
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm — 1/350 sec, f/2.8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Checking out the Snow
It's snowing like gangbusters this evening in Kyoto, and the forecast is more through tomorrow afternoon, so I'm hoping to wake up to a wonderful blanket of snow, a better version of the light snow that made for some wonderful pictures at the Heian Shrine earlier in the week.
The shots on today's post are from that same outing last week, of the Jingu Michi Street bridge over the Kyoto Biwako Canal, which is between our place and the shrine. The bright orange sides of the bridge offered the first thing for Anthony to push snow from once we left our place, and believe me, for a five-year-old boy, pushing snow off things is the pinnacle of fun.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
View from the Bridge
(winter)
The water level in the canal is about six feet lower than normal, due to construction and repair elsewhere along its length, so it's not very pretty. At least there are a few ducks. It's hard to see in the shot above, but the lower water level has exposed a bicycle that, sadly, someone dumped into the canal.
But, the snow helps things look better, perhaps because it helps make it look like cherry-blossom season. Here's a shot from Easter evening, last April:

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — 20 sec, f/22, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
View from the Bridge
(spring)
That was from a group of evening long-exposure cherry-blossom shots. A different group of night exposures leads with a photo looking at the same section of canal, but from the opposite end, toward the bridge. The same goes for this post, and probably a bunch more that I don't recall at the moment. It can be a photogenic area.
Anyway, back to this week and the snow....

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — 1/250 sec, f/3.5, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
I'm not sure what Anthony was thinking when I took the shot above, but I love the pensive look on his face.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 28 mm — 1/320 sec, f/2.8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sorta' Bland
The shot above seems remarkably bland to me, but I include it here to show how the metal post cover is part of the bridge, to offer some context for it in the show below, which I think is a little less bland.

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm — 1/350 sec, f/2.8, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Less Bland

Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm — 1/320 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Artsy Fartsy Reverse Angle
Finally moving along with Anthony toward the shrine, I got a shot back toward the bridge. The scene beyond the bridge in the other direction is not very good, including a gas station and other random urban blight, so I thought it best to leave it out of focus.
i lover your photos.. simpy adorable… i’m planning to visit japan around march of next year.. will cherry blossoms be blooming by that time.. i really wanna see that..i’m from the philippines by the way..
Depends where in Japan (they start blooming in January in Okinawa, for example, and May in Hokkaido). Kyoto starts right at the end of March. Plum blossoms will be out during the month of March, and they’re wonderful, too. —Jeffrey