(IMAGE: Lighter than Air)
After a stupendous moment in the sun, the common white cherry blossom has all but evaporated from Kyoto, but there are still plenty of other varieties of cherry tree (and other tree, I suppose) in full bloom or just starting to blossom. The weeping crimson at the old imperial palace are one example, but there are plenty more, such as this tree full of fluffy pink I came across on the way home from Mass on Sunday. They were so nice, I had to return with my camera...



I like how in the photo above you can see all the [...]
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I must have overexerted myself yesterday with the cherry blossoms at the old Imperial Palace, because my cold seems to be getting worse again today. Sigh.
Anthony started his final year of preschool earlier this week, comparable to kindergarten in The States. Dropping him off on the first day, I noticed a beautiful tree lush with deep pink blossoms of some sort....
(IMAGE: Kindergarten Blossoms)
However, upon close inspection, it turned out that the day of rain Kyoto had just after full bloom in my area had left the blossoms on this tree looking downright ratty...
(IMAGE: Not So Pretty Up Close) disheveled and a bit [...]
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(IMAGE: Hanami at The Old Imperial Palace) Kyoto, Japan
Of course, I was somewhat exaggerating with my previous post, Just Like That, Kyoto's Cherry-Blossom Season Ends, because cherry-blossom season doesn't end the day after full bloom any more than blowing out the first candle on a cake ends a birthday party. The weather – very strong haze and occasional rain – isn't nearly as nice as the weekend was, but there's still plenty of Cherry-Blossom Joie de Vivre left in Kyoto.
(IMAGE: Gauntlet of Pink)
I realized this morning that I'd neglected to revisit the trees on the grounds of the Old Imperial Palace that were featured [...]
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(IMAGE: Getting On Past Prime Time)
The main cherry blossoms were clearly past their peak this morning, quickly helped along by a soaking rain that arrived mid-morning and lasted all day. The wind and rain combined to create a carpet of blossoms anywhere a tree was near.
(IMAGE: Black Asphalt Path)
That pretty much sealed the end of Kyoto's cherry-blossom season this year, just a tad earlier than last year. No more full bloom in Kyoto, no more joie de vivre, no more evening cherry-blossom lightup. Of course, I have plenty of photos from the weekend and from this morning before the rain, so I have stock [...]
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My cold continues, so I didn't take any pictures today, but I did feel good enough at times to get out for a bit here and there. Like yesterday, there were a lot of people, but the atmosphere seemed to be all the better for it. It reminded me strongly of the joie de vivre one feels in the classic Chicago tune Saturday In The Park. I think the sight of cherry blossoms has a magical, medicinal effect, both on the human body and the human psyche. Like yesterday, it was perfectly wonderful.
Lacking energy for a well-presented well-linked post, here are a few random pics from [...]
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, f/10, ISO 200 — full exif & map — nearby photos (IMAGE: Main Gate of the Heian Shrine, at Dusk) With Cherry Blossoms
As I mentioned earlier today, full bloom has finally hit Kyoto.
Having recently read photographer Rick Lee's blog post When is dusk dusky enough? about how actually shooting a “night” shot at dusk can make use of a bit of remaining skylight to balance the harsh artificial lights, it reminded me of the lessons from Strobist's classic How to Photograph Christmas Lights, and made me want to try it with the cherry-blossom lightup that's going on in my area during the evenings this week.

(IMAGE: My Eyes Don't Know Where to Focus) Cherry Blossoms  ·  Kyoto, Japan
(IMAGE: Full Bloom)
This is the same area whose blossoms were featured in last week's It Has Begun and this week's Sakura from my Kitchen Window. Digging around in my blog archives a bit, from 2006 I find Long Night Exposures and Cherry Blossoms and Cherry Blossom Finale, and even a few from 2005 before I moved here: Indeed, the Blooms have Bloomed in Kyoto and Poetry for the Season and More Cherry-Blossom Pics.
It's a pretty area, but photos would look much nicer without the cinderblock wall in the background (a wall one doesn't really notice until you look through [...]
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(IMAGE: View From my Kitchen Window)
I don't want to leave the negativity of the previous post on the top of my blog for too long, so I'm posting a couple of snapshots that I just took from the kitchen window. Nothing spectacular, but better than venting.

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(IMAGE: Delicate (but Thoroughly) Pink) Cherry Blossoms · Kyoto, Japan
I'm not sure what variety these blossoms are, but they're quite different from the standard white blossoms that are just getting going in Kyoto, the late-blooming fluffy pink variety, and (of course) the deeply rich plum-blossom pinks. The colors are much like the shidare zakura (“crimson willow cherry”) that fill the nearby Heian-Shrine, but the tree doesn't seem all that willowy, so I don't know.
I've been busy on Lightroom projects, and trying to get ready for a short trip to the Amami Islands that we're starting tomorrow morning, but I knew this tree was at full bloom, so [...]
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(IMAGE: First Cherry Blossom) Kyoto, Japan  ·  Spring 2008
( Desktop Background Images )

Well, at least the first that I've noticed. Returning from a trip to the store around 2pm, I noticed a few blossoms on the trees near my place. It's just in time, too, because as I noted in the last couple of posts, the plum blossoms have started to wane. So, I grabbed a few snapshots of them, and even turned a couple of ones with blue sky in the background into desktop backgrounds....

