Went up again to Kyoto's Shogunzuka overlook (京都の将軍塚) for the sunset, as I often do. Wasn't too bad... a bit better than two days ago.

Like in that post the other day, I'm dusting off the Sigma 50-500mm "Bigma" lens. As a challenge, I practiced hand-held manual-focus tracking on birds, at 500mm. For those who've never tried it, this is ridiculously difficult; the point was general practice, not to get good shots (because there's little hope to get a good shot under these conditions without about 100 years of experience under your belt).

The air was more clear for the [...]

I've been wanting to post this for the last three months, and was finally prompted to do so today. This past spring, Fumie's mom celebrated her kanreki, her sixtieth birthday. It's a big deal in Japanese culture (much more so than, say, 50 or 70), a cultural milestone not quite on the level of wedding, but up there.

義母の還暦のパーチー。

We had a ritzy lunch at Beaux Sejours, the French restaurant at the Grand Prince Hotel Kyoto (which I've always known as the Takaragaike Prince Hotel, so they must have changed their name somewhere along the way).

Nao-chan was about 9½ [...]

I made yet another quick trip up to eastern Kyoto's Shogunzuka overlook in hopes of a nice sunset. Half an hour before sunset it looked promising, and in particular Osaka 30 miles away was clear, and the skyline lit up in orange.

京都市東山区の将軍塚からの４７km遠い大阪市のスカイラインです。シウマの50mm-500mmレンで。

Today I was using my Sigma "Bigma" 50-500 OS, which I haven't used in ages. I wrote about it extensively back when I got it (starting here). I really liked it when I first got it, but after some electronic issues and having it replaced twice, the version I have now seems positively mushy and blah. But [...]

The other day after posting "Daimonji: Kyoto's Least-Photogenic Festival", Nicolas Joannin alerted me to the photos a friend of his took during last year's festival: Yaron Silberberg's Daimonji Fire Festival gallery

With Yaron's kind permission, I can share just how wrong I was in my first post's title...

These are just a few photos from Yaron's gallery... see the whole set for more. He also has a short video from the start of the burn.

The bonfire areas are open to the public most of the year (my blog photos from that area), but are understandably restricted on the day [...]

I received an email today from someone at stippleit.com, asking whether I might be able to discuss Lightroom-plugin development with them. I get this kind of request fairly often. As is often the case, I had never heard of them, so I checked out their website.

They have a video on the home page claiming that with their service, you can keep track of your photos on the web wherever they go, no matter what anyone does to them. This seems fanciful (impossible) to me, but we all know Author Clark's third law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from [...]
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