive into the mountains the other day, with Anthony, Nils Ferry, and Nils' son Greg. It was the first time I'd seen Nils since he was my tour guide around Kyoto's Miyagawa-cho area earlier in the summer, about the same time that Anthony last saw three-year-old Greg (when they checked out some big mushrooms together).
Our goal was a photo hunt of some terraced rice paddies that I'd seen the previous day, but the kids having fallen asleep during the drive, we first had to wake them up...
(IMAGE: Snoozin')
(Nils has an almost identical photo on his blog.)
Just out [...]
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(IMAGE: Tiers of Rice Paddies Fading Into the Distance)
Continuing from yesterday's post about playing in rice paddies, we crossed the streets to see the ones we came there for. They're tiers cut into a hillside on either side of a small stream coming from the mountains. Because they're above us and extend so far away (well over a dozen tiers extending almost a mile up the hill), only the first few closest really look like anything. The rest are too small.
If it hadn't been so excruciatingly hot, I might have had the sense to drive up the hill on the little access road [...]
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(photo setup described here) (IMAGE: Japanese Beer du Jour)
The Japanese beer market is both interesting and frustrating.
Prior to twenty years ago the few major breweries all produced a few rich beers that were all more or less the same type of beer available since after the war. After WWII the Japanese people suffered greatly, food-wise, so rich lager beer emerged as a way a man could indulge himself, and thus “Japanese Beer” was set in stone for the better part of two generations.
That all changed in 1987 when Asahi Brewery's “Super Dry” was released on the market. If I remember the story I read [...]
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I was struck this morning at the interesting, colorful patterns made by the light under the curtains in the living room.
(IMAGE: Colorful Patterns Under the Curtains)
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I went back today to the slope of terraced rice paddies that Nils and I visited last week (where the kids played among the paddies) to see it from some different angles. It's been three months since rice was planted, and now some of the hundreds of fields have been harvested, and a few were in progress while I visited..
The pictures on this post are of one elderly couple working on a field.
(IMAGE: 10 Seconds' Rest for One's Weary Bones)
Don't let the picture above fool you: these people worked, and worked hard. In the scene below, the man drove the small combine and [...]
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(IMAGE: Dressed for the Hot Sun)
One finally image from yesterday's rice harvest, this picture of the lady is my favorite of the whole batch.
I was using my new monopod with a Nikon D200 and big Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom in manual-focus mode (which I tend to use and enjoy much more now that I have a Katz Eye focus screen), and I got the focus perfect for a change, with clear details on each thread of the cloth over her face.
Here's a full-resolution crop from the center of the image. Note the detail of each thread....
(IMAGE: Fine Detail)( Full-resolution crop )

My blog is not a photoblog. Sometimes I post a pretty picture just because it's pretty (such as these), but for the most part pictures appear simply to illustrate whatever event I'm writing about.
On the other hand, the focus of a photoblog is not the person posting the photos, but about the photos themselves, which must stand on their own as being beautiful, interesting, thought provoking, etc.
The best example of a photoblog I've seen is Andrei Zmievski's photoblog Vu (which means "seen" in French). I've known Andrei for years, first from his engineering work with PHP, then when he worked at Yahoo!. Heck, Andrei helped [...]
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Adobe has just released a minor update to its Lightroom photo-workflow software. Version 1.2 includes some bug fixes and support for additional cameras: Canon EOS 40D Canon G9 (unofficial) Fuji FinePix IS-1 Leaf Aptus 17 Leaf Aptus 54s Leaf Aptus 75s Olympus EVOLT E-510 Panasonic DMC-FZ18 Pentax K100D Super Phase One P 20 + Phase One P 21 + Phase One P 25 + Phase One P 30 + Phase One P 45 + Sony A700
Unlike the 1.0 → 1.1 update, this free update does not contain a lot of new features other than the support for additional cameras.
I've a number of different posts on (interesting?) Lightroom topics in my Lightroom category.
More [...]
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On the way to the airport at the end of my summer trip to Ohio, we stopped in Ravenna for mass, and I was struck by the amount of history that could be seen in the wall of a building facing the parking lot...
(IMAGE: Lot'a History)
I don't know how old the wall is, but the town was founded in 1799, so it's not older than 208 years old. But you can see several generations in the various brickworks, where windows were added then bricked up, then made into windows again.

I'd guess that the brick arches are from the earliest windows, [...]