(IMAGE: Most Trees Still Like This)
Using the time-lapse sequence I made last year as a guide, [...]
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(IMAGE: Last Stragglers)
Since we still don't have any cherry blossoms yet, at least in my part of Kyoto (although the first ones should start popping out soon), I'll finish up with the pics from yesterday's trip to see what remains of the plum blossoms at the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine.
Yesterday's pictures were from the free areas of the shrine. It costs 600 yen (about six bucks) to visit the gardens, although that includes a bit of plum tea and some crackers. The garden has two parts, a lower part split by a little stream, and an upper plum orchard.
(IMAGE: Lower Garden Walk) I imagine [...]
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Earlier I posted a few preview pics of late-blooming “bundle-of-tissues” blossoms, and of plum blossoms, so today I'm posting a few pics of Kyoto's run-of-the-mill “cherry blossom” blossoms.

These first three pictures were taken a year ago by hooking up a bunch of extension tubes between the camera and my big Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 zoom. I didn't yet have my good tripod, so this big, heavy combination on my previous (tiny, flimsy) tripod made for a comical view.

The three pictures above are fairly so-so – nothing special – but I've included them here to delay you a bit so that the images in [...]
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(IMAGE: Plum Blossoms at the Zuishin'in Temple) March, 2006 — Photos by Katsunori Shimada
In the last week or two I've started to notice some early blossoms around town. As far as I know, plum are the earliest, so that's what I assume they are. They tend to have much deeper, richer colors than cherry blossoms, and so can be more striking in one sense, but also more concrete and mortal in another. (Cherry blossoms, on the other hand, when experienced first hand, definitely lean toward “intangible” and “ethereal”.)
Last year I posted my first blossom pictures on Valentine's day. It seems that this year I've had [...]
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(IMAGE: Cherry Blossoms and the Snowy Bridge)
Being March already, I thought I'd look forward to Kyoto's cherry-blossom season, which should be ramping up in to full swing in a month or so. The orange blur in the background of the picture above is the Snowy Bridge from a post week ago. Photos in that post were looking down the canal toward where today's photo was taken.
The photos in today's post, of course, were not taken today; they were taken in late April last year after most cherry blossoms in this area were long gone. The blossoms here are of a late-blooming variety that appeared on [...]
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(IMAGE: Kyoto Spring)Desktop Backgrounds
It's hot and humid in Kyoto now, so I'd like to try to cool off by returning to the quintessential pleasantness of Kyoto's spring.
The image above was made by applying the same Photoshop “Darken” blend-mode technique that I used to create the Color of Kyoto foliage desktop background last fall, but this time to a pair of pictures I took during a cherry-blossom outing in April.
Links below the picture are to desktop-sized images in both widescreen and standard versions.
Unlike the previous time where I used three pictures, I used only two this time. Also, instead of near/fall focus [...]
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(IMAGE: Everyone's Favorite Weed)
While viewing the amazing cherry blossoms in northern Kyoto last month, despite all the attention on the blossoms, there were plenty of other botanical signs of spring, and I took a moment away from the blossoms to enjoy them as well.
In an earlier post, I showed some of Kyoto's brilliant spring colors, but those of today's posts are a bit more subtle. Among the weeds around the little river that flowed through the area were a number of different flowers....
(IMAGE: Little White Flowers)
(IMAGE: Budding Pink Something-or-Others) (The leaves make me wonder whether these aren't early azaleas, which recently exploded [...]
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Kids Love Bubbles
On the same evening we took our family self portrait among the cherry blossoms, Anthony enjoyed his new bubble machine. He hadn't played with it since the day we had a nice hanami drive, and so was really in the mood to bubble.
(In the background, you can see Fumie and the bench on which we took the self portrait)


Bubble-Blowin' Daredevil
A Kyoto Evening Laden with Bubble and Blossom
We're leaving for a trip to Hokkaido this evening. Will bring the bubbler....
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10 Gallons of Blossoms on a 5-Gallon Branch
Imagine taking 10 gallons of white and pink blossoms, and forcefully shoving them onto a branch capable of holding at most half that amount, and that's the feeling you currently get from two trees in my neighborhood.
Approaching Critical Mass
I don't know what kind of trees these are. If they are cherry trees, they're blooming long after all the other cherry trees in this neighborhood.
Update: thanks to Aaron and Andy for identifying them as “yaezakura” or “botanzakura” cherry blossoms.
Current State of Most Cherry Trees Around Here
These blossoms range from almost [...]
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My blog has been filled with nothing but cherry blossoms for the past week or so, because for the last week or so most cherry trees around here have been hitting their blossom peak. The timing of blooming, though, is certainly not coordinated among Japan's cherry trees.
According to Julia's Kitakami Photoblog, the blossoms aren't even close to making their appearance there. Kitakami is a town about 415 miles north-east of Kyoto, and can be quite a bit colder than here.
Even locally, the cherry-blossom season varies considerably. The other day we drove a bit north into the mountains, and just 12km (8 miles) away found that [...]
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Enjoying the Cherry Blossoms
Yesterday evening, we had a mini picnic on the grounds of the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, under the cherry blossoms that overlook the Kyoto Biwako Canal. Fumie prepared a snack and Anthony brought the BBQ play set he got from his Uncle Marty and Aunt Marci (which I could swear I blogged about when he received it, but I can't find it, so must not have.... [UPDATE: I have now]
The picture above was taken around sundown, with the help of a tripod and a timer, but during the short noontime stroll I took when taking pictures of the main [...]
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