最近めっちゃ忙しい、新しいアドベライトロームのプラグインの開発で。それ一寸割り込んで、一枚アプをさせていただきます。

I've had my head buried in yet another new plugin for Adobe Lightroom (soon to join my 30ish other Lightroom plugins), but thought I should come up for air to post at least something. Took this quick shot the other day of a cloud pregnant with rain, with a nice silver lining from the late-afternoon sun behind it.

I'm not all that happy with the picture, and it's really better as part of a sequence telling a little story, but I don't have enough energy for that now, so I'll save that for another day.

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 [...]

Today was the Daimonji Festival in Kyoto, where big mountainside bonfires are lit in the evening. Normally I'm visiting my folks during the summer, so this was the first time in years for me to see it, and the first time since I became particularly interested in photography.

It's not particularly photogenic, unless, I suppose, you could get up closer to the fires. (For a look at where the fires are lit, see "Daimonji’s Hidoko Fire Pits")

The snapshot above was done handheld with little forethought; with a bit more effort I'm sure I could have gotten something more worthy, [...]