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(IMAGE: Singin' in the Rain)
We went for a drive in the mountains toward the Oono Dam (大野ダム), to enjoy a nice drive and to visit a bread shop Fumie had seen on TV. Sadly, the proprietor was rude and unfriendly which sort of put a damper on the whole thing, but we took our bread and stopped by a little spot nearby to sit in a gazebo and watch some seniors play croquet. Surrounded by rice fields, it was quite a pleasant spot.
It started raining just when we were arriving, so the seniors left, and at some point Anthony decided to go onto the [...]
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The other day I showed an elderly couple harvesting rice from a small field with a small combine. Rice has been farmed a lot longer than combines and gasoline have been around, and it's still common to see rice harvested old-school style, especially small fields.
While on yesterday's drive into the mountains northwest of Kyoto, we came upon such a harvest, where the rice plant is cut and hung, rice kernels still attached....
(IMAGE: The Rice Harvest, Old-Style)
(IMAGE: Collecting a Rice Bundles)
(IMAGE: Bringing it to The Racks)
(IMAGE: Hanging Rice)(here, “Hanging” is a verb)
(IMAGE: Long Field; Lotsa' Rice)
(IMAGE: Hanging Rice)(here, “Hanging” [...]
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I recently wrote about the really nice tripod that I put together, but I didn't talk much about how I arrived at the mix of components I got, nor about how I'll use them.
What to Buy?
Deciding on components is a balance among a lot of things, including: Size (how easy is it to schlep, pack in luggage, etc.) Size (is it tall enough that you can use it comfortably?) Size (can you get low enough to the ground with it?) Price (isn't it always?) Ease of Use (how easy is it [...]
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(Note: this post will be of interest only to camera geeks)
My previous post contained a superficial listing of considerations for building a tripod, and left off wondering how to test the effect of various ways to use a tripod. For example, how detrimental is it to add a center column? How beneficial is mirror lock up? Since getting my really nice tripod, I find myself wanting to learn how to use it properly, and these questions are a big part of that.
I tend to dive into things looking for answers, as evidenced by the posts in my photography-tech category, such as my auto-focus test chart, my analysis [...]
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I introduced my tripod stability tests in the previous post, and I'll continue in this post with more details.
Before I continue, I must note that there are some serious caveats that limit how much one can really read into the result I'm about to present. I don't list the caveats up front because no one will pay attention to them anyway /-:, so I detail them later in this post.
In this post I'll focus on equipment setup. In another, I focus more on technique.
Equipment Tests: Basics
To test the effects of changing equipment, I used a photo-taking technique that I hoped would give [...]
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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: The Color of Kyoto — Desktop Background Kyoto Fall Foliage Desktops Photoshop's “Darken” Blend Mode (and more fall-foliage desktops)
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 [...]
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(Note: this long-winded, painfully verbose post will be of interest only to serious camera geeks, if anyone)
After posting the first parts of my tripod stability tests (Part I and Part II), some discussion ensued about my choice of a one-second shutter speed for the tests, both in the comments added to the posts (comments for Part I and Part II), and in the forums at Digital Photography Review (starting from this post).
Well-presented comments from a number of different people suggested that a one-second exposure was too long, and by keeping the shutter open longer than the vibration vibrated, the added time would tend to [...]
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This post is a continuation of my earlier tripod-test posts: Considerations for Building and Using a Tripod Tripod Stability Tests, Part I Tripod Stability Tests, Part II Tripod Stability Tests: on Shutter Speed
Part II compared different equipment setups; in this post, I'll look at the same results, but with an eye toward differing photo-taking techniques.
All images on this post were taken at f/8, ISO 100, with a 1-second shutter speed, with a pro-level 70-200 f/2.8 zoom at 200mm.
These are all from the same test session as those presented in earlier posts, so all the same [...]
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Today was “Sports Day” at Anthony's preschool, which is a fun event full of play, silliness, and dance. Like last year's Sports Day, it was very hot — 90s in the shade, but the entire event was in the sun — but this year I think the heat was worse for my camera than for me.

I was using my big 70-200/2.8 zoom and Nikon D200 on my monopod. After taking about 830 pictures, I was surprised to see the “battery empty” symbol. This surprised me both because I expected to get more shots from the battery (I can go weeks without having to [...]
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(IMAGE: Terraces of Rice)
On the little trip where I photographed the elderly couple harvesting rice, I was returning to the mountainous area with a lot of terraced riced paddies that I'd visited the week prior with Nils (where the kids had played). I'd returned to try to get some shots from higher up on the mountain, where I envisioned I'd be able look down at a wide expanse of rice paddies splayed out before me.
