Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — 1/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 3200 — full exif Zachary Braverman playing a long shakuhachi A week ago a friend hosted a private shakuhachi concert by another friend, Zak Braverman. A shakuhachi is a bamboo flute that superficially looks a bit like a recorder, but its sound is very distinctively Japanese. Zak's main [...]
View full post »

I like some kinds of spicy food, such as things with wasabi (a powerful horseradish-esque garnish) and kimchi (Korean spicy pickled veggies), but when incorporated into snacks in Japan, such as kakipi, these spicy tastes get toned way down, to a bland, pedestrian level. So this evening at the convenience store I saw a corn-chip snack with packaging that lent [...]
View full post »

I've got another cold (what is it this spring?) so am a little extra slow on everything... have been sleeping for the last couple of days. Ugh. Not fun. This one seems to be short, though... starting to feel better already. I ended my previous post, Clearing Roof Snow in Shirakawago, at a cafe in Shirakawago Village. Just outside the [...]
View full post »

Picking up where the previous post, “First Look at Snowy Shirakawago Village” left off, we had re-forged a trail through thick snow back to relative civilization.... Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 52 mm — 1/640 sec, f/3.2, ISO 200 — full exif & map — nearby photos finally reaching civilization after a harrowing cross-country trip.... ... and Anthony Plays [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm — 1/2500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — full exif & map — nearby photos Just a Bit of Snow random, but color, strangers Shirakawago Village, Toyama Prefecture, Japan In my most recent post about our short four-day New Year excursion a few hours' north of Kyoto by car, I ended with our [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm — 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — full exif & map — nearby photos City Stroll Shirakawago Village, Toyama Prefecture, Japan This is a photo from or snowy New Year trip, which I last wrote about the other day in “Snowy Farewell to Gokayama Village”, which ended up with us arriving in [...]
View full post »

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 82 mm — 1/500 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 — full exif & map — nearby photos Fishing for Speeders near the main entrance to Kyoto University For something a bit different from my normal fare of late, here are some pictures of a Japanese speed trap I took a couple of years ago. [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm — 1/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 900 — full exif & map — nearby photos $240 Audio Recorder suspended over a stream by a $9 tripod and a rock Mountains north of the Kitashirakawa area of Kyoto, Japan This cold I've had for the last week and a half seems to be [...]
View full post »

Now that I've finished up my posts about taking seven-year-old Anthony on his first real ski trip, I can get back to the story of our short New-Year's trip to Toyama Prefecture, a few hours' drive north of Kyoto. My last post about the trip was the one-off “Deceptively Clear: Snow-Covered Mountains in Exquisite Detail”, but the ongoing story was in [...]
View full post »

We still have freezing temperatures here in Kyoto, but down on Amami island in the far south of Japan, they've got cherry blossoms. Earnest Barr has some wonderful cherry-blossom shots on his blog lately, with blossoms with a glow, another with bird n' blossoms, and possibly my favorite, “Honcha Pass” on this post. Highly recommended.
View full post »

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 30 mm — 1/40 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — full exif & map — nearby photos Giouji Temple Kyoto Japan Desktop-Background Versions Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  2560×1600 Flipping around in my image library while doing some Lightroom testing, I came across an image that I happen to see fullscreen, and was wowed by it much more than a small-sized [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/640 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — full exif & map — nearby photos Sledding: Semi-Controlled Chaos Photo by Anthony Friedl So, after some recuperation at lunch during last-weekend's visit to Makino Ski with Anthony, we went back for some more sledding. Anthony took the photo above as I zipped past on a [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/2000 sec, f/3.5, ISO 200 — full exif & map — nearby photos Plummeting At Breakneck Speed Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/640 sec, f/8, ISO 200 — full exif & map — nearby photos The Joy of the Crash for Anthony, the whole point is [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — 1/2500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — full exif & map — nearby photos Hitting the Slopes Makino Ski Area, Takayama City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan Anthony has been wanting to go skiing ever since last year's YMCA ski experience, and finally yesterday the schedule allowed for it. Anthony and I took off [...]
View full post »

Someone asked today whether the Japanese economy has been hit hard like the US economy has been for the last few years. My answer is that I suppose it has, but I don't think the recent global turmoil has had as big an impact in Japan as it has in The States, in the same way that I [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Zeiss 100mm f/2 — 1/80 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1100 — full exif & map — nearby photos Sphere Desktop-Background Versions Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  2560×1600 It's been a while since we've seen anything from Nishimura Stone Lantern stone-carving shop, so here's a close up of a stone sphere, tucked away haphazardly under the legs of a large stone lantern. (The combination is visible toward [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm — 1/400 sec, f/11, ISO 1250 — full exif & map — nearby photos Deceivingly Nondescript Toyama Prefecture, Japan Desktop-Background Versions Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  2560×1600 This looks like a misty-white snow-covered mountain, but it's not. There's no mist; the fuzzy white areas that seem to be blurry turn out to show clear detail of every snow-covered [...]
View full post »

In my “Hot Noodles in Gokayama” post the other day, I ended with this photo.... Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1400 — full exif & map — nearby photos Interior of Restaurant “Yohachi” Gokayama Village, Toyama Prefecture, Japan ... and posed the question as to what the tall slanted wooden brace was for. Of [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 58 mm — 1/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 220 — full exif & map — nearby photos The Oppressive Crowds of Times Square Gokayama Village, Toyama Prefecture, Japan So, it's been a week since “Introduction to a Snowy Gokayama Village”, and though I intended to pick up where I left off right away, I got [...]
View full post »

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 @ 130 mm — 1/2500 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — full exif & map — nearby photos My View This Morning Desktop-Background Versions Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  2560×1600 It's the view on my computer, at least, when I first sat down this morning. When I'm testing Lightroom things, I'm often jumping around randomly in my image archive, and apparently [...]
View full post »