We have finally had some short-sleeve weather to go along with the cherry blossoms... no snow for a week, though it was cold enough to snow just three days ago. I had an errand near the Kiyamachi area of eastern Kyoto, an urban hip night-life concrete jungle where I shot much of "Impossible Photography: No Light, No Tripod, No Hope. D700 and a 50mm f/1.2" a year and a half ago. It has a small river lined by cherry blossoms, so I brought along the camera.

I've a great sequence of shots of the two girls launching small blizzards of [...]

I was washing the windows in the living room this afternoon, and happened to glance out to see a small troupe from yesterday's movie shoot for "Mother Water" 「マザーウォーター」 setting up shop just below my balcony, to get a short scene of the water flowing over a waterfall (the very tiny... two or three inches... waterfall seen here). I put the Windex™ down and grabbed my camera, hoping to get a better look at theirs.

I was able to see that it's a Panavision 24-275 T2.8 11X Primo Zoom, which is apparently quality of the highest order. Despite extensive searching, [...]

It's been an absolutely horrible cherry-blossom season in Kyoto, with constant cold and rain (and snow!). Today was still cold and windy, but at least it was finally sunny, so the tourists were out in force.

Most had cameras...

Some people had better equipment than others. The overall winner was clearly this group:

It is, of course, the same movie shoot that I posted about the other day, for the film 「マザーウォーター」 ("Mother Water", whatever that means), which has been filming in Kyoto for the last week. (At least that was the plan before the horrible weather.) I thought [...]

Considering the wild, freaky presentations I've been posting recently, I thought I'd lead off today with something quiet and simple.

I had stepped out earlier this evening to check out a movie shoot going on near my place, and snapped the shot above on the spur of the moment. It was well after sunset, so the sky was a deep, rich blue, and the main gate of the Heian Shrine a deep, rich orange, and the reflections in the water a mix of rich colors (blue from the sky, green from the street lights). All and all it was "rich", [...]

A few days ago in "Kyoto Cherry Blossoms Off to a Cold, Wet Start" I lamented that it was still cold and wet and windy, even though the cherry trees had started to blossom early, and speculated that it might even snow the next day. It didn't, but it's snowing right now, fully doubling the number of days I've seen snow in this part of Kyoto this year.

[Update] A few hours later and the snow has really picked up, falling in big fluffy clumps. It's nothing on the order of magnitude of the snow we saw in Shirakawago in [...]