It turned out that the terrain wasn't that steep, so all but the few closest terraces seemed to blend into one. There were dozens of levels between the road [...]
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The kids' tea bottles await their owners, at the preschool Sports Day this past weekend (more about which is presented here).
(IMAGE: Racks of Tea Bottles)
(IMAGE: Colorful)
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When programming scripts for Photoshop, you sometimes need to know Photoshop's internal name for a font. That name almost always differs from the name presented in the drop-down list of fonts. For example, the internal name for the Arial font is “ArialMT.”
A simple way to find out the internal name of a font is to create a text layer using the font, then invoking this Show Font Name.jsx script from within Photoshop. When executed, an alert will pop up showing the internal name of the font.
If you don't know how to install a Photoshop jsx file, mimic the install instructions provided on the page [...]
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A book written by a friend of mine at Yahoo!, for which I did a technical review last summer, was published earlier this month. High Performance Web Sites by Steve Souders is just crammed full of real-world, practical information on how to present a web site so that it loads faster for the user.
The main thrust of the book are 15 rules for better server↔browser performance. Although I've been doing web-related engineering since 1994, many of the rules were new to me.
Some of the rules are completely common-sense, such as to include an expires field in the response header where you can, such [...]
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I've just pushed a major new version of my Photoshop calendar-template-building script, which creates the components of a calendar as a many-layered PhotoShop document, that can then be changed and tweaked, have photos added, etc.
The version history shows lots of new things since the previous version: Can now create calendars in 58 languages. Added ability to display week numbers. Added ability to change annotation font name/size/color/opacity. Added ability to force linebreaks in annotation text. Added import/include/<context> support to annotation file. Annotation filename specifications with “YYYY” auto-convert to the calendar's target year. Can now include the year in an annotation's date, and have that entry be safely ignored for [...]
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Last weekend was the Sports Day at Anthony's preschool. I think the teachers put on a wonderful event for the kids that can serve as a model for any preschool. I wrote a bit about last year's great event at the time, and this year's was just as good.
It involves three years of preschoolers, and this year, they all wore color-coordinated shirts: The younger group (ages 3 and 4) wore yellow ord green. The middle group (ages 4 and 5) wore blue or red. The and older group (ages 5 and 6) wore orange or purple.
It made for quite a [...]
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In Part One about the Sports Day at Anthony's Preschool, I covered events one through five. This post picks up with Event #6.
Event #6: That's The Way To Do It, Team Purpleそれいけ　むらさきぐみ
This was the “obstacle course” for the oldest kids, whose name badges are purple, and hence they're known as the purple class (although as I explained in the previous post, the oldest kids wore either purple or orange shirts for the event).
It started with a short run to a set of hoops that they have to step/jump over....

... then a short run to a tarp that they [...]
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This is the final installment in my description of Anthony's preschool Sports Day, coming on the tails of Part I (events 1 - 5) and Part II (events 6 - 11).
Event #12: Penguin Danceダンス「とんでペンギン」
The next event was a Penguin Dance of some sort for the youngest class.
(IMAGE: Penguin Dance)
I wasn't the only one with a camera, of course. The guy in the photo at left, using the same D200 + Nikkor 70-200/2.8 that I had, introduced himself to me, telling me that he got that lens after having seen me feature it on my blog. (Despite having the same [...]
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Nikon is hosting a series of hands-on preview events across Japan for its recently-announced D3 and D300 cameras. Today, Zak and Shimada-san joined me for a trip to attend the event in Osaka, which started today and runs through the weekend.
I thought it'd be nice to head down in style, so after some excellent ramen on the 10th floor of Kyoto Station, we took the fastest class of bullet train (Nozomi #17) which made the trip in just 14 minutes, hitting 253 km/h (157mph), according to my GPS unit. I thought the maximum speed would be faster (the new maglev trains being tested can go well over [...]
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Continuing with the Fall Color Preview from last week, here are a few more from Kyoto last year.
(IMAGE: A Touch of Orange)
(IMAGE: Konpukuji Temple)(related post)
The next few pics are from Enkouji Temple, where I took many of the pictures that appeared in last year's Fall Foliage Desktops post.
(IMAGE: Enkouji Garden)
(IMAGE: To Each Their Own)
(IMAGE: Everyone's a Photographer)
The next shot is of one of the fusuma (sliding doors) inside the temple.
(IMAGE: Enkouji Fusuma)
The next shot is representative of a common scene around town, with many colors mixed together.
(IMAGE: Lotsa' Colors)
The problem is getting a [...]
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