I had an unexpectedly interesting day, photography-wise. In the morning there was a rare ceremony to close down a Shinto shrine, and then I got an invite to meet an old friend at Nijo Castle, a wonderful World Heritage Site about two miles away that I've driven by a hundred times, but until today had never visited.

I'm sure that photos from both events will be filling my blog for a month, but for the moment, a desktop background from each....

The shrine being closed down was a very small one (about the size of a single parking space) about [...]

Besides a lot of rock at Osaka Castle Park, one is also prone to find a lot of people taking pictures. For reasons I can't explain, I often find myself taking pictures of people taking pictures, although I've only posted the results a few times (here, here, and here).

I'll add to that list today....

Even though Nao is not looking at my camera, he still seems to have that "presence" I mentioned on the impromptu portraits post.

I have the same Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 he seems to be using, but my Nikon D200 is dwarfed by what looks to be [...]

As you might have noticed in my posts about the paper airplanes and impromptu portraits in Osaka Castle Park, it's a place with a lot of carved granite. A lot.

As the name "Osaka Castle Park" might imply to the astute reader, it's a park in Osaka Japan that contains a castle. Despite having lived not very far away on and off for the better part of 20 years, my visit last weekend was my first. I'd never been very interested in seeing it because it's not very old – it was built about 20 years ago, as the current [...]

As I posted the other day, I met some friends in Osaka Castle Park with my camera in tow. The combined kids (ages 2, 6, 8, and 10) had no shortage of fun, including a brief spell with paper airplanes that started out innocently enough, but eventually turned dangerous.

Here, they start out making the planes....

Kana-chan (10 years old, in blue) had also made an elaborate origami target. It's lying on the ground well in front of my camera position, and is what they're aiming at....

However, Daddy #2 gets the bright idea to place the [...]

This was a situation where the shallow depth of field was way, way too shallow

This one should be easy, but if not, check the "map & image data" link for a hint.