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Archive for the 'Japan' Category

Posts relating to Japan and things Japanese

A Few More Eclipse Photos from Kyoto
So, as I mentioned this morning, we had a nice view of the annular eclipse today. I'd never seen one (nor have I ever seen a total eclipse, except on TV). Here are a few more pictures. That picture above illustrates in one way just how bright the sun is... I was using stacked filters [...]
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The Eclipse from Kyoto
We had a nice view of the annular ('ring-shaped') eclipse from Kyoto this morning. We are on the edge of the shadow's path, so the view for us was of the moon skirting the edge of the sun. We had only 100 seconds of ring. (Folks in Tokyo got five minutes.) I took a bunch [...]
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Another Kyoto Stroll: Seeing (or Not Seeing, as the Case May Be) Reds
I took another walk in Fushimi yesterday (a south-east area of Kyoto), similar to that of my previous post ("A Few Over-Process Under-Thought Photos From Lunch"), but with nice weather. Red and orange seemed to be a theme. For the most part, cherry trees here in Japan don't bear fruit in a meaningful way (normally [...]
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A Few Over-Process Under-Thought Photos From Lunch
I took a short walk today with some friends to go for lunch. Took some random shots along the way. Went crazy on them in Lightroom. Posted them here.
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Unconventional Camera Bag: Repurposing a Think Tank Photo Retrospective Lens Changer
This post is about a new camera-bag solution I'm trying, and so far like, involving an unconventional use of a Think Tank Photo Retrospective® Lens Changer 3 shoulder bag. You can see it at my side in the photos above. I usually bring just a few lenses when I'm out with the camera, often a [...]
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A Bunch Of Blurry Pictures of Folks Pouring Wine
I'm finally following up on last month's "A Bit of Wine Tasting at Kyoto Station", with what amounts to a bunch of pictures of people pouring wine. In this case the people puring wine are employees at various importers or wineries who were assigned to work the table for their company at the event. For [...]
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Returning From Lunch: New Discoveries Close To Home in Eastern Kyoto
First there was the walk to lunch ("On The Way To Lunch: Eastern-Kyoto Stroll"), then lunch ("Delicious Yuba Lunch at Junsei"), and now the walk home... We came across an ultra-fluffy yaezakura cherry that comes out late (a variety seen five years ago on my blog in "10 Gallons of Blossoms on a 5-Gallon Branch"). [...]
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Anthony’s LEGO Battle at an Abandoned Castle, Made Possible by Warehouse19.se
Anthony still really enjoys his LEGOs, making "mockups" like the Clones vs. Droids Battle I posted last year. It's been fun to see his play progress from simple add-ons to toys when he was three years old, to mimicking airport security after some flights when he was four, to car repair and advanced flight design [...]
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Delicious Yuba Lunch at Junsei, Near Kyoto’s Kiyomizu Temple
The other day in "On The Way To Lunch: Eastern-Kyoto Stroll" I ended with a few shots of the girls above taking advantage of a photogenic location, made more so for everyone else by their presence. I was heading to the Kiyomizu branch of the most excellent Junsei Tofu Restaurant to have lunch with Paul [...]
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Happy To Have Discovered the Galileo Offline Maps iOS App
I like heading off on my scooter into the mountains of Japan to explore and take pictures, but am often out of cell range, so the map on my iPhone can't update. I like the idea of having maps with me, and until someone can invent a way to make a map on paper or [...]
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Pretty As a Peach Blossom
I had an amazing outing yesterday with Paul Barr and Nicolas Joannin, to a far-off temple in the mountains of north-west Kyoto. On the way home, we stopped in the "Mountain House" restaurant Yama no Ie Hasegawa (山の家はせがわ) that I wrote about a couple of years ago (here and here). Upon pulling in, we were [...]
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On The Way To Lunch: Eastern-Kyoto Stroll
I took my camera when I walked to lunch through a small area of eastern Kyoto yesterday. These are some of the shots I took along the way. Both lunch and the walk back will be their own posts...
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Second-Annual Disaster-Relief Charity Sale in Kyoto, May 5 and 6
The charity sale for the big North-East Japan Earthquake that I posted about last year will take place again this year. If you'll be in Kyoto on May 5th or 6th, perhaps stop by. Michael Lambe gives full details over on Deep Kyoto (日本語版). Last year I donated several prints for the sale, but this [...]
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Huge Towering Burger at Kyoto Cafe “Hagi”
Last fall I discovered the largest hamburger I'd ever seen in real life, at the restaurant "Hagi" (萩) a couple of kilometers west of Kyoto Station. I went back today with Paul Barr (with whom I'd discovered it, as seen in this photo in front of the restaurant) and another friend to give the burger [...]
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A Bit of Wine Tasting at Kyoto Station
This evening I went to a large (for Kyoto) wine-tasting event at Kyoto Station, sponsored by Liquor Mountain (a sort of Trader Joe's of central Japan). I don't know anything about wine other than "tasty, not tasty, untried", so today was able to bolster the ranks of the first two categories. I went with Shimada-san, [...]
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Some Kyoto Domesticated Flora
I've found especially this spring that I tend to use the Voigtländer 125mm more than ever, and seem to be falling into the easy-pickings trap of macro flora photography. I guess it's a phase. This seemed particularly evident to me the other day on the outing with Paul Barr that produced "Photographer's Low-Hanging Fruit: a [...]
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More Early Shots From the Ishiyama-dera Temple
Picking up from yesterday's intro post on the Ishiyama Temple (石山寺) half an hour away in Otsu, Japan, here are a few more shots from early in the visit to the large mountainous grounds... To be continued...
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At the Entrance to Otsu’s Ishiyama-dera Temple
These were all at the entrance to a temple in Otsu that Paul Barr introduced me to today. I haven't yet looked at the rest of the photos, but it was quite an impressive place, so I have hope that at least a few good shots came of it. Continued here...
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Cherry-Blossom Season Winding Down in Kyoto
I went out for a bit today with the Big Lens. Nothing too exciting, but a few pleasant shots... This post's last shot reminds me strongly of the last shot on "Cherry-Blossom Joie de Vivre in Kyoto" from four years ago.
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Lots of Stairs in Eastern Kyoto
The other day after a short stroll through the Chishaku-in Temple in eastern Kyoto, we made our way behind it to search for a set of stairs that Stéphane had suggested. We found it. At the top of the small set of steps was a park with cherry blossoms and kids playing, beyond which was [...]
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