Well, perhaps not the first in all of Japan, considering that the cherry-blossom season can start in early January in the southern islands, and also not first considering that some varieties of cherry have been blossoming for weeks already here in Kyoto, but this morning I found the first cherry blossom in the local area, which is populated with Japan's "standard" Yoshino Cherry.

I was happy to have noticed the one single blossom among all the buds on all the trees around. By the time I returned from some errands, more had appeared, but this was the lone blossom at [...]

Just as last year, Anthony's class made their own yearbook, with the cover composed of self portraits by each kid and the teacher. The Japanese school year runs April to March, so now they're in the spring break between grades. Anthony starts third grade in a couple of weeks.

The quality of many kids' self portraits made a huge leap from last year. Especially noteworthy are the girls' drawings, all of which display higher artistic merit than anything I could draw.

Anthony's innate talents, like me, appear to be elsewhere, but unlike me, he makes up for it with cuteness...

We've had this giraffe sitting in front of the window in the living room for quite a while now, but now that Anthony's done with second grade, it'll probably be replaced soon with something from the new school year, which starts in a couple of weeks.

Anthony probably has more pure imagination than raw artistic skill, but more of me than both...

Daniel Cutter asked whether I'd tried the "Camo Duck" shot on my previous post in black and white. The nature of the original shot had it almost all monochrome to begin with, except for the duck itself, but prior to Daniel's comment I hadn't thought to take it all the way to pure monochrome.

But, it's easy enough with Lightroom (as simple as the "v" keyboard shortcut). Wow. I then tweaked the B & W conversion a bit to melt the duck away a bit further, and here we are.

I'm not sure whether it's photography, but it's fun. Thanks [...]

In a week the area of Kyoto around where I live will be packed with blossoms and packed with people enjoying them, but for the moment things are pretty sparse...

The cherry-blossom timelapse that I posted a few years ago starts on this date, and if the same schedule holds (which it normally does... the blossom season being early or late by more than a day is notable news) shows that by a week from now, the trees will be well on their way toward full bloom. Full bloom will likely hit in about 10 or 11 days.

At the [...]