I really hate where I live. Not only Kyoto in general, but in particular, the specific area of Kyoto where I live.

This morning I walked to the nearby convenience store for some bread, and I was assaulted by beautiful scenes of inner-city fall foliage. Not only did they positively scream at me, they punched me in the face, demanding that I photograph them. Geez, all I wanted was some bread, and I get this!? I don't have time for this. What a crappy place to live.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/350 sec, f/9, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Machiya on Jingu-Michi, Kyoto Japan

Desktop-Background Versions
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

Jingu-Michi (“Shrine Street”, which dead-ends at the front entrance to the Heian Shrine) is lined with the trees seen in the photo above. The trees are various shades of orange and yellow, with a good hint of green still remaining. When I came around the corner to the convenience store and saw them, they took my breath away. I bought my bread, returned home to get my camera, and came back to find them not as interesting as I first thought, but still worthy to be captured.

The trees lined the whole street, but the machiya-style house above – next to the cafe that's next to the convenience store – made the nicest backdrop for photos. The weather was mostly cloudy, but I managed to snap the picture above during a brief moment of sunshine.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/160 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Mostly Yellow

Desktop-Background Versions
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Still a Touch of Green

Desktop-Background Versions
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

In the background of the picture above, and in the upper-right of the first picture, are bamboo stalks that line the top of the wall, cut to a sharp point, fulfilling in a visually attractive way the function of modern, ugly barbed wire.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Old-Fashioned Security

The picture above shows the bamboo lining the top of the wall, but otherwise is a fairly boring picture. I happened to have taken another shot from the same position but with the focus on the foreground leaves, and when I combine the two with my Photoshop “Darken” blend-mode technique, the result is a bit more interesting (especially when you click through to the larger version)...

Old Fashioned Security, Blended

Desktop-Background Versions
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

I'd purposefully gone out with only a prime (non-zoom) lens – a Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 prime – so that the lack of zoom would force me to be more creative in composing my shots. In this case, I should have stepped back further to fill the top more with the foreground leaves, but my desire not to be hit by a bus kept me on the sidewalk.

Taking care not to walk in front of a bus, I crossed the street and looked north...

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/640 sec, f/4, ISO 160 — map & image data — nearby photos
Leaves, Gate, Shrine

The camera position here was not too far from the one in the Kyoto City Half Marathon post except that I was at the edge of the street, and a bit further back.

Besides the obvious main gate of the shrine, you can see the Shrine's entrance building just below center (with the green roof) that serves as the backdrop of the photo in this Photoshop / nengajou post.

Finally, I'll end with a shallow depth-of-field shot that shows only a deliciously smooth background, with no funky bokeh.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — ¹/1600 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Creamy

Desktop-Background Versions
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

I hope this post helps you feel my pain. What started out as a 5-minute round-trip to the store to get bread turns into my being assaulted by photogenic scenes and then becoming indentured to my camera for 15 minutes, which then leads to being made slave to my keyboard for a few hours to prepare this post. How can a guy get any work done living in a place like this?

Oh, and if that weren't enough, later on the sun returned, allowing me to re-shoot the neighbor's tree that I posted about yesterday. And on top of that, I had occasion to visit Kyoto Station, which is one of the most beautifully enjoyable places to visit and spend a lazy afternoon with the family, and ended up with another batch of pictures I want to share.

This is ridiculous, and I still have a ton of pictures from the Shinto-shrine closing, Nijo Castle, Osaka Castle Park, last week's outing at dusk, not to mention that there are still plenty of pictures from Miyajima yet to post. Ugh.

I hate living here.

🙂