icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 cropped — 1/2000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Rush Hour
in the rural mountains of Uji City, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan
As I mentioned in “What It Looks Like When Tiered Rice Paddies Go to Seed” the other day, I recently took another trip with Shimada-san and Paul Barr to the middle-of-nowhere mountains of Uji City (south-east of Kyoto).
On the way to the first spot we'd marked on the map, while winding through a thin mountain road, we came across an unmarked side road that Shimada-san knew lead to a dam (one dating to a power generator built almost 100 years ago). He knew that the road was closed off at some point along the way, but otherwise we didn't know what to expect, so checked it out.
Eventually the road did end just past a little village of perhaps half a dozen houses, so we did a U-turn and parked to soak up the quiet, peaceful vibe.
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1000 sec, f/4, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
View From the End of the Road
looking across a recently-abandoned rice paddy
The paddies in this area had been abandoned, but relatively recently, unlike the ones in my previous post.
We parked at a wide spot in the road past the final house of the village, next to a plot of land being gardened by a pleasant gentleman who happened to be there at the time (one of perhaps four people we saw the entire time in the tiny village).
It was eminently pleasant just to take in the scenes from the end of the road. The final house was fronted by a formidable wall common in country houses...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/1000 sec, f/8, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Last House on the Right
The house itself was not actually visible, set back behind the fronting wall, but the wall and entrance itself was picturesque enough, including a floral-shaped window...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1000 sec, f/4, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old-Time Workmanship
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Entrance
The entrance proper was quite high above the level of the road, with ramps leading up. Standing in front I held the camera above my head and blindly shot, hoping I'd get a nice layered look....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/5000 sec, f/1.8, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Entrance-Eye View
That photo didn't come out quite as I hoped, but this little are was rich with the kind of geometric patterns that I like for desktop background, so here are a few...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1800 — map & image data — nearby photos
I had high hopes for that last one, along the lines of the “Fence and Vine” from five years ago that I still really like, but I think this one fell flat because I was too close. I should have tried the same shot with the 125mm Voigtländer.
Directly across the road were the unused rice paddies, now covered with grass and starting to sprout some weeds...
... and beyond it was another farmstead...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/3200 sec, f/2.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Looking Across The Way
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 — 1/3200 sec, f/2, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Roof In Need of Some TLC
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 — 1/1600 sec, f/4, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
Peak of the Pitch
with a funky onion-motif end tile
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 — 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tea Leaves
on a “tea bush”, I guess
Looking further back toward the village...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2500 sec, f/2.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Tending Her Plot
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 — 1/3200 sec, f/2, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Farmers' Sheds
Back on the side we were parked, growing next to the old farmstead I noticed a big juicy berry that my Voigtländer couldn't stay away from...
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Juicy
An attractive point to this berry was that it was at eye level, owing to the raised nature of the house relative to the road, but it turns out it's good for comparison to a less-accessible ground-level berry I photographed when I first stepped out of the car....
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1000 sec, f/4, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
Odd “Orb of Puffy-Pillow Nodules” Berry
I didn't notice at the time that they were different... this odd one is really odd... I've never seen anything like it. Perhaps I just don't inspect berries very closely....
100% crop
Is this the same kind of berry at a different stage?
Looking across again at a building on the opposing farmstead, here's the same view with three different lenses...
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 — 1/8000 sec, f/1.4, ISO 360 — map & image data — nearby photos
@ 50mm
Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2000 sec, f/2.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
@ 125mm
Before moving back through the village, I took a shot of one of the many little hand-made pinwheels that dotted the small garden plots, ostensibly to scare away birds, I suppose....
Nikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f/2 — 1/2000 sec, f/2, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Noisy Pinwheel
They made quite a racket when the wind kicked up. All were made from beer cans or the like.
M-m-m-m….lots of rocks! Love rocks. Also loved the fence and vine photo. But was curious to know if the “tea bushes” grow naturally like that, or are they all trimmed?
They’re trimmed… behind them, out of focus, is a tangled matted mess of the untrimmed variety. Normally tea bushes (or whatever they’re called) are in very neat rows, bu this isn’t a tea farm… just someone’s landscaping, so they’re more haphazard but trim. —Jeffy
‘Juicy’ looks to be a kind of bramble (Rubus species – there are lots in Japan). As far as I know, all are harmless, but I don’t remember trying any in Japan that tasted of much.
The ‘puffy pillow’ fruit has the same kind of structure as a strawberry, with the seeds attached to a swollen blob (the receptacle) but I suspect it may be Duchesnea chrysantha, a creeping plant that looks very like a wild strawberry except it has yellow, not white, flowers, and spongy, pithy, tasteless fruits. Duchesnea indica is very similar, also common in Japan, and is grown in gardens in the West, but has smooth seeds (to be even more tediously pedantic, they are not seeds, but tiny fruits called achenes, each of which encloses a seed). More interestingly, Ohwi’s Flora of Japan says that D. chysantha is “especially common around paddy fields”.
Thank you for the wallpapers, I’ve been meaning to replace the one I was using before and these are very beautiful.
SUPER PICTURES…This is not the same Japan I live in here in Itami!
Looking forward to heading out to Kyoto/Shiga more often!
warmest regards!
Jose M. Cruz, Itami just outside of Osaka
Too bad the pinwheel isn’t a “guess this picture” item. I recognize Kirin Grapefruit Strong chu hi!