It's been a busy few days since I posted "Weeping Cherry at Kyoto’s Ryouanji Temple (龍安寺)". I came down with a cold, my wife performed in a local production of Swan Lake, and I recovered from my cold, in that unfortunate order. No time to even look at the photos from the other day beyond a quick glace at the top of the stack, so here are a few more from the start of that outing...

After all the buds and blossoms I posted last month (such as here, here, and here), I told myself I'd concentrate more on shots [...]

I appreciate that at 10 years old Anthony can still be cute, so I like yesterday's post about LEGO in that sense, but the photographer in me wishes the photos were better, so here are some better shots.

In December when Paul Barr and I were doing the portraiture practice (Paul's shots of me and my shots of Paul), Anthony happened to come by on his way home from school...

A couple of days later he had a concert at school (a small orchestra made up of 4th-6th graders), where he played guitar and various percussion. Here are a couple [...]

Revisiting last fall's ikebana (flower arranging) event at the Shoren'in Temple, previously seen in these posts:

Photography is not normally allowed in this temple, but it was for this event.

I ended up chatting with the American guy taking the photo above. It turns out that he had just met the lady in the kimono and done a quick picture, and when she happened by as we talked, he introduced us. She accepted my request to take a quick portrait; not wanting to keep her waiting, I suggested that I'd do it right then and there standing (coincidentally) about where [...]

High-school friend Ray was the second portraiture-practice session I did while visiting my folks over the new-year break, the first having been a family friend. I like the results from the first session, but I didn't like that I was still so awkward/skill-less on how to conduct, on a person-to-person level, the portraiture session. Technical skill with the camera accounts for maybe 10% of what's needed... the rest is all in how you interact with the person.

Shoving a lens in someone's face and saying "smile" may work fine if the someone is a professional model, but it sure makes [...]

I mentioned the other day in "Massive Support Column at Nara's Todai-ji Temple" about a recent photo trip to Nara, an hour's train ride south of Kyoto. I made the trip with Kyoto photographer friend Aeron, who besides being a great photographer is also seriously photogenic (I mean, really, just look at that smile), so along the way I took the opportunity to try some very impromptu portraits.

And when I say "impromptu", I don't mean something like these from five years ago where I spent 15 minutes, or these from six months ago whee I spent a couple of [